Serge Koussevitzky

Lore & Background

Serge Koussevitzky was a Russian-born conductor, composer, and double-bassist who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. He was born into a Jewish family of musicians and studied violin, cello, piano, and trumpet before receiving a scholarship to study double bass and music theory in Moscow. He joined the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra at age twenty and later succeeded his teacher as principal bassist. After early solo success in Moscow and Berlin, he studied conducting under Arthur Nikisch in Berlin, using his wife’s wealth to pay off Nikisch’s gambling debts. He made his professional conducting debut in 1908 with the Berlin Philharmonic, featuring Rachmaninoff as piano soloist. Returning to Russia, he founded his own orchestra and the publishing firm Éditions Russes de Musique, acquiring catalogues of Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Medtner. He toured Volga River towns by riverboat, programming new works. After the 1917 Revolution, he conducted the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Petrograd, then left for Berlin and Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky. In America, he built the Boston Symphony into a leading ensemble and helped develop the Tanglewood summer programs. He championed contemporary music, commissioning works by Copland, Prokofiev, and others, and mentored Leonard Bernstein, among others. He became a U.S. citizen in 1941.

Reader's Guide

Koussevitzky’s tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949 marked a golden era for the ensemble, during which he built its reputation into that of a leading American orchestra. He played a central role, alongside Gertrude Robinson Smith, in developing the orchestra’s internationally acclaimed summer concert and educational programs at Tanglewood, where the main performance venue now bears his name. He was a great champion of modern music, commissioning numerous works from prominent composers. In Paris during the early 1920s, he programmed much contemporary music and ensured well-prepared performances, with notable premieres including Arthur Honegger’s *Pacific 231*, George Gershwin’s *Second Rhapsody*, and Albert Roussel’s *Suite in F*. For the Boston Symphony’s 50th anniversary, he commissioned works such as Aaron Copland’s *Ode* and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4. His students and protégés included Leonard Bernstein, Eleazar de Carvalho, Samuel Adler, and Sarah Caldwell. He also discovered the young tenor Alfred Cocozza (later known as Mario Lanza) and provided him with a scholarship to attend Tanglewood. His numerous recordings with the Boston Symphony were well regarded by critics.

Did You Know?

• Koussevitzky premiered Prokofiev's Symphony No. 4, Op. 47 on November 14, 1930 in Symphony Hall, Boston, with the composer absent.
• He commissioned Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, one of the most celebrated versions of that work.
• He studied conducting under Arthur Nikisch in Berlin after marrying Natalie Ushkova, daughter of a wealthy tea merchant.
• Koussevitzky's protégés included Leonard Bernstein, Eleazar de Carvalho, Samuel Adler, and Sarah Caldwell.