Simon Parmet

Simon Parmet (né Pergament) (Hebrew: שמעון בן יהדוה פּארמעת) (26 October 1897 – 20 July 1969) was a Finnish conductor, composer, and pianist who studied under famous composer Jean Sibelius.

Education and career

Education and formative years 
Parmet began his career as a musician at the age of 15, when he was a dedicated pianist for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, although he would later study under Alexander Glazunov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and later at the Helsinki Music Institute and the Berlin Conservatory following the Russian Revolution. His teachers in Helsinki were  and Erkki Melartin. He spent many of his early years in Finland studying under composer Jean Sibelius. Parmet was heavily influenced by his teacher, and would conduct many of Sibelius's works throughout his career, such as the American premiere of Luonnotar in 1952.

Opera 
Earlier in his career, Parmet worked as an opera conductor in Germany, for the Finnish National Opera, and as conductor of the Finnish Symphony Radio Orchestra. He also co-founded the , of which he was the first director from 1953 to 1954. During his period in America, he was a director for the Finnish Male Chorus of New York City.

Conducting 
In 1938, Parmet was invited by Polish violinist Bronisław Huberman to conduct the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. Parmet conducted many orchestras throughout the United States during the 1940s, such as repeat conducting of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, and the Louisville Philharmonic. In addition to presenting Sibelius's works to America, he often shared many works by Finnish artists that were culturally obscure to Americans, such as his 1952 Philadelphia conducting of Symphonic Sketches by .

Composing 
One notable debut of Parmet's was a 1952 performance by Abraham Chavez, who performed an unpublished impromptu by Sibelius that Parmet had transcribed to ensure it would not be lost.

Recording and writing 

Parmet recorded his first compositions and conductions in Berlin in 1929. Recordings made under his direction can be found in the Yle recording archive, including Einar Englund's Symphony No. 2 (1951),  Expressions for Orchestra (1953), and Toivo Kuula's Stabat mater (1953). In 1962, he composed film music for Little Presents with the . He also composed film music for the film  (1955), directed by Jack Witikka. Parmet additionally published many musical and music theory books in Swedish.

Education 
During his time in the United States, Parmet worked as the music department head at the Margaret Hall School in Versailles, Kentucky.

Personal life and family 
In the 1940s, Parmet temporarily moved from Finland to Elmira, New York and Washington, D.C. while conducting orchestras in the United States. Although he did not live out the rest of his life in the United States, he became a naturalized citizen in 1942 with his wife Vera.

His brother was Moses Pergament, a Finnish-Swedish composer and music critic. He is also the uncle of Swedish pianist Erna Tauro through her father, Isak Pergament.

Parmet died on 20 July 1969, and is buried in the New Jewish Cemetery in Helsinki.

Bibliography 

 Sibelius symfonier: en studie i musikförståelse (1959) (The symphonies of Sibelius: a study in musical appreciation)
 Con amor om musik och mästare (1960) (With love: on music and teachers)
 Sävelestä sanaan: esseitä (1962) (From verse to word: essays)
 Genom fönsterrutan: essäer om konst och musik och andra uppsatser (1964) (From the looking glass: essays on art and music)

See also 

 Performance of Simon Parmet's Mazurkas on Piano | Vimeo

References 

Jewish composers
Finnish composers
1897 births
1969 deaths
20th-century Finnish Jews
Finnish conductors (music)
Finnish expatriates in Germany
Finnish expatriates in the United States
Naturalized citizens of the United States
Sibelius scholars
Sibelius Academy alumni