Roger Désormière

He then worked for the Diaghilev company from 1925 until the impresario's death, conducting the premieres of Barabau by Vittorio Rieti, The Prodigal Son and Le pas d'acier by Sergei Prokofiev, and La Chatte by Henri Sauguet.

He conducted the first complete recording of Claude Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande, the sessions taking place in the Salle de l'Ancien Conservatoire, Paris, from 24 April to 26 May 1941, during the Nazi occupation, with the 20-record set being issued in January 1942.

[6] He also won considerable fame as an enthusiastic champion of 20th-century repertoire: Satie, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, and Maurice Duruflé all benefited from his advocacy of their pieces.

At the other chronological extreme, Désormière edited and performed early music, reviving mostly forgotten compositions by the likes of François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Michel Richard Delalande.

From 1937 he was a leading conductor for the Paris Opéra-Comique, conducting, in addition to the creations below and recordings above, Une éducation manquée, L'heure espagnole, Le médecin malgré lui, Don Quichotte and L'Enlèvement au Sérail.