A steady hand

The venerable French conductor Roger Désormière died 60 years ago, in October 1963. Roger Nichols recalls a musician of impeccable timing and taste

- Roger Nichols

The month of January 1933 might well qualify as what the Chinese proverb calls an interesting time'. On the 1st, Japan rejected the non-aggression pact signed with the USSR the previous July; on the 10th, martial law was imposed in Spain as a Communist revolt spread in the southern provinces; and on the 30th, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. If nothing quite so disruptive happened that month in Paris (an attempted coup d'état had to wait until February 1934), on the musical front there was at least a modicum of anxiety about one, long-awaited first performance.

Ravel had completed his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a brother of the philosopher, in 1930, but the world premiere did not take place until 5 January 1932, while the Paris premiere was booked for 17 January 1933. An all-Ravel concert was to be conducted by its organiser Roger Désormière with the exception of the concerto, which Ravel decided to conduct himself. It would have been difficult to argue with a musician of Ravel's standing, but there were doubts. It was known by now that a brain disease, which would lead to the composer's death nearly five years later, was already making itself felt, added to which there was the question of his conducting credentials. The first waltz in his Valses nobles et sentimentales contains interplay between bars of 3/4 and 6/8, which he insisted must be accentuated. But when someone asked him how he conducted the orchestral version, he said, 'Oh, I just go round and round'. So, it was decided that Désormière (or Déso as  he was generally known) would rehearse the Orchestre symphonique de Paris, hopefully bringing it to such a pitch of perfection that even Ravel couldn't discombobulate it. And, despite a less than perfect contribution from the pianist, the performance was a success. So, who was this conducting paragon?