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Born: April 20, 1913 - Thionville, Moselle (in north-eastern Lorraine, then part of Germany),
Died: June 20, 2001 - Strasbourg, France |
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The noted French conductor, Ernest Bour, studied at both the University and the Conservatoire of Strasbourg. His conducting teachers included Fritz Münch and Hermann Scherchen.
After serving as chorus master for the radio choruses of Geneva and Strasbourg, Ernest Bour was appointed conductor of the Orchestre de Mulhouse in 1941. In 1950 he became conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and in 1955 of the Strasbourg Opera House, where he had conducted the premiere of Delannoy's Puck in 1949. He was principal conductor of the SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden from 1964 to 1979 (later, in 1998, the orchestra mergd into SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden & Freiburg). He conducted the European premiere of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia during the 1969 Donaueschingen Festival by the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 1976 until 1987 he was permanent guest conductor of The Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra located in the VARA radio headquarters in Hilversum.
Ernest Bour's repertoire was marked by a concentration on contemporary music. World premières he presided over included works by Bussotti, Ferneyhough, Górecki, Ligeti, Rihm, Stockhausen and Xenakis, and he gave the French premières of Paul Hindemith's Symphony Mathis der Maler and Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and the European premiere of Susman's Trailing Vortices. His recordings ranged from music of François Couperin to André Jolivet. Perhaps his most heard recording is of Ligeti's Atmospheres with the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra aka SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden heard on the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. |
