ABSTRACT
Serge Koussevitzky, who died on June 4 [1951] at the age of seventy-six, was not merely a conductor of instinctive genius. His concerts-in Russia, in France, in America-had a mission to perform. This mission was both personal and musical. It was personal because Koussevitzky had at every stage of his life served the cause of a composer, or several composers, to whom he was personally attached. It was musical, because the composers whose works he chose for performance were good and often great composers, and because Koussevitzky gave a totality of devotion to the music he played. He could not do things by halves, or even by 99 per cent. Whether it was an acknowledged masterpiece of the past that he was to conduct or a new pioneer work, it was to him, for the duration of the concert, a great piece of music.
