Page "Pierre Monteux" Paragraph 30

Monteux believed that most of the anger aroused by the work was due not to the music but to Nijinsky's choreography, described by Stravinsky as " knock-kneed and long-haired Lolitas jumping up and down ".

With the composer's agreement Monteux presented a concert performance in Paris in April 1914.

Saint-Saëns, who was present, declared Stravinsky mad and left in a rage, but he was almost alone in his dislike.

At the end Stravinsky was carried shoulder-high from the theatre after what he described as " the most beautiful performance that I have had of the Sacre du printemps ".

That performance was part of a series of " Concerts Monteux ", presented between February and April 1914, in which Monteux conducted the orchestra of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in a wide range of symphonic and concertante works, including the concert premiere of the orchestral version of Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

His last notable engagement before the outbreak of war was as conductor of the premiere of Stravinsky's opera The Nightingale at the Palais Garnier.