Claude-Michel Schonberg

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:24

My castaway this week is a composer. A Frenchman, he's earned his reputation in a field for which his countrymen are not particularly renowned, the musical. This exceptional talent has made him a multi millionaire, thanks to shows such as Les Miserable, Miss Saigon, and Martin Guerre.

Presenter0:41

The death of his father when he was fourteen forced him to earn money writing, playing, and singing music. He studied maths at university to please his mother, but soon returned to his first love, music, eventually teaming up with the lyricist Alain Boublille, with whom he's written all his great successes. I don't know how I do it, he says, and I don't want to know. I was born to be a composer. I didn't have the choice. He is Claude Michel Schoenberg. So what happens when you do it, Claude Michel? Do you just sit down and turn on the tap, and out it pours?

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:14

It's not so easy.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:15

I have to sit down at the piano the same way I'm sitting down in a theatre.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:20

And I close my eyes and I'm thinking what's going to happen on stage.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:25

And generally speaking if I

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:27

Start to see something.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:30

The music is coming.

Presenter1:31

Which is why you don't know where it comes from. As you say, it's instinctive. You don't know whether it's God or the devil or something from a former life that gives you this this talent, this ability to write the music.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:42

I don't know from where it's coming, and I don't want to know.

Claude-Michel Schonberg1:46

Because maybe the day I know there will be no music anymore.

Presenter1:50

But you say you always uh wanted well, not just always wanted to be a composer, you were always going to be a composer, you didn't have any choice. What kind of composer did you think you were going to be?

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:01

Definitely a writing operator.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:05

There was no other wave.

Presenter2:05

An operatic computer.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:06

Yeah, operatic composer. When I was six, seven I knew already

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:11

Two or three operas by art.

Presenter2:13

I want to ask you about whether what you write is opera or not, but let's let's pause and hear the first record, because as you know, we're casting you away alone on a desert island. Tell me about the first record that you'd play there.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:25

So of course it's a uh excerpt from Le Miserab.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:29

Because Lemis Rabbit is a milestone in my life.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:32

It's a turning point.

Claude-Michel Schonberg2:34

As it has been for a lot of people, and that was the first song I wrote for Lim Zero.

Speaker 32:44

Remember the big old ball!

Speaker 32:46

It's all you can say for the life of the poor!

Speaker 32:49

Discriminate abort!

Speaker 33:01

Yeah.

Speaker 33:03

And the shuffle and back doesn't keep on the trail.

Speaker 33:07

Yeah.

Presenter3:12

At the end of the day, from the musical Les Miserables, written by my castaway Claude Michel Schoenberg, and that was recorded at the Albert Hall to mark the tenth anniversary of the show. Um quite a special evening, you say. It's amazing.

Claude-Michel Schonberg3:24

It was a wonderful evening.

Claude-Michel Schonberg3:26

I never heard the music uh delivered such a wonderful w where the best people were onstage.

Presenter3:33

Hmm.

Claude-Michel Schonberg3:34

It was incredible.

Presenter3:36

It's played all over the world, of course, Lim is a fantastic success. It's uh I think been translated into more than twenty different languages and

Claude-Michel Schonberg3:43

I was twenty three.

Presenter3:44

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg3:48

Or you can add ten million, fifty.

Presenter3:50

Oh really? Oh really. But do you spend your time going around the world to these places, you know, Mexico, Beijing or Warsaw, checking up on your baby, as it were?

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:01

Uh Alan Bubil and myself, who are

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:04

Very paranoid.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:06

As writers.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:08

And as a composer, I'm over the top. I'm very, very paranoid.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:13

I didn't see all the production of Limitrap, for instance the Mexico one, I didn't see it yet.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:20

Uh I didn't see the production in Reykjavik in Iceland.

Presenter4:23

But you see most of them.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:25

A lot.

Presenter4:26

Hmm.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:26

But not all.

Presenter4:27

But do you ever sit in the stalls watching this creation of yours, listening to this creation of yours, and hear, you know, an infelicity here or a longueur there and think quick bit of rewriting and I can really make that better?

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:43

It's not in terms of rewriting.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:45

Uh because I'm not in the theater to listen to the score anymore and to enjoy it.

Claude-Michel Schonberg4:52

The music for me the score has no mystery. How do you want me to be in love with a woman who has no mystery for me? It's impossible.

Presenter5:00

So you may not be in love with it or or her, as you say, this this thing, this woman that lacks mystery, but you're proprietorial about it her.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:08

As long as I am alive.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:10

I want it to be delivered this way. If people

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:14

Add something to the score.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:17

I'm very happy.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:18

But I don't want them to take something from the score or to play too slow.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:24

Oh.

Presenter5:24

The tempo is very important to you, isn't it? You know exactly what's going on.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:27

Yes, because I'm coming from the rock and roll world.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:30

I started creating a rock and roll band, so I have a sense of tempo and uh what can bring to the music the tempo, and don't forget that all the music is based on the tempo.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:42

And tempo exists because we have a heartbeat. Without the heartbeat there is no tempo.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:48

And that was a conversation I had once with

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:52

George Salty.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:54

was a good friend of mine one year before he died.

Claude-Michel Schonberg5:57

And I told him once, I never heard the overture of Carmen,

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:02

played decently once in my life. It's always too fast or too slow.

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:06

And he told me, You better listen to my nineteen sixty-three version.

Presenter6:11

Tell me about your second record.

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:14

Uh the second record is from uh The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacquel Fenbach. You have the treasures of music sometimes. You have diamonds.

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:25

hidden under the score of gorgeous of more inspiration than you can imagine.

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:32

And

Claude-Michel Schonberg6:34

Everything I'm writing has been always influenced by this masterpiece.

Speaker 37:30

Yeah.

Presenter7:39

Jesse Norman singing Ella Fuil la Tourtorelle, or Though Your Turtledove has flown, from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Tate. Your own story, Claude Michel Schoenberg, has rather like some of the stories you set to music quite a lot of melodrama in it, uh it seems to me anyway. G go back to the beginning, tell me about your parents, because they were Hungarian refugees, weren't they?

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:02

My father was a piano tuner and there was a lot of work because in those days there was a lot of pianos in every house and people used to be there in the evening to play music.

Presenter8:13

So was it a musical family, would you say? Was that just a job he did?

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:17

and one uncle was a singer at the Budapest Opera.

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:21

And very far away from a lot of generations who have a common point with the Arnold Schoenberg family.

Presenter8:28

So it's there somewhere, genetically. There's musicality there. You were surrounded by keyboards as a child, I'm sure, if your father was a piano tuner and so on.

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:30

Genetically, there's a music anity there.

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:35

Figure in case

Presenter8:38

Where else would you have heard music? You say that opera immediately struck according even when you were as small as seven, I think you've said. Why where did you hear it? Why did it mean something to you, do you feel?

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:50

The only story I remember very well in my little town there was the first department store opening.

Claude-Michel Schonberg8:58

and suddenly I heard a music in the middle of the of the store,

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:03

And I was.

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:05

Paralyzed.

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:06

on the stairs. I thought that

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:09

Heavens was opening his gates and a beautiful sound and light were coming like a shower on me, you know. I was I was amazed, and many, many years after I realized that I was listening to the uh violin uh prelude of Flowing Green.

Speaker 39:27

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:27

I thought that was a usual way to listen to the music, and I realized that it's not. That's a gift I've been given. And at the same time, the music for me is as concrete as this bottle, the glass, I can hold it, I can shape it, I know exactly or to change it or to adapt it to what I want.

Speaker 39:32

Two.

Presenter9:46

Did you compose as a child?

Claude-Michel Schonberg9:48

Oh yes, because for Mother's Mother's Day, for instance, I used to compose a little tune for my mother, uh, rather to buy something, because I didn't have money anyway.

Presenter9:56

What about lessons? Were you were were the family able to afford lessons for you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:00

I have music lessons with uh this old lady uh and I told her that after the very first lesson I told her, I'm not interested.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:09

And she said, What?

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:11

And I told her, I'm not interested in playing other people's stuff. I want to play my own music.

Presenter10:16

So you were nothing if not quite arrogant about your music, and quite ambitious too, I think, weren't you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:22

It's not arrogant and ambitious, it's only that I knew that's what I'm going to do and I was programmed to be a composer.

Presenter10:32

Record number three.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:34

So it's a special record for me.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:37

The music was written by my best friend.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:39

His name is Michel Berget.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:42

And he wrote a French musical uh named Starmagna.

Presenter10:46

Starmania

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:47

Starmania

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:49

And unfortunately my friend died after a tennis match during the summer of'ninety two.

Claude-Michel Schonberg10:56

In twenty minutes he died in my arms and uh

Claude-Michel Schonberg11:00

He was one of the most gifted and talented persons I never met.

Claude-Michel Schonberg11:05

And I still miss him, after more than ten years.

Speaker 311:09

No one can have

Speaker 311:11

More than their due.

Speaker 311:17

I wanted life, I wanted you

Speaker 311:25

Only the very best!

Speaker 311:28

Reasonable request.

Speaker 311:33

This is too high a price to pay.

Presenter11:39

Peter Kingsbury singing all the very best from the score of the show Tycoon which was composed by Michel Berget, lyrics by Tim Rice.

Presenter11:47

You've said, Claude Michel, that you are as you are, which is, you know, ambitious and and hard working and quite driven, because your father died when you were fourteen. What happened to him? I mean, he can't have been very old himself at all.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:02

Maybe that's a a gift from my father that

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:06

Because I am what I am.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:09

Because he's death.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:11

The person I became.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:13

was because this fracture.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:15

Irving sighed.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:17

But I'm lucky enough to be able to reject all the storms I have inside through the music. That's why I'm lucky. Some people can't do it.

Presenter12:26

But what happened to him?

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:27

In those days it was in the fifties. He he was treated for a heart problem and uh my father died.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:35

Why are you in vacation in Hungary?

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:38

And uh that was in fifty eight?

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:43

So forty four years after, I still do not recover.

Presenter12:48

Thank you.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:49

But that's what I am, who I am.

Presenter12:53

Your your mother also died, although much later on. I think you were in your your thirties by then, but before your big success, I think some four years or so before um Le Miserable struck it rich for you.

Claude-Michel Schonberg12:55

Yeah.

Presenter13:05

I can only imagine that that's it's a huge regret that that that this boy you've described, you know, his parents never lived to see him.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:13

Of course, she was lucky enough to see the first version in Paris, at least.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:18

The problem is that

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:20

She was a little bit older when I was born in'forty four. My mother she was already forty two. In those days she thought that it will be uh a danger to have a baby so late, so

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:31

She was talking a little bit to my father about not having the baby.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:37

And my father, who has a very high morality attitude, told her that it's out of question.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:46

And I never managed to prove my father that he was right.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:51

So that's my uh main problem.

Claude-Michel Schonberg13:54

But I want to live with my problem, I don't want to fix my problem, because it's because of all these problems that I'm still able to write music and

Claude-Michel Schonberg14:03

to have inspiration.

Presenter14:05

And back in nineteen fifty eight, age fourteen, you had to earn some money, I think, to get yourself an education, to get yourself through university. And you earned it through writing, playing, performing music, didn't you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg14:16

Exactly, because uh when my father died there was a piano tuner, there was no life insurance, there was nothing, so we were a very poor people.

Claude-Michel Schonberg14:24

So a few years later, when I was uh seventeen, eighteen, it was in the very uh early sixties, I created a rock and roll band and doing some gigs around uh Brittany during uh weekends on vacation, I managed to make some money

Claude-Michel Schonberg14:42

in order to finish my school and university, because I always told my mother I want to be a composer and she thought and all the people around me they thought I was completely crazy because it was not a decent work. And I promised uh that I will finish my school and university and after I do what I what I want.

Speaker 214:52

Uh

Presenter14:52

Base

Presenter15:01

And indeed you did, and indeed, you know, it got better. You went on, you became a pop star. You had a record at number one, I think, for some time, didn't you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:08

Yes that was another story too. I was already working with Anna Bublil.

Presenter15:12

How long was it at number one?

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:13

I think sixteen weeks.

Presenter15:15

What was it called?

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:16

It was called in French le promier pas, in English the first step. It was a

Presenter15:20

Two.

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:21

A very shy uh boy telling that I would like her to do the first move and not me.

Presenter15:21

First date.

Presenter15:28

But but you didn't get the bug. You didn't want to be a pop star.

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:31

I didn't want to be a pop star. I didn't believe in what I was doing as an entertainer. And

Presenter15:36

Do they still play you on the radio in France?

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:38

Yes still. But I I remember that uh it was already one year after we we wrote La Revolution Française of a show where I was performing Louis the Sixteen.

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:48

And we were performing it.

Presenter15:48

Oh, you took the lead in that, too?

Claude-Michel Schonberg15:50

And it was not the lead, it was the king. And uh my head was cut uh forty five times in one month. I realized that after three nights I was bored to death to have to redo night after night exactly the same thing. And uh I knew that this

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:07

The job of being an entertainer was not for me.

Presenter16:10

But that was the seeds. There were the seeds, of course, in that Révolution Française of the Regiment. The seeds of the Lis Grave which we'll hear about. But let's pause for record number four.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:14

The seeds of the music.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:20

So uh that's a unheard song from Misago.

Presenter16:24

Unhappy.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:25

Hunhood.

Presenter16:26

Why?

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:27

Because that was a very nice tune.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:30

We wrote first for Kim.

Presenter16:33

Mm

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:33

Uh for the people who know the show, Kim, she is the lead female part of of the show.

Presenter16:39

Played by Leah Solongo on the

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:40

by Lia Salonga, and it was a a beautiful song.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:43

She was singing in the middle of the show. During the rehearsal we realized that this song at this moment of the show was not working at all.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:51

So we changed it into a duet. So the song as a solo song was never performed.

Claude-Michel Schonberg16:57

And Leah she did a big concert in Manila more than one year ago.

Claude-Michel Schonberg17:02

And she asks the permission to sing the original song from the show.

Speaker 317:07

Outside there is a war.

Speaker 317:11

In here the night is still

Speaker 317:18

The jasmine buds have blue.

Speaker 317:21

Away the Jasmine Will

Speaker 317:28

And I have given birth to a speckle of dust.

Presenter17:33

Singing Too Much for One Heart from the original score of my Castaways musical Miss Saigon. Um you'd met uh Claude Michel, the man who was to become the the Tim Rice to your Andrew Lloyd Weber as it were, Alain Boublille. What I really want to know is what gave you the idea of writing a musical together? Because as we say it's not in the French tradition, what was the context that made you sit down and think, forget about the pop songs, let's write a show?

Claude-Michel Schonberg17:59

He was a fan of musicals.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:03

And I was a big fan of Operas.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:07

and I used to write sometimes some operatic stuff. But we were pop song writers, because that was the only way we knew how to write and to deliver music.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:17

And one day Anna came to London and saw Jesus Christ superstar, and we realized that two guys, like Andrew and Tim,

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:25

Coming exactly from the same background.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:28

As us, I mean as pop songwriters.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:31

Was able to write songs and to perform a musical show on stage at the same time.

Presenter18:36

And also about a serious subject, I presume, because of course you'd have seen My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music before that, that kind of thing. But here we were with, you know, a rather serious subject, the subject of Jesus Christ.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:41

Music with

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:44

Of course.

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:46

We knew my fellow idiots of music even serious matter as a West Side Story, but

Claude-Michel Schonberg18:52

The writing was too sophisticated for us, but uh hearing the score of Juscara Siber, we thought, No, we can do this.

Speaker 319:01

Hmm.

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:02

And then I came back from London with the idea of

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:05

Turning the seventeen eighty nine French Revolution into twenty four songs.

Presenter19:09

So you went for the big subject.

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:11

Yeah, and we did it. But already we were I mean uh

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:15

As storytellers, because in the middle of the French Revolution, we wrote the story of a young man.

Presenter19:17

Uh

Speaker 319:17

Uh

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:22

poor and very high class lady they were in love together. So we knew already that we had to add that kind of ingredient and not only giving to the people a h a lesson of history of the French Revolution. So there was a storyline all through the show.

Presenter19:36

So the

Presenter19:38

And that gave you the confidence in the end to write Les Miserable. I mean, that was the kind of learning curve, wasn't it? That was how it came about.

Claude-Michel Schonberg19:46

I won't say the learning, but we add the virus of the musical uh theatre experience.

Presenter19:53

Yeah.

Presenter19:53

And it happened. And of course it was the album of that show that Cameron McIntosh, the producer.

Presenter20:00

flushed with the recent success, I think, of his musical Cats, put on on a rainy afternoon, heard three tracks and thought.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:05

Such

Presenter20:07

Kapal, this is my next show.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:09

Two years after the show closed in Paris.

Presenter20:12

Next piece of music, record number five.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:14

It's really a song from Sanson Delilah by Saint Sans.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:20

And that's for me the right expression of what the French opera genius is.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:26

And this song.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:29

Title in French is Monqueur souvre tavoie. It's a beautiful and overall one of the most sensitious.

Claude-Michel Schonberg20:38

Operatic piece of music.

Speaker 320:42

Oh, praise Suvarada, good soul.

Speaker 320:51

For mercy, or earth.

Speaker 321:02

Oh my God, Great of war for an unworld.

Speaker 321:31

In Israel, it is a mother.

Presenter21:33

Yeah.

Presenter21:38

Monque sous vre tavoir softly awakes my heart from Saint Sans Sampson and Delilah, sung by Agnes Baltzer and Jose Carreras, with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Choir, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. So tell me, Claude Michel,

Presenter21:52

Why is not what you write opera?

Presenter21:56

What is the difference between Miss Saigon and Madam Butterfly? What makes one opera and yours not?

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:02

Or is it? It's already part of some Opera House repertoire, but sung by pop voices.

Presenter22:09

But it's not a case of where you put it or who sings it, it's a case of what it is.

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:13

It's affrighting because the range for a pop singer is not the same as the range of a opera singer. It's a totally different approach.

Presenter22:21

And they have microphones too, of course, which operates don't have.

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:23

But of course in future there is a big plan in one of the most important houses in the world.

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:29

Two of them is a rabbit with an opera, traditional orchestra and voices.

Presenter22:34

And are you saying it would then be an I mean if if Agnes Baltzer and Jose Carreras sang Les Miserables as it is, as the score is then

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:39

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:42

I don't know. Because uh uh when you listen to Kirita Kanawa and Jose Carreas Westside Story version, I must say it's not the best version in the world.

Presenter22:52

But is that because of what we expect, do you think? We expect, you know, a musical to be kind of belted out at us.

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:52

But is that because of what we have?

Claude-Michel Schonberg22:59

I don't think so. It's because uh the way they read music, it's totally different. When I'm writing something for me, the most important is that you believe that the singer is not singing, but speaking. I must forget after five minutes that they are singing on stage, because it's unbearable. That's why there is that big caricature of a para where they sing to s to to tell, Give me the water, give me the wine, because you don't forget that they are singing.

Presenter23:27

But perhaps what you write is simply the new opera. There isn't really any difference.

Claude-Michel Schonberg23:32

I will be uh more than grateful that uh I know the work of Benjamin Bretens and I know that what I'm writing he is a genius of the modern opera. I'm not.

Presenter23:43

But you knew when you wrote Miss Saigon all about Madam Butterfly, and in fact that was the ambition, wasn't it? It was to write a an updated version of that story.

Claude-Michel Schonberg23:52

Oh, exactly. That was something I had in mind for many, many, many years.

Claude-Michel Schonberg23:57

And one day when I saw this picture of the Vietnamian ladies,

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:02

leaving her daughter at the Oshimina airport. I thought that she was doing exactly the same sacrifice, the same way as Butterfly is doing in the in Madame Butterfly. So I thought that was the parallel between the two stories.

Presenter24:14

And it was a huge success, ambitious staging helicopters taking off and landing.

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:20

I like very much when people are telling me I love Miss Saigon. The helicopter is wonderful.

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:26

But it was part of the original script we wrote.

Presenter24:28

I know. But it has never played in France. Now explain that to me. Why not? Cameron McIntosh has said that the French musical is a contradiction in terms. Why wouldn't the French like Miss Agon?

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:39

For that type of musical franchise is not a very open country.

Presenter24:43

But what is it?

Presenter24:45

It's not part of the French tradition.

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:48

It's not

Presenter24:51

But you think they'll catch up one day, do you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:53

Oh yes, definitely, in the future.

Presenter24:56

Record number six.

Claude-Michel Schonberg24:57

It's Madame Butterfly. I saw it when I was six years old in Paris. You know, there is what we call the Firenze syndrome. You can be sick or faint when you are in Firenze, because there is too much beauty in one time to see around.

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:14

It happened to me already twice in my life.

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:18

Once

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:19

It was one of the first times I was listening to Butterfly, and the second time was not a long time ago, when I was listening to a Turkish pianist playing the Better Fifth concerto.

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:30

I was sick in the theatre. I started to sweat and to feel weak.

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:35

And each time I'm listening to this piece of music by Puccini.

Claude-Michel Schonberg25:40

I feel a little bit uh not very well.

Presenter26:41

Quantochiello, what an expanse of sky Madam Butterfly's first entrance in Puccini's opera sung by Maria Callas there with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala Milan conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter26:53

And then, uh Claude Michel, in nineteen ninety six came the third blockbuster in the row, the musical Martin Guerre, Martin Guerre, based on the sixteenth century French tale of the man who has his identity stolen and

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:06

It's a true story, isn't it?

Presenter27:07

Yes.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:08

report by the judge in charge of the case.

Presenter27:11

And he came back and his

Presenter27:13

Uh h his identity had been reclaimed, hadn't it, by um someone else. But um the worst thing about it was that his his virgin bride preferred the imposter.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:16

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:22

Uh

Presenter27:22

Pretty nice.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:23

Great story.

Presenter27:29

Okay. Um so uh that's the question really, isn't it? I mean, you spent years on it together, six years, millions of pounds, and it just struggled when it went on. What was wrong? Wh why was it so difficult?

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:38

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:41

I don't think it's a wrong subject.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:44

But generally people used to tell us to tell you that uh it must be simple, the subject in a musical it must be black and white.

Claude-Michel Schonberg27:54

and a very primitive subject. And of course, Martangel, you have no good people, bad people.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:01

You have two lovers lying to a to a community.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:06

to protect their love

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:08

It's a very psychological intake to a very interesting and very subtle matter.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:14

Maybe too subtle for a musical, but I don't think so. I'm sure that one day we will get the right show we need.

Presenter28:20

Do you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:21

Well that

Presenter28:21

Well that with that show.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:23

And don't forget that the process of writing and rewriting, for instance, we just had butterfly.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:30

The first version of Butterfly claws after three days.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:34

And it's only two or three years after that Puccini wrote a new version of them.

Presenter28:38

Now you've turned to um a symphonic piece, and again you're telling a beautiful love story, because it's Wuthering Heights, isn't it, for the ballet.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:45

I thought, why not?

Presenter28:47

Well again, it's a great story, isn't it?

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:48

And it's a great story for ballet.

Presenter28:52

So you're going to have to do it.

Claude-Michel Schonberg28:52

I think more than for a musical.

Presenter28:55

And you've had some some good reviews, but there've also been some which have said that um your music's too over-expressive for classical ballet. You nod, you've you've heard how

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:03

No.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:04

I draw it. I do it on purpose.

Presenter29:06

How do you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:07

That's right.

Presenter29:07

Not right the big roundy stuff.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:08

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:10

I'm not a minimalist composer. I do it on purpose. I'm not a blind composer. I know exactly what I'm doing.

Presenter29:16

You like to ring me.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:17

And I want the audience to understand what's going on.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:22

I'm not a whispering composer, I'm a shouting composer.

Presenter29:26

Record number seven. It's another one of yours.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:28

Yes, that's part of my uh symphonic uh

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:33

Experience uh I was writing around uh the theme of the imposter for Martin Gehr, an end track.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:40

Force is a gun act.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:42

And uh it was orchestrated by Jonathan Chenik, who is a very big orchestrator on Broadway.

Claude-Michel Schonberg29:48

And uh I like it.

Presenter30:19

The entract from the original cast recording of Martin Guerre, composed by my castaway, Claude Michel Schoenberg. Is there another musical in in the planning with Boublille?

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:29

Close machine.

Presenter30:34

And you have such a long gestation period. I mean, these things take you years, so how where are you along the line? And if something takes five or six years, where are you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:38

How long?

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:43

Okay.

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:44

You are writing it.

Presenter30:46

Well on, I am.

Presenter30:50

Oh really? And is it this time is it a an uplifting subject? Is it based on a on a former work? Is it based on a novel or or an opera or or on real events?

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:50

Mm-hmm.

Claude-Michel Schonberg30:59

On a story.

Presenter31:00

On the story.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:01

Okay.

Presenter31:02

What about the story of Nelson Mandela? Mandela the Opera, that would be good.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:05

Hmm it depends for whom. All the subjects are good. It depends for whi w which writer.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:11

I never I I we never dared to write an opera about Evita, and when I saw the show I understood why it was such a good subject.

Presenter31:18

Well, precisely. And there are so many, you know, events of the second half of the twentieth century. You could be remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall or Leslie Ma in Paris.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:20

And

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:24

They live in marriage.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:26

Beware of uh telling somebody lies.

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:30

Because sometimes it it's not very interesting. I always used to say if tomorrow I have to write a show about the life of Mussolini, for instance, I will never tell his life as a young socialist becoming a dictator and everything. I will always describe the three days he spent in his life deciding is if he have to condemn his son-in-law, Ciano, with her daughter

Claude-Michel Schonberg31:56

Begging for the life of her husband. That's the most interesting moment in his life. So you're always.

Presenter32:01

So you're always looking for the small fine

Presenter32:04

Most dramatic moment.

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:07

I mean the the moment w manage the audience to have a kind of catharsis with what's happening on stage.

Presenter32:13

Well, you can compose all alone on the desert island. You can go on composing this music or whatever it is, in between the fishing and the cooking. I presume, like all good Frenchmen, you're going to get the cuisine sorted out quite quickly, huh?

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:22

Not at all. I'm Jewish-Hungarian, born in France by chance.

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:27

and I'm not in very interested by food.

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:30

When I have to eat, I just stand in front of the fridge, I open it, I pick up some bitten pieces and

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:37

After ten minutes I am gone. But I will be very happy on a desert island.

Presenter32:40

Will you?

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:41

Yes, because what I'm looking for when I'm composing is complete silence, to listen to the music inside me, hoping that it will come.

Presenter32:51

Last trip.

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:51

Yeah.

Claude-Michel Schonberg32:52

If I have to go on a desert island tomorrow and if I have to bring only one record with me, it will be this recording.

Claude-Michel Schonberg33:01

Every composer aims.

Claude-Michel Schonberg33:04

To this goal of writing music such

Claude-Michel Schonberg33:10

A extraordinary and beautiful way.

Claude-Michel Schonberg33:13

As Arisha Strauss did when at the end of his life he wrote what is called the four last songs.

Speaker 333:42

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 334:05

Oh, it's one of the f

Presenter34:20

Beim Schlaffengeen, Ongoing to Sleep, the third of Richard Strauss's four last songs, sung by Kirit Kahner, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis.

Presenter34:29

Now, um, we give you the complete works of Shakespeare and we give you the Bible. Um, but you can take it. Can you take me in French? Uh yes, if you'd like me in French, Shakespeare.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:34

Thank you in French.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:37

Shakespeare in English form, it's very hard.

Presenter34:39

Great.

Presenter34:40

You can have one book of your own choice. What would you like?

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:43

It's an American writer from California.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:46

Its name is Wallace Stegner.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:50

And the original title is All the Little Live Sings.

Presenter34:54

All the little live things.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:55

Things it's a pathetic story.

Claude-Michel Schonberg34:59

To all people living in the country in California, with young neighbors and the woman she's sick and she's dying of cancer.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:09

And there is a gorgeous parallel.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:12

With the

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:13

Evolution of the nature of the seasons.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:18

and th the health and the condition of this woman.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:22

It's an

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:23

Amazing book.

Presenter35:25

And we allow you a luxury as well. What would you like?

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:28

I have no choice.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:29

It would be a grand piano.

Presenter35:31

And you'll sit there and turn the tap on and see what pours out.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:34

Hmm.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:35

That the equation is time.

Presenter35:38

Claude Michel Schoenberg, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Claude-Michel Schonberg35:42

Thank you.

Speaker 235:49

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.