Sergei Alexandrowitsch Kussewizki – Wikipedia

Sergei Alexandrowitsch Kussewizki

Sergei Alexandrowitsch Kussewizki ( Russian Sergey Alexandrovich Kusevitsky ; Scientific Transliteration: Sergei Aleksandrovič Kusevickij; also Serge Koussevitzky ; * 14. ^jul. / July 26, 1874 ^greg. in Wyschni Wolotschok; † June 4, 1951 in Boston) was a Russian-American conductor, composer and double bass player.

Kussewizki came from modest conditions from a Jewish family. He grew up in Wyschni Wolotschok, a small town in the Twer Oblast, about 250 km northwest of Moscow. His parents were professional musicians. They taught him about violin, violoncello and piano. At the age of 14, Kussewizki left his home town to study music in Moscow.

By marrying the daughter of a rich tea dealer, he was given the opportunity to realize his dream of conducting. Kussewizki lived in Berlin since about 1905 and made his debut as a conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic on January 23, 1908. The performance was performed u. The 2nd piano concert by Rachmaninow, which played in this performance itself. In 1909 Kussewizki founded the music publisher Russian Music Editions And published works by Stravinski, Rachmaninow, Prokofiev, Medtner and Skrjabin. In 1910 he rented a steamship for the first time and played with a orchestra he put together and financed by him along the Volga. Two other tours followed in 1912 and 1914. After the war and the revolution, Kussewizki headed the State Symphony Orchestra in Petrograd (today: St. Petersburg) for three years, but finally traveled from the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. He came to Paris via Berlin, where he was the concert series in 1921 Koussevitzky symphonic concerts founded. Here, too, he was primarily devoted to the Russian composer. A milestone in music history was the premiere of the orchestrated version of Modest Mussorgski’s piano cycle pictures of an exhibition that Maurice Ravel had created on behalf of Kussewizki.

Kussewizki was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. In 1943 he was commissioned by Béla Bartók for a “Composition for Orchestra”. Bartók then composed his concert for orchestra, whose premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on December 1, 1944 in the Symphony Hall Boston under Kussewizki was an enormous success.

In 1937 Kussewizki founded the Tanglewood Music Festival, one of the outstanding music events in the USA. In 1951 he invited the young conductor Lorin Maazel to Tanglewood. Among other things, Leonard Bernstein started his career to whom Kussewizki had an almost paternal relationship.

Because Kussewizki needed a scholarship and was only available for the double bass class, he started studying this instrument. His teacher Josef Rambousek came from Prague and, like Franz Simandl or Gustav Láska, was a student of the educator Josef Hrabě. After studying, Kussewizki was hired as a double bass player in the orchestra of the Bolschoi Theater and already appeared as a virtuoso. In 1903 he made his debut in Germany. His solo programs consisted of original compositions for double bass, e.g. B. by Giovanni Bottesini and Gustav Láska, and processing of other instrumental concerts for double bass, including Mozart’s fagot concert KV 191 and Max Bruchs Kol Nidrei op. 47.

He composed some pieces for double bass that are still very popular today. These are Andante Cantabile and Valse Miniature Op. 1, Berceuse and Chanson Trist op. 2, The FIS minor op. 3 concert (orchestrated by Wolfgang Meyer-Tormin) and the humoresque op. 4.

Kussewizki had many valuable instruments, including double basses from Maggini, Guarneri and Amati. For his solo appearances, however, he mostly used a double bass from Glässel & Herbig from the Saxon Markneukirchen. His Amati Contrabass is much better known today. The instrument built in 1611 was once owned by Domenico Dragonetti. After the death of Kussewizki, his widow, Olga, passed the double bass on the American virtuosos Gar Karr.

With his increasing employment as a conductor, the virtuoso carriers took a back seat. Kussewizki continued to appear with the double bass, albeit to a lesser extent. He was the first double bass player to record a record. At the beginning of the 1920s, he played his own compositions and works by Gustav Láska and Henry Eccles. In 1929 he gave his last public concert in Boston as a double bass soloist. In 1934 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Ingo Burghausen: The importance of Sergei Kussewitzky as a double bass player and composer. Unpublished diploma thesis, Weimar 1988
• Ingo Burghausen: Documentation and conductor. Sergei Kussewitzky on the 40th anniversary of death on June 4, 1991 . In: The Orchestra, 39th year (1991), Issue 6, pp. 691–694
• David Heyes: The Boston Bassist . In: Double Bassist Nr. 2, Autumn/Winter 1996, S. 10–15
• Susanne Kaulich: Play when I touch the air at the top! On the 50th anniversary of the death of the Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky . In: The Orchestra, 49th year (2001), Issue 6, pp. 8–14
• Moses Smith: Bits . Allen, Towne and Heath, New York 1947
• Friedrich Warnecke: Ad infinitum. The double bass. His history and his future. Problems and their solution to raise the double bass game . Reprint, S. 44 f., Edition interval, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-938601-00-0
• Serge Kussevitzky , in: International biographical archive 24/1951 of June 4, 1951, in the Munzinger Archive ( Item beginning freely available)