SOMM Recordings marks the 150th anniversary of the great French-American conductor Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) with his live performances of Claude Debussy’s Images pour orchestre and Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. These 1961 broadcasts, featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, have been superbly remastered by Lani Spahr, whose critically acclaimed audio restorations for SOMM have received high praise from Gramophone, BBC Radio 3, and The Sunday Times, amongst many others.

While Monteux was born 150 years ago this past April, his death came 61 years ago – still within the lifetime of many present-day music lovers. He was, therefore, a link with the musical past, and enjoyed professional relationships with both the composers on this recording.

By the early 1910s, Monteux had a reputation as the leading French conductor of the younger generation, and Debussy chose him to prepare the world premiere of Images pour orchestre, which Debussy himself conducted in January 1913. Debussy’s colourful orchestration of his original piano work opens with “Gigues”, inspired loosely by English and Scottish folk-tunes. At the heart of Images is “Ibéria”, of which Manuel de Falla said, “There is more real Spain in ‘Ibéria’ than in all of Albéniz’s work.” The more veiled final movement, “Rondes de printemps”, ultimately brings Images to a superb full-orchestra climax.

Monteux’s first conducting position was with Paris’s Colonne Orchestra, which Sergei Diaghilev engaged for the 1910 season of the Ballets russes, and Monteux came into contact with Stravinsky’s music when he played viola in the company’s premiere of The Firebird. At the request of Stravinsky, he conducted the premiere of Petrushka in 1911, and he led the famously riotous first performance of The Rite of Spring in 1913.

When Monteux was conscripted into the army during World War I, Diaghilev persuaded the French government to discharge him so that he could direct the Ballets russes on a North American tour. The success of this tour led to Monteux’s five-year tenure as chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His successor there was the Russian maestro Serge Koussevitzky who, in 1931, commissioned a number of leading composers – including Stravinsky – to write commemorative works marking the 50th anniversary of the BSO. Stravinsky’s offering was his Symphony of Psalms for chorus and orchestra. Composed in a Neo-classical style with a nod to Bach’s oratorios, it is one of the great choral works of the 20th century, creating a unique, ritualistic atmosphere in the setting of three psalm texts in Latin.

These live recordings from late in Monteux’s life, demonstrating his profound and personal insights into the works of Debussy and Stravinsky, are paired with a Pierre Monteux tribute from violinist Alex Nifosi.