Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

by   Maureen Buja  French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) always seemed to be the right man at the right time. As a student of violin and viola at the Paris Conservatoire, his fellow students included George Enescu,  Fritz Kreisler , and  Alfred Cortot . Upon graduation, one of his first jobs was violist for the orchestra of the Folies Bergère (1889–1892), when the Folies had Toulouse-Lautrec doing their posters. He played in or conducted works by Camille Saint-SaënsSaint, including being a last-minute conductor for a performance of Saint-Saëns’s cantata  La Lyre et la Harpe  (the composer at the organ), earning Saint-Saëns’s undying gratitude. Irwin D. Hoffmann:  Pierre Monteux , 1959 (Boston Public Library) In 1894, he was named both principal violist and assistant conductor of the Colonne Orchestra in Paris. The orchestra’s founder, Édouard Colonne, had known  Berlioz  and could work with Monteux on what the composer really wante...