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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Tchaikovsky: Ouverture-fantaisie "Roméo et Juliette" - Strauss: Les équipées de Till l'espiègle (Mono Version)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Béatrice et Bénédict, ouverture (Mono Version)
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1952
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Symphonie No. 1 "Le Printemps" & Manfred, Op. 115: Ouverture (Mono Version)
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Debussy Collection
Charles Munch, Louis Lane, Paul Crossley
Klassik - Erschienen bei Sony Classical am 27.06.2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Haskil in Performance
Clara Haskil, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Otto Ackermann, Charles Munch
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music and Arts Programs of America am 01.10.1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Charles Munch in New York (1954)
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music and Arts Programs of America am 01.11.2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clara Haskil in Performance (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Ludwig van Beethoven)
Clara Haskil, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, Charles Munch
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music and Arts Programs of America am 01.08.2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Charles Münch conducts and rehearses Berlioz (Paris/Boston 1949/1950. Charles Münch Edition, Volume 6)
Charles Munch, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei XXI Music am 22.06.2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky · Symphony No.6
Charles Munch, Paris Conservatoire Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei G.O.P. am 31.07.2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Charles Münch conducts and rehearses Ravel (Paris 1946. Charles Münch Edition, Volume 4)
Charles Munch, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei XXI Music am 22.06.2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei The state51 Conspiracy Ltd am 03.04.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Great Live Concerts
Sviatoslav Richter, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch
Klassik - Erschienen bei Urania Records am 11.11.2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
La Mer
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Claude Debussy
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music Manager am 23.11.2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
All That Beethoven
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan
Symphonieorchester - Erschienen bei Golden Baton Records am 05.06.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Great Conductors: Charles Munch Conducts Robert Schumann & Camille Saint-Saëns (Remastered 2015)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Berj Zamkochian, Charles Munch, Leo Litwin, Bernard Zighera
Klassik - Erschienen bei Jube Classic am 04.09.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'Art de Charles Munch
Charles Munch and Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Tahra am 22.04.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 16
Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Classically am 12.03.2024
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Saint-Saëns: Symphonie No. 3 avec orgue (Mono Version)
New York Philharmonic, Charles Munch, Edouard Nies-Berger
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1953
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Alexei Haieff Symphony No.2
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei In Vinyl We Trust am 18.11.2022
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Blackwood Symphony No.1 Op.3
Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei In Vinyl We Trust am 17.11.2022
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17 (Mono Version)
Margaret Roggero, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo