Serge Koussevitzky Essay, Research Paper

Serge Koussevitzky

conductor

The legendary bassist and conductor Serge Koussevitzky was born in Russia in 1874 to a family of musicians. With his brothers, he formed a wind ensemble when still a child, peforming at local parties and social events. He journeyed to Moscow at the age of fourteen, winning a scholarship at the Musico-Dramatic Institute to study double bass and music theory. He excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theater orchestra at age twenty and succeeding his teacher as the principal bassist at twenty-seven. As a soloist, he made his Moscow debut in 1901, and won critical accolades for his first Berlin recital in 1903. So great was his success as a solo virtuoso that he resigned from the Bolshoi orchestra, moved to Germany, and pursued this activity full-time.

In 1908, Koussevitzky made his professional debut as a conductor, leading a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic. During the same period, he branched out into the publishing business, forming his own firm and buying the catalogs of many of the greatest composers of the age, including Stravinsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff. After the Russian Revolution, he returned to his homeland for a brief time to conduct the State Symphony Orchestra in Petrograd; in 1920, he made his way to Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel. Finally, in 1924, he accepted the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, inaugurating a golden era for that ensemble that would continue until 1949.

In Boston, Koussevitzky proved an unexampled champion of new music, commissioning important works from Copland, Harris, Piston, Barber, Hanson, Schuman, and his old friends, Stravinsky and Ravel. In the 1930s, he threw his energies behind the development of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood; with the BSO, he presented the first summer concerts at Tanglewood in 1935, and formally opened the Berkshire Music Center in 1940, with Aaron Copland serving as his deputy director of the facility and its musical pursuits. At Tanglewood, Koussevitzky held master classes in conducting – he was succeeded in this post by his star student, Leonard Bernstein. In the half-century since its beginning, Tanglewood has grown to become one of the pre-eminent centers for musical education and performance in the world, serving as the musical springboard for countless instrumentalists, singers, conductors and composers.

Koussevitzky’s legacy as a conductor was undoubtedly the emotional power of his performances. Never a stickler for literal adherence to a score’s direction, he was fabled for his free-wheeling and personalized interpretations of Romantic and Impressionist repertoire. His penchant for untraditional performances of the classics raised the ire of many critics, but audiences loved him, and under his direction the BSO became a virtuosic unit without peer on the American music scene. His recordings, while known primarily to collectors and devotees of the BSO, have served as the inspiration to legions of musicians who, in the end analysis, have realized that music is the art of direct and unfettered communication.

Serge Koussevitzky died in Boston on June 4, 1951.

Bibliography

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