Orchestre national de France

Under the auspices of Radio France, the Orchestre National de France was created in 1934 as the first permanent symphony orchestra in France.

Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht, the first resident conductor, founded the Orchestra’s musical tradition, with a repertoire largely featuring Debussy and Ravel, but also works such as Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, which the French radio was one of the first to broadcast in 1935. After the war, Manuel Rosenthal, Andre Cluytens, Roger Desormiere, Charles Munch, Maurice Le Roux and Jean Martinon carried on the tradition.

Lorin Maazel succeeded Sergiu Celibidache as principal guest conductor in 1975, and subsequently became the orchestra’s Music Director. From 1989 to 1998, Jeffrey Tate was Principal Guest Conductor and Charles Dutoit served as Music Director from 1991 to 2001.

In September 2002, the German conductor Kurt Masur became Music Director of the orchestra after having been musical director of the New York Philharmonic for ten years. Highlights of his four Seasons of tenure at the helm of Orchestra include important cycles devoted to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovski as well as tours abroad : Hong-Kong Festival, Eastern and Central Europe with concerts in Zagreb, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Talinn, Moscow and Wroclaw, Japan, and an extensive tour in the United-States. The Orchestre National was the first orchestra to perform under the Maestro Masur’s direction in a special concert in the newly re-opened la Scala Theater in Milan in December 2004. The Maestro Masur and the Orchestre National perform every season in Toulouse, at the St. Denis Festival in the famous Basilique and at the Louvre every 21th of June for a free concert which is one of the main events of the Fete de la Musique. In August 2005, the Maestro Masur led the ONF in a special concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in the amphitheatre of Orange.

Back from a tour of the European festivals (Lucerne, San Sebastian, BBC Proms…), the Orchestra and Kurt Masur will launch the 2006/2007 season by celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Chostakovitch’s birth with two concerts which are parts of the Cycle devoted by the Orchestra to the composer for three seasons. Other major events of the season are: Romeo and Juliet conducted by Sir Colin Davis (October 2006), Chostakovitch’s 15th Symphony conducted by Bernard Haitink who will come back in June to conduct a new version of Pelleas et Melisande in the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and in the Hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. A Schumann Cycle conducted by Kurt Masur (February 2007), Katarina Ismailova performed in the Theatre du Chatelet with Tugan Sokhiev (March 2007), the Messe solennelle by Berlioz conducted by Riccardo Muti (April 2007), Britten’s War Requiem conducted by Kurt Masur in July at the Saint Denis Festival. The season will end with staged performances of Il Trovatore at the Choregies d’Orange under the direction of Gianandrea Noseda.

Under the Maestro Masur’s guidance, the Orchestre National also undertook a series of new educational activities including a partnership with the National Conservatory of Music in Paris.

Throughout its history, Orchestre National de France has nurtured strong relationships with many of the most prominent conductors and soloists, including Martha Argerich, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Bernard haitink, Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yehudi Menuhin, Riccardo Muti, Jessye Norman, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Seiji Ozawa, Evgeny Svetlanov to name but a few.

The Orchestre National de France takes pride in having given the first performance of some of the major works of the 20th century, such as Soleil des Eaux by Pierre Boulez (1950), the Turangalila-Symphony of Olivier Messiaen (first performance in France,1950), Deserts by Edgar Varese, whose premiere created a memorable scandal in 1954, Jonchaies by Iannis Xenakis (1977), as well as multiple works by Henri Dutilleux : the Symphony No 1 (1951), Timbres, Espace, Mouvement (1978), the violin concerto L’Arbre des Songes (1985, with Isaac Stern as soloist), the nocturne for violin and orchestra Sur le meme accord (first French performance in 2003), and Correspondances for voice and orchestra (first performance of the revised version in 2004)..

The life of the orchestra is marked by numerous phonographic recordings. The most recent, released on the Naive-Radio France label, include Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, performed in March 2000 under the direction of Bernard Haitink and awarded “Best classical Recording of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique classique in 2002, the operas Ivan IV by Bizet, conducted by Michael Schonwandt (honored by the Academie du Disque Lyrique), Edgar de Puccini conducted by Joel Levi, the Baron Tzigane by Johann Strauss with Armin Jordan, a “Tribute to Evgueni Svetlanov”, the Symphony No 10 of Chostakovitch conducted by Kurt Sanderling, the Symphony No 6 of Tchaikovski conducted by Riccardo Muti, the Symphony No 5 of Bruckner with Lovro von Matacic and the opera Mirra by Domenico Alaleona conducted by Juraj Vacuha. The recordings of the Orchestre National under the baton of Kurt Masur feature Beethoven’s Symphonies No 2 and No 6, Tchaikovski’s Symphony No 5 and Chostakovich’s Symphony No57.

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