Charles Munch
A genial conductor with a particular gift for French music, Charles Munch extended the Boston Symphony's glory years (begun under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky) into the early 1960s. Munch was so venerated that conservative Bostonians even declined to fuss over rumors that he was having an affair with his niece, pianist Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer; they wrote it off as part of his romantic French nature. Paradoxically, Munch was not precisely French. He was born in Alsace-Lorraine, which at the time (1891) was controlled by Germany and has long hovered between two cultural worlds. Munch himself benefitted from both French and German musical training, and his first important musical posts were in Germany (his last name was even originally spelled with an umlaut). Yet he came to be regarded as the quintessential French conductor, and his recordings of French repertory with the Boston Symphony remain standards by which others are judged.
Munch studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory, where his father was a professor, and, from 1912, in Paris with Lucien Capet. As an Alsatian, he was conscripted into the German army at the outbreak of World War I. Gassed and wounded as an artillery sergeant, he nevertheless survived the war reasonably intact. In 1919, upon returning to Alsace-Lorraine (now back in French hands), he took French citizenship and a violin professorship in Strasbourg. Nevertheless, his professional interests soon sent him to Germany; he studied violin with Carl Flesch in Berlin, then moved to Leipzig to take a violin professorship at the conservatory there, and became concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1926 to 1933, during Furtwängler's tenure.
But it was back in Paris, in 1933, that Munch made his successful conducting debut in a self-financed concert with the Straram Orchestra. He conducted the Paris Orchestre de la Société Philharmonique (1935-38) and in 1937 was named director of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris, a post he held through World War II. Munch introduced many new works, including, in 1945, Messiaen's L'Ascension; he quickly became known as a conductor attentive to music's grand structure as well as to small details of color. Despite his allegiances twenty-five years before, Munch refused to collaborate with the Nazis and indeed supported the French resistance; he was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1945.
Munch's career quickly accelerated after the war. In 1946 he made his debut with the Boston Symphony (and several other American orchestras) as a guest conductor, and he toured America with the French National Radio Orchestra in 1948. The following year he was appointed music director of the Boston Symphony, which he took on an unprecedented tour of the Soviet Union in 1956. Munch retired from the BSO in 1962 but continued to guest conduct, and helped Serge Baudo launch the Orchestre de Paris in 1967. On tour in America with that orchestra, he died the following year.
Munch was easygoing in rehearsal, reluctant to drill the spontaneity out of an orchestra. He was particularly noted as an elegant, colorful interpreter of French music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; his recordings of that material with the Boston Symphony for RCA are still regarded as classics of their kind. He was a strong advocate for the Franco-Swiss composers of his own generation, especially Roussel, Milhaud, and Honegger. But he had a good touch with the conservative contemporary music of other lands, as may be heard in his few but important recordings of Martinu, Piston, and Barber. Indeed, during his Boston years Munch's commitment to American music was almost as strong as his allegiance to new French works.
© James Reel /TiVo
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Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, M. 57 (1961 Recording)
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 10 Aug 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3r, Op. 56 "Scottish" & Octet, Op. 20 (Excerpt)
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 4 Nov 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica"
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 27 Aug 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: Images pour orchestre, L. 122
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 1 Jan 2000
24-Bit 176.4 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: La damnation de Faust & Harold en Italie (Les indispensables de Diapason)
Igor Markevitch, Charles Munch, William Primrose
Classical - Released by Les Indispensables de Diapason on 2 May 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 1-6, BWV 1046-1051
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 4 Nov 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Overtures
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 16 Sep 2016
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 16 - Barber: Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 16 Sep 2016
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Dutilleux: Symphony No. 2, "Le double", Métaboles - Honegger: Symphony No. 4, "Deliciae Basiliensis"
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 28 Sep 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Requiem, Op.5 (Grande Messe des Morts)
Peter Schreier, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Charles Munch
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1968
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ernest Chausson: Symphonie, Poème de l'amour et de la mer - Claude Debussy: Printemps
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, Kathleen Ferrier, Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli
Symphonies - Released by Praga Digitals on 1 Oct 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Franck: Symphony in D Minor, FWV 48
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 28 May 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Piston: Symphony No. 6 - Martinu: Fantasies Symphoniques
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 16 Sep 2016
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 "Pathétiqe"
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 4 Nov 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tribute to William Primrose [Mozart, Berlioz, Bartók, Walton]
William Primrose, Jascha Heifetz, Izler Solomon, Charles Munch, Tibor Serly, William Walton
Classical - Released by Praga Digitals on 1 Dec 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Charles Munch Conducts Debussy
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 16 Sep 2016
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Symphonies No. 1 "Le printemps" & No. 4
Charles Munch, Leonard Bernstein, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic
Classical - Released by Les Indispensables de Diapason on 27 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dvorak Symphony No. 8; Cello Concerto
Classical - Released by RCA Red Seal on 6 Oct 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun: Classic Library Series
Classical - Released by RCA Red Seal on 20 Apr 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Felix Mendelssohn & Robert Schumann: Symphonies
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by Urania Records on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
La Mer "Trois Esquisses Symphoniques"
Classical - Released by Nar Classical on 10 Jul 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo