Charles Munch

Charles Munch, an affable maestro renowned for his affinity with French repertoire, prolonged the Boston Symphony's period of preeminence that Serge Koussevitzky had inaugurated, sustaining it through the opening years of the 1960s. So esteemed was Munch that proper Bostonians chose to overlook whispers of an affair with his niece, pianist Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, dismissing the matter as consistent with his amorous Gallic temperament. Yet Munch was not entirely French by origin: born in 1891 in Alsace-Lorraine, then under German control and long suspended between rival cultures, he drew formative training from both French and German sources, held his earliest major appointments in Germany, and originally spelled his surname with an umlaut. He nevertheless emerged as the embodiment of the French conductor, with his Boston Symphony accounts of French works continuing to set the benchmark against which later performances are measured.

He began violin studies at the Strasbourg Conservatory, where his father taught, and continued them in Paris from 1912 onward under Lucien Capet. As a native of Alsace, he was drafted into the German forces at the start of World War I; after being wounded and gassed while serving as an artillery sergeant, he emerged from the conflict largely unscathed. Returning in 1919 to an Alsace-Lorraine once more under French sovereignty, he acquired French citizenship and accepted a violin professorship in Strasbourg. Professional opportunities soon drew him back to Germany, where he worked with Carl Flesch in Berlin, assumed a violin professorship at the Leipzig Conservatory, and served as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1926 to 1933 under Furtwängler.

It was in Paris in 1933, however, that Munch achieved his decisive conducting debut, leading a self-financed program with the Straram Orchestra. He subsequently directed the Paris Orchestre de la Société Philharmonique from 1935 to 1938 and, in 1937, became head of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire de Paris, retaining that position throughout World War II. During these years he championed numerous contemporary scores, among them Messiaen's L'Ascension in 1945, and earned recognition for his ability to illuminate both overarching architecture and nuanced instrumental color. Despite his earlier German military service, he declined any collaboration with the occupying forces and instead aided the French resistance, receiving the Légion d'honneur in 1945.

His international stature rose swiftly after the war. Guest appearances in 1946 with the Boston Symphony and additional American ensembles were followed in 1948 by an American tour with the French National Radio Orchestra. Appointed music director of the Boston Symphony the next year, he led the orchestra on a landmark visit to the Soviet Union in 1956. Munch stepped down from the Boston post in 1962 yet remained active as a guest conductor and assisted Serge Baudo in founding the Orchestre de Paris in 1967; he died the following year while touring the United States with that ensemble.

Munch favored a relaxed rehearsal manner, preferring not to erode an orchestra's natural vitality through excessive repetition. He was especially admired for his poised and vivid readings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French music, many of which he recorded for RCA with the Boston Symphony and which retain classic status. A committed proponent of the Franco-Swiss composers of his generation, he championed Roussel, Milhaud, and Honegger in particular. He also demonstrated sympathy for the more traditional modern works of other nations, evident in his select but significant recordings of Martinu, Piston, and Barber. Throughout his Boston tenure, his advocacy for American music ran nearly as deep as his dedication to fresh French compositions.