Great Conductors of the 20th Century – Ernest Ansermet

January 1, 2019 Jim Comments 0 Comment

Great Conductors of the 20th Century was a 2CD series from IMG Artists and EMI featuring famous conductors of the 20th century. As per the norm, the website has disappeared, so here is all the information [and more] that was included for this great series.

First appearances on CD of Ansermet’s authoritative stereo accounts of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Rachmaninov’s The Isle of the Dead and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade

Catalogue no: 7243 5 75094 2 8 (2 CD)

CD1 [72:45]

Stravinsky: Chant du Rossignol
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Victoria Hall, Geneva; May 1956

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; Salle de la Mutualité, Paris; September 1954

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Victoria Hall, Geneva; October 1957

CD2 [78:25]

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Victoria Hall, Geneva; November 1956

Rachmaninov: The Isle of the Dead
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; Salle de la Mutualité, Paris; September 1954

Ravel: La Valse
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; Salle de la Mutualité, Paris; June 1953

Chabrier: Fête polonaise
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Victoria Hall, Geneva; December 1964

THE BIOGRAPHY – ERNEST ANSERMET (1883-1969)

Ernest Ansermet, born on 11 November 1883 in Vevey, Switzerland, read mathematics at Lausanne University and studied music concurrently. An invitation to conduct a student orchestra determined his career. He had lessons with Weingartner and Lacerda, met Stravinsky in 1912 and became a celebrated interpreter of his music. For eight years he was conductor of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In 1918 he formed the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and was its principal conductor for 49 years, giving many premieres, including Ravel’s La Valse, Stravinsky’s Chant du Rossignol and Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat. His first recordings were with the Ballets Russes orchestra, in New York in 1916, his last, of Stravinsky’s Firebird with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, in London in November 1968. He died in Geneva on 20 February 1969.

THE RECORDINGS

This compilation focuses on works by those composers who Ansermet knew and with whom he was closely associated throughout his life – Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók – and also highlights his Russian connections with music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov. Stravinsky’s Chant du Rossignol (from 1956) and Ravel’s La Valse (from 1953) were both given their premieres by Ansermet. Apart from Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Chabrier’s Fête polonaise, all the recordings are new to CD. The majority of the recordings date from 1954 to 1956, a period when Ansermet and his orchestras, the Paris Conservatoire and the Suisse Romande, were at the top of their form, and are in early stereo, except for La Valse, which boasts very high quality mono sound.