(b Vevey, 11 Nov 1883; d Geneva, 20 Feb 1969). Swiss conductor. He first followed his father’s profession of mathematician, graduating from Lausanne University in 1903 and returning there as professor of mathematics, 1905–9. By then he had become more keenly interested in music, taking lessons in composition with Ernest Bloch and watching local conductors carefully. He decided to make music his career, and after a year in Berlin (where he sought advice from Nikisch and Weingartner) he conducted his first concerts at Lausanne and Montreux in 1910. In the following year he took over the Kursaal concerts at Montreux from Francisco de Lacerda (whom he acknowledged as the model for his mainly self-taught conducting technique), and in 1915 he became conductor of the Geneva SO.
During this time he formed friendships with several composers, including Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky (then living in Switzerland). In 1915, on Stravinsky’s recommendation, Ansermet became principal conductor for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with whom he made his North American début at New York in 1916, his South American début in 1917, and his London début in 1919. On the 1916 tour he made his first gramophone records with the orchestra of the Ballets Russes. His growing international reputation in this appointment was enhanced by his premières of such ballets as El sombrero de tres picos (Falla), The Buffoon (Prokofiev) and Parade (Satie), as well as various Stravinsky works including Histoire du soldat, Pulcinella and Renard.
Ansermet formed the Suisse Romande Orchestra at Geneva in 1918 and directed it continuously until his retirement in 1968. His performances were distinguished by his instinct for clarity of timbre and texture, and a scholar’s concern for accuracy. He was a perceptive exponent of the classics but an even more persuasive advocate for the music of his contemporaries – notably the French school of Debussy, Ravel and Roussel, as well as Stravinsky. He championed his compatriots, Honegger and Frank Martin, and displayed a particular regard for Bartók and Britten, conducting the premières of the latter’s The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne (1946) and the Cantata misericordium at Geneva (1963). He also gave the first performances of works by Bloch, Copland, Lutosławski, Martinů and Walton, among others.
Ansermet’s earlier admiration for Stravinsky cooled with the composer’s adoption of serial technique in the 1950s, and he published a strongly argued case against serial composition in a theoretical and philosophical treatise Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine. Although he toured widely as a guest conductor, his sense of artistic responsibility kept him firmly linked to his own orchestra in Geneva in preference to tempting offers from elsewhere. With his Suisse Romande players he made numerous recordings which notably enriched the repertory and remain a testament to his musical character. His own compositions include Feuilles au printemps for orchestra, and settings of French verse.
See also Analysis, §II, 6.
La geste du chef d’orchestre (Lausanne, 1943)
Débat sur l’art contemporain (Neuchâtel, 1948)
Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine (Neuchâtel, 1961); repr. in Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine et autres écrits, ed. J.-J. Rapin (Paris, 1989) [incl. Frank Martin correspondence]
with J.-C. Piguet: Entretiens sur la musique (Neuchâtel, 1963)
ed. J.-C. Piguet: Ecrits sur la musique (Neuchâtel, 1971)
ed. J.-C. Piguet: Les compositeurs et leurs oeuvres (Neuchâtel, 1989)
R. Gelatt: Music Makers (New York, 1953/R)
B. Gavoty: Ernest Ansermet (Geneva, 1961) [with discography]
J.-C. Piguet and J. Burdet: Ernest Ansermet et Frank Martin: correspondance 1934–1968 (Neuchâtel, 1976)
A. Ansermet: Ernest Ansermet, mon père (Lausanne and Tours, 1983)
F. Hudry: Ernest Ansermet, pionnier de la musique (Lausanne, 1983) [incl. list of works and discography]
J.-C. Piguet: La pensée d’ Ernest Ansermet (Lausanne and Tours, 1983)
N.F. Tétaz: Ernest Ansermet, interprète (Lausanne and Tours, 1983)
C. Tappolet, ed.: Lettres de compositeurs français à Ernest Ansermet (1911–1960) (Geneva, 1988)
C. Tappolet, ed.: Lettres de compositeurs suisses à Ernest Ansermet (1906–1963) (Geneva, 1989)
C. Tappolet, ed.: Correspondance Ansermet-Strawinsky (1914–1967) (Geneva, 1990–91)
F. Hudry: ‘Tableau des créations d’Ernest Ansermet’, Revue musicale de Suisse romande, xliv (1991), 231–3
NOËL GOODWIN