The Music Treasury for 21 April 2019 — Conductor Charles Dutoit

by | Apr 21, 2019 | Streams and Podcasts | 0 comments

The Music Treasury this week is featuring conductor Charfles Dutoit, whose performed with orchestras in Europe and the Americas.  His long career of over 50 years included some 20+ years with the Montreal Symphony, with a lengthy recorded legacy.

The show airs from 19:00 to 21:00 PDT from Stanford’s KZSU, with concurrent streaming at kzsu.stanford.edu, hosted as always by Dr Gary Lemco.

Charles Dutoit, Conductor

Charles Dutoit (b. 7 October 1936) is a Swiss conductor. In September 2018, he was named principal guest conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic as of the season 2018-2019. In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit is the former artistic director and principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor emeritus of the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and was conductor laureate of the Philadelphia Orchestra until the orchestra stripped him of the title after multiple allegations of sexual assault.

Dutoit was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He studied there, and graduated from the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, where he won first prize in conducting. Then he went to the Accademia Chigiana in Siena at the invitation of Alceo Galliera. In his younger days, he frequently attended Ernest Ansermet‘s rehearsals and had a personal acquaintance with him. He also worked with Herbert von Karajan at Lucerne as a member of the festival youth orchestra and studied at Tanglewood.

Dutoit began his professional music career in 1957 as a viola player with various orchestras across Europe and South America. In January 1959, he made his debut as a professional conductor with an orchestra of Radio Lausanne and Martha Argerich. From 1959 he was a guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. After this, he was the conductor for Radio Zurich until 1967, when he took over the Bern Symphony Orchestra from Paul Kletzki, and continued conducting there for 11 years.

While head of the Bern Symphony, he also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico from 1973 to 1975, and Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony from 1975 toori1978. Dutoit was principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the early 1980s.

Portrait Charles Dutoit_(1984)_by_Erling_Mandelmann

Portrait Charles Dutoit, by Erling Mandelmann

In 1977, Dutoit became the artistic director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM). In the words of Glasgow-based music critic Kate Molleson: “A 20-year recording contract with Decca made the MSO the most recorded orchestra in the world, and the best of these recordings — Ravel’s La Valse and Daphnis et Chloe, Debussy’s La Mer, Stravinsky’s French-period ballets — remain unsurpassed.” Reaction to Dutoit joining the Montreal Symphony was positive. Peter G. Davis stated that Dutoit transformed the Montreal Symphony. New York Magazine wrote similarly about Dutoit, adding that he was noted for the championing of new Canadian music. Throughout these years, he called without success for a new symphony concert hall for Montréal. Dutoit resigned from the Montreal Symphony in April 2002, with immediate effect, after the Quebec Musicians Guild complained about what it called Dutoit’s “offensive behavior and complete lack of respect for the musicians.”

He is the former music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Orchestre National de France, and as of 2017, conductor emeritus of the Verbier Music Festival Orchestra. He is an honorary member of the Ravel Foundation in France and the Stravinsky Foundation in Switzerland. [Adapted from Wikipedia]

Program List:
Dvorak: Slavonic Rhapsody in A-flat Major, Op. 45, No. 3
Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 6 in E Minor, Op. posth. (w/S. Accardo)
Thomas: Overture to Raymond
Glazunov: Rhapsodie orientale, Op. 29
Respighi: Feste romane

 

 

 

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