Person · Male

Ernest Ansermet

conductor

From: Vevey, Switzerland
Active: 1883–1969
Releases: 136

classical

About

Ernest Alexandre Ansermet (French: [ɛʁnɛst alɛksɑ̃dʁ ɑ̃sɛʁmɛ]; 11 November 1883 – 20 February 1969) was a Swiss conductor.

Ansermet was born into a musical family, but he followed his father into mathematics and taught at the University of Lausanne before deciding in 1909 to make music his career. He took lessons in harmony and counterpoint and spent a year in Berlin, where he sought advice from Arthur Nikisch and Felix Weingartner and attended the rehearsals of the Berlin Philharmonic by Nikisch, Richard Strauss and others. In 1910 he was introduced to Claude Debussy in Paris and to Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky in Montreux, where Ansermet had recently been appointed resident conductor. He became a noted interpreter of their works.
In 1915, on Stravinsky's recommendation, he became conductor for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He conducted the premieres of Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Le Rossignol, Manuel de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat, Prokofiev 's Chout and Respighi's La Boutique fantasque, and the revival of The Rite of Spring.
In 1918 Ansermet founded the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, based in Geneva. He remained its conductor for fifty years, touring and making numerous recordings. He was in great demand in North America, Russia and Continental Europe and continually added important new works to his repertoire. From 1916 to 1968 he was active in the recording studios. After the Second World War, his international reputation rested to a considerable degree on his long-term recording contract with Decca Records, for whom he recorded most of his extensive repertoire. His interpretations were known for clarity of timbre and texture and scholarly concern for accuracy. He was considered by some to be too intellectual as a conductor, but his mastery of orchestral balance was not questioned. He was seen as a perceptive exponent of the classics but mainly as a leading advocate for the music of his contemporaries – Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky.
On 20 February 1969 Ansermet died at his home in Geneva, at the age of 85.

From Ernest Ansermet on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.