Serge Koussevitzky excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra at the age of twenty, in 1894, and succeeded his teacher, Rambusek, as the principal bassist in 1901.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,103 |
12 Facts About Serge Koussevitzky
2.
In 1905, Serge Koussevitzky divorced Nadezhda and married Natalie Ushkova, the daughter of an extremely wealthy tea merchant.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,104 |
3.
Serge Koussevitzky soon resigned from the Bolshoi, and the couple moved to Berlin, where Serge studied conducting under Arthur Nikisch, using his wife's wealth to pay off his teacher's gambling debts.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,105 |
4.
In Paris he organized the Concerts Serge Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Maurice Ravel.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,106 |
5.
Serge Koussevitzky has been described as quiet, and soft-spoken, and Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland counted her among their close friends.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,107 |
6.
Serge Koussevitzky died in Boston in 1951 and was buried alongside his wife Natalie at the Church on the Hill Cemetery in Lenox.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,108 |
7.
Serge Koussevitzky was a great champion of modern music, commissioning a number of works from prominent composers.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,109 |
8.
In 1922, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 suite for piano, Pictures at an Exhibition, which was premiered on 19 October that year and quickly became the most famous and celebrated orchestration of the work.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,110 |
9.
In 1940, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Randall Thompson, then a professor at the University of Virginia and director of the men's Glee club, to write a new piece for performance at Tanglewood.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,111 |
11.
The instrument now bears the names of both Karr and Serge Koussevitzky, and has been played by bassist Scott Pingel and the San Francisco Academy Orchestra.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,113 |
12.
Serge Koussevitzky rerecorded the piece in Tanglewood with Eleanor Roosevelt narrating during the summer of 1950 on magnetic tape; originally issued on a ten inch LP and three 45 rpm records, it has never been reissued officially by RCA in spite of the popularity of the Camden disc with Hale.
| FactSnippet No. 2,196,114 |