The Koussevitzky Legacy

Gary Karr, bass; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra; Alfredo Antonini, conductor; Emerson Quartet: Eugene Drucker, violin; Philip Setzer, violin; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Eric Wilson, cello; Juilliard Orchestra; Sixten Ehrling, conductorSerge Koussevitzky, whose achievements as conductor of the Boston Symphony were legendary long before his death in 1951, and whose championing of new American music has never been equaled by other conductors, began his career as a performer on the largest member of the viol family, the double-bass. He was only 14 when, as a scholarship pupil in Moscow, he chose to study this bulky instrument, and only 20 when he replaced his teacher at Moscow's Philharmonic Conservatory. In 1898 he appeared as double-bass soloist in Berlin, immediately bepedestalling himself in the historical procession begun by Domenico Dragonetti, a century before, and followed by Giovanni Bottesini, half a century later. Koussevitzky played on one of the three instruments made by the celebra