He was of Dutch descent and was born in Paris on 19/01/1884 and passed away in Paris on 20/02/1970. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Paul Antonin Vidal, Andre Gedalge and Xavier Leroux, graduating with honors and first prize in harmony and corepetition (1896-1906). Initially he worked as a pianist in cabarets and as a church organ player (1907 – 1911). Between 1908-1911 he was appointed chorus director at the Opéra-Comique. He conducted the premieres of the opera Pelléas et Mélisande in Buenos Ayres (1911) and in Naples, Copenhagen, Christiania/Oslo and Stockholm. Between 1919-21 he conducted the French repertory at the Metropolitan Opera of New York. In 1924 he became music director at the Theatre des Champs-Élysées. He later conducted the Pasdeloup Concerts (1925-28, 1934-70) and the Orchestre Lamoureux (1928-1934). In the period 1938-46 he lived in Argentina where he conducted at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He later returned to Paris to the Opera-Comique, again as conductor and in 1949 he started conducting at the Paris Opera. He was dedicated to contemporary French music and conducted local/world premieres of works by Debussy, Milhaud, Ravel, Roussel, Poulenc and Ibert. He recorded many works, mainly French music (Polydor, Decca, Gaité-Lyrique, Le Chant du Monde, Decca-London) At the GNO he conducted the operas Alceste (1948), Fidelio (Herodeion, 1950), The masterbuilder [O protomastoras] (Herodeion, 1951) and Samson and Delilah [Samson et Dalila] (Herodeion, 1951).