Paul Tortelier

Paul Tortelier0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Speaker 20:26

Uh

Presenter0:32

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? Our castaway this week is a news issue.

Presenter0:36

One of the world's most celebrated cellists, Paul Tortellier.

Presenter0:41

Monsieur Tortellier, some musicians on this programme have said that they would prefer to have scores rather than records. Which would you prefer on a desert island?

Presenter0:49

Oh, I do not have recording.

Presenter0:52

What?

Presenter0:53

Now you've made a good many records yourself. Do you collect them? Do you collect other people's recordings?

Presenter0:58

No.

Presenter0:59

I am not a collector.

Presenter1:01

And I have no time to hear recording at home.

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In choosing these aids to take to the desert island, what was your guiding principle? Are you looking back at the past or?

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choosing music for the courage it would give you on the island.

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Uh I thought of the music I liked best, first of all.

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And also what you said, association with best remembrance and keeping quiet.

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What's the first one you chose?

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I chose Darkness and Echloi by Ravel White.

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Because it speaks of Greece.

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I love Greece and uh the island could be not a Greek island. I don't think it would be. You don't think. So this would help me uh because it would bring to me uh the beauty of the landscape of Greece.

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Which part of the world should we have?

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The beginning

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Beginning of the second tweet.

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uh which depicts the rise of the sun.

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Rather than some chlory.

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Ingelbrecht conducting the orchestra of the Jean-Seguise Theatre. What's your second joint?

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Penny Lovey.

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By Foy.

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Why?

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Also on account of grace.

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But this time not for the landscape.

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But for the great power.

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In Penelope?

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I can see the beauty of

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the Greek temple and I can feel also the history, the wonderful mythology history of Dennyopo.

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Least and all these

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An excerpt from Analysis by Sore.

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Australia may conduct in the Swiss Vermont office.

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Monsieur Tortelier, in what part of France were you born?

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In Paris.

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Was you also a very musical family?

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No, not at all, they had music at heart, but they were not professional.

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How early in life did you start to learn it?

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When I was six

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Was it because you shared um an aptitude or was it because your parents watched?

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No, it was my mother's will, my mother's wish.

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When did you decide that the cello was to be your instrument?

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I didn't decide either that.

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You don't know what you want when you are sick. And your mother had the ambition for you to be

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Professional musician, a cellarist. Oh yes, this is very ambitious.

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How many hours a day did you have to practice at the time? I can't remember. Well, I remember I was very lazy.

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But uh progressively I reached four hours a day when I was ten, ten, eleven, probably I made four hours a day. But didn't this interfere with your ordinary schooling? Oh yes, of course. I was completely ignored and I am

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Well, you studied at the Paris Conservatoire. You will have to put the first prize. Yeah.

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Were you able to start straight away as a soloist? I think I was equipped with a sufficient technique when I was sixteen. But did you have the opportunity?

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Uh-huh.

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Well, my mother um saved money to organize a recital because the recital was a loss, of course.

Presenter6:00

Mm. You have to pay s your expenses?

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That was the only thing I could do, but I couldn't uh play it out of um

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You so you started playing in an officer? Oh, yes, to earn my living, yes. Because we were poor.

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Orchestral engagements were easy for you to

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Yes, that is easy. You went to the United States to the Boston Symphony Oxford. Yes, it was a great experience.

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There I could discover the music I didn't know.

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In France, Brahms.

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Sibelius Tchaikovsky were never played. This is true. And uh in Paris you were with the Paris Conservatoire. Yes.

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After Until when? When did you feel that the time had come to to look for your opportunity to be a soloist?

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The good idea was to pass an audition for Ben.

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And for Bitson, that was a start.

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My first appearance as a soloist international was in Amsterdam.

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Well, I'm going to ask you to tell that story in a minute. In the meantime, let's have your third record. I can't wait to hear Katin Sayer.

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Singing what?

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A Schumann.

Presenter8:11

Kathleen Ferrier in a song from Schumann's A Woman's Love and Life around Lieber and Lead.

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Monsieur Tartellier, you were going to tell us how you got your first big international solo engagement.

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Well I played for.

Paul Tortelier8:25

Well

Paul Tortelier8:26

Legend.

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Umbinen.

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He was very kind to engage me.

Paul Tortelier8:31

Yeah.

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Usually you play for conductor and they promise to engage you, but they don't do it.

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This was an engagement in Amsterdam, was it? That shows how honest is a Dutchman.

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So he did, and I couldn't believe it. And the luck was that he wasn't conducting.

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It was Biethan conducting. Yes. So it had a repercussion. Because Wietcham discovered me there and invited me to play for the Strauss Festival in London. With Richard Strauss himself.

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Supervising that.

Paul Tortelier9:07

People

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That's cool.

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Since then it's been a success.

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Travelling about Europe as a solarist. You went back to Boston to play with your old colleagues in the Symphony Orchestra. Yes, uh I was very moved to see my old friends there and they were very warm and enthusiastic. Good. But your name is frequently mentioned in the same breath as

Paul Tortelier9:25

Your

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Now Sarah, you've played with him on a number of occasions.

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Yeah, that was the great joy when I was invited.

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Player the part is developed.

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One I

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For some years you've you've been a professor at the Paris Conservatoire.

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And you're giving some master classes at the moment on BBC television. Yeah.

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They would like conducting to.

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Or full diamond.

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Let's have another record. What's number four?

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And speaking of Gaza,

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I would love to have the Shubier printed because Kazar's players in it.

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And you play on it too. Well, that was not really the reason.

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But that would be a remembrance of one of the best moments of my artistic life in Prague.

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Which part of the workflow we had?

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From the beginning.

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The opening of the Schubert wincet in C major.

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With Avlook herself and yourself playing the two cello parts.

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One important side of your career that we haven't mentioned is your composing.

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I believe it was through an early composition of yours that you first met your wife. It is true.

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I had written a piece.

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Call Le Petre the clown.

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And it is a virtuous rupees which you have to play for a competition in the Price Conservatory.

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And played it so brilliantly.

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He saved my honor.

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Since it was massacred by all the others. So I had to pay tribute to her. Of course. She won the first prize. She won the first prize and the and the husband. You also worked for two cellos which you played together. Yes.

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Yes, that was the only way to have her with me when I was uh concertizing. Yeah, careful thing about. Yes. Some years ago you took a complete year off from playing in order to compose. Yes, that was marvelous.

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Where did you go?

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Oh, it was in Israel.

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I could write a symphony.

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And it was a great um reward to feel that I was able to write a long work.

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This was your Israeli symphony.

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Yeah.

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You stayed and worked with your family in the Kibbutz in although you're not yourself at all. No, not at all. I'm a Breton Breton, which is the opposite.

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But uh doesn't make any difference.

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They were the best friends and I think I love them so much.

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And this is all part of the international unity, which is something you work for very hard, isn't it? Well, really, that is my ideal.

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Right thing.

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Log.

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And love mustn't be something too sure.

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Just to the family or to your country or even to your race.

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And race doesn't mean anything to everybody. Oh yes.

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You've appeared on the concert platform with another member of your family, your son Pascal.

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Poor hell.

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Wonderful for me. Yeah, and he's another first prize winner of the Conservatoire. As you say?

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We had also our first prize, but for him it was it was quicker. He got it in one year instead of two as I did. And you have a daughter who is at the conservator. Pau. Four year fourteen years old.

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Who just see Peter and her brother? Brother. You you just given a family concert, I believe, at at Norwich, wasn't it? At the Norwich festival, we appeared all the platforms. All four of you. Yes. And I did. Have you brought up your children as you were brought up with music taking precedence over every other part of their education?

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Yes, I am afraid so.

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They will be as ignorant as their friends.

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Best of all, music is.

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is a whole world

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Have you any one big ambition that you haven't realized yet?

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Oh, well, if I could go back, I think I would just work in a kindergarten.

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Because it is just.

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The most beautiful thing, working with young children.

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They are they are so beautiful, they are so touching.

Speaker 214:33

Yeah.

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And the other ambition we talked about? Composing. Composing.

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Right.

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Let's have another record. Let's have number five. Where have we got to?

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Will they

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How high the moon sung by Elafitz Gerald? Why do you choose this?

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Because uh it's just

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unbelievable and

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Just novel.

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the faith, the enthusiasm she has got.

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The talent genius.

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In improvisation.

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Reason?

Speaker 415:07

I'm not sure if I can do it.

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Ella FitzGerald Alhaidenoon.

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What's your next joint?

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Next choice.

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Cross will be Mozart.

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What?

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What Mozart I wish I could have an opera!

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I love opera, but I don't know anything about opera and I couldn't

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So I chose the Andante of the Symphony Concertant because it sounds a little like an Ariad Opera.

Presenter17:01

Rostrat Simponia Contractante.

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with the Ferpignon Festival Orchestra conducted by Casals.

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And Isaac Stern and William Primrose are soloists.

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Monsieur Tortelier, how well could you bear the loneliness of a desert island?

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Oh, I can be alone very well.

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I like solitude diamonds. Yes, but not indefinite solitude. And how I should manage to to make my to to live that I don't know.

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Could you build a shelter?

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I couldn't.

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Yeah.

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To cultivate, I couldn't either.

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No, I think I could

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I tried, but the fish always escaped me.

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Only my wife can.

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She won't be there. No, she won't be there.

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Would you try to escape?

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Or I wouldn't be good for that. I have no sense of orientation.

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I'm worrying about what you're so do I explaining.

Speaker 218:00

Yeah.

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That would be lost.

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What name? Oh next Bach.

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Mm-hmm. You can't do the L Bar.

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And uh this most beautiful bar for me is the slow movement of the first Brand Bio concert.

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So beautiful it is that you dare not to play it even.

Paul Tortelier18:23

B

Presenter18:24

Right.

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Still, I would have the recording of it. But uh as it

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belongs to the general thing, which is all beautiful. I think you can't divide it and

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You can't play just a little piece of it. No, no. Better not to play it. So we'll take that as play and get on to your last one. What's that gaze?

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Again, back.

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I thought you would know I didn't

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See? Chris was ordered to dismiss Elliot.

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Yeah.

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That is there is a thing that helps you to

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To live in an on a desert island.

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The affairs chorus of Bach's Christmas Oratoria.

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They are then Philharmonic version conducted by Chris Lehmann.

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Now if you could only have one of these a

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Yeah.

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Oh, I should refuse to make a choice.

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But however, I shall obey your order.

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And uh

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I shall choose the Schumann.

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By Catherine Tayer, right, because there it is the heart that is beating.

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And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to this island. One luxury.

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That will be

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A bottle of cider in the southern bag of a bicycle. A bicycle?

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A bicycle, yes.

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That is my favorite.

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Mixor.

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The best moment of my life I had in cycling from

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And the parcel of site is a regression. Yes, that's I think we'd better give you more than one bottle so that you can have more than one bragging right too.

Paul Tortelier21:00

Yeah.

Presenter21:02

And and one book to take with you apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

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Ah wan boo.

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Also difficult to choose, but I think it will be.

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Lapete Koenig.

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Danna Magdanya Bah.

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It is about Bach.

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Knife, written by his wife, living back in life.

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Alright.

Presenter21:21

And thank you, Paul Tortelier, for letting us hear your choice of desert type and disc.

Speaker 221:35

Uh