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Dr. Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky (Russian: Сергей Александрович Кусевицкий) (July 26, 1874 – June 4, 1951), or Serge, was a Russian-born conductor best known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949.
Life and career Koussevitzky was born into a Jewish family, growing up in Vyshny Volochyok, Tver Oblast, about 250 km northwest of Moscow. His parents were professional musicians who taught him violin, cello, and piano. At the age of fourteen he received a scholarship to the Musico-Dramatic Institute in Moscow for the study of double bass and music theory. He excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra at the age of twenty and succeeding his teacher as the principal bassist at twenty-seven. In 1901, he made his debut as a soloist in Moscow, and won critical acclaim for his first Berlin recital in 1903. He wrote a popular concerto for the double bass in 1902. Koussevitzky married his first wife Natalie Ushkov, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, in 1905 and moved to Germany. In 1908 Koussevitzky made his professional debut as a conductor, hiring and leading a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The next year he founded his own orchestra in Moscow and branched out into the publishing business, forming his own firm and buying the catalogues of many of the greatest composers of the age. During the period 1909 to 1920 he established himself as a brilliant conductor in Europe. After the Russian Revolution, he returned to his homeland for a brief time to conduct the State Symphony Orchestra of Petrograd; in 1920, he made his way to Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Ravel. In 1924 he moved to the United States, and would become a citizen in 1941. He was appointed conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1924, beginning a golden era for the ensemble that would continue until 1949. Over the next twenty-five years, he continued building the ensemble's reputation as a leading American orchestra, and developing its summer concert and educational programs at Tanglewood. With the Boston Symphony he made numerous recordings, some of which are available on compact disc. Most of his recordings have been well-regarded by critics. His students and protégés included Leonard Bernstein and Sarah Caldwell. In 1922, Koussevitzky commissioned what has come to be known as one of the greatest and most popular examples of orchestration in the repertoire, Maurice Ravel's transcription of Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 suite for piano, Pictures at an Exhibition. It was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1923, and quickly became the most famous and celebrated orchestration of the work that had ever been made. Conductor Arturo Toscanini, who apparently had no great fondness for 19th century Russian music, considered the Mussorgsky-Ravel version of Pictures the greatest example of orchestration that had yet been produced, and performed and recorded the work. Koussevitzky held the rights to this version for many years, but after his death, practically every celebrated conductor in existence recorded it, and new recordings of this orchestration of Pictures are constantly appearing. Koussevitzky was a great champion of modern music, commissioning a number of works from prominent composers. For Boston Symphony Orchestra's 50th anniversary he commissioned Ravel's piano concerto, Gershwin's 2nd Rhapsody, Prokofiev's 4th Symphony (which was later revised by the composer), Hindemith's Concert Music for Strings and Brass, and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, as well as works by Roussel and Hanson. • In 1942 he founded the Koussevitzky Foundation to commission and perform new works — among the results were Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes, Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, and Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. Among Koussevitzky's recording premieres was that of Sibelius's Seventh Symphony. Koussevitzky's widow gave his Amati double bass to Gary Karr, a well-known contemporary double bass soloist. In concert On record See also | ||||||||
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