Georges Tzipine

Who was Georges Tzipine?

Georges Samuel Tzipine was a French violinist, conductor and composer. He was of Russian-Jewish origin.

He was trained as a violinist at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, winning a first prize in 1926, but moved to conducting in 1931 after support from Reynaldo Hahn. He conducted the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and worked for French Radiodiffusion, then for the Ballets Russes and Roland Petit’s ballet. From the mid-1920s he was musical director of Gaumont Newsreel, for which he composed a great deal of varied background music to suit all kinds of documentary moods and themes. His film scores included: Le Rat des villes et le Rat des champs, Coq en pâte, and Les Amoureux de Marianne.

He was particularly associated with the works of his long-time friend Arthur Honegger, and he conducted the premiere recordings of some of them. He also conducted the first recordings of works by Florent Schmitt, Jean Rivier, Albert Roussel, Georges Auric, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc.