Dame Maggie Teyte

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and you are listening to Desert Island Discs.

Speaker 10:05

This edition of Desert Island Discs was archived without the music, so although the Castaways choices are introduced, they're not part of this recording.

Speaker 10:15

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:20

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 10:24

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:27

Our castaway this week, ladies and gentlemen, is a prima donna, a very celebrated British singer, Dame Maggie Tate.

Presenter0:33

Day Maggie, what was your plan in picking just eight records that may have to last the rest of your life?

Dame Maggie Teyte0:38

Please, Roy, can I ask you something? Um, don't call me dame.

Dame Maggie Teyte0:44

I know I it's a great honor and I'm very pleased to have it, but I would like you to call me just Maggie, just like everybody else.

Presenter0:51

Thank you, I will.

Presenter0:53

But now what was this plan?

Dame Maggie Teyte0:55

For the eight records.

Dame Maggie Teyte0:57

Well, first variety?

Dame Maggie Teyte0:59

Because I have piano, singing, instruments, a bit of orchestra, so therefore I get a variety, and also a boy soprano.

Dame Maggie Teyte1:10

But first I shall take

Dame Maggie Teyte1:14

Clifford Curzon with me, and his Vals Oublier of Liszt.

Presenter1:20

Why'd you choose this?

Dame Maggie Teyte1:22

Well, the delicate touch that he has

Dame Maggie Teyte1:27

Uh it's really as if he has uh butterfly wings attached to his fingertips. It's so beautifully played.

Presenter1:36

Clifford Curzon enlists Val Soublier, number one. What's your second choice?

Dame Maggie Teyte1:42

The second is the boy soprano that I want to take with me. This record uh would help me to keep in touch with pure sound.

Dame Maggie Teyte1:51

You mustn't forget that on a desert island

Dame Maggie Teyte1:55

There would be skawking parrots and gnattering monkeys, and it would be like pop music to me, and that is something I want to get away from.

Presenter2:07

Richard White, as soloist with the choir of King's College, Cambridge, singing Stanford's Magnificat in G. Maggie, where were you born?

Dame Maggie Teyte2:15

I was born in Wolverhampton.

Presenter2:18

Music.

Dame Maggie Teyte2:18

In Staffordshire.

Presenter2:20

Musical family, did you hear a lot of music?

Dame Maggie Teyte2:21

Oh, I didn't hear a lot of music, but uh I come from a musical family. My father was a an a very good amateur pianist. And uh from my mother's side I inherited the voice. They all sang on my mother's side.

Presenter2:37

When did you start to study singing?

Dame Maggie Teyte2:40

Oh, when I went to Paris I was sent to Paris by Walter Rubens, who heard me sing at a church here in Maiden Lane.

Dame Maggie Teyte2:49

And he said, Oh, you must go to Paris and study with Jean de Rechque. I must have been about uh sixteen and a half.

Presenter2:52

I'm

Presenter2:55

Jean Toreski must have been not only one of the most distinguished singing teachers in Europe, but also one of the most expensive.

Dame Maggie Teyte3:02

He was very expensive. He charged

Dame Maggie Teyte3:05

Eight guineas for fifteen minutes and of course uh seventy five percent of his pupils naturally were made up of American girls.

Presenter3:16

There was a a few of us there. How long did you study with him?

Dame Maggie Teyte3:20

Two years and three months exactly, when I sang to him before being accepted as a pupil.

Dame Maggie Teyte3:26

He uh

Dame Maggie Teyte3:28

It was in his salon, in his house in the Rue de la Faisandre, Paris, and he said, In two years she will make her debut and I said to myself, Good gracious me, two years. I don't I can only speak English. I don't know any foreign languages at all. I know nothing about singing. I know nothing about anything.

Dame Maggie Teyte3:46

But he was right, because it was two years and three months exactly, and I made my debut in Monte Carlo.

Presenter3:53

In opera?

Dame Maggie Teyte3:54

In opera in Don Giovene, Cze Erlina.

Presenter3:57

And before you were twenty you were singing leading roles at the Opera Comique in Paris.

Dame Maggie Teyte4:02

Yes. I shouldn't say that all of them were. I sang a lot of Mozart, of course, at the Opera Comique.

Presenter4:07

Yeah. And who started the role of Melissande with Debussy himself.

Presenter4:12

Yeah.

Presenter4:13

What was your first impression of him?

Dame Maggie Teyte4:15

Well, he was a very big man.

Dame Maggie Teyte4:18

very sombre looking and uh black hair and black beard

Dame Maggie Teyte4:24

very broad shouldered. He was he must have if he stood upright, he must have been about six

Dame Maggie Teyte4:31

Over six feet.

Presenter4:32

Mhm. Was he easier to work with? Did you have any trouble with him?

Dame Maggie Teyte4:35

No, none at all. He was very easy to work with. To begin with, he never made any conversation. Whenever he came into the room for rehearsals he went straight to the piano, he started rehearsing right away, and it went like that for an hour.

Dame Maggie Teyte4:51

And you know I went there for nine months, and he never even spoke anything to me, no no conversation of any kind.

Presenter5:00

Would you say he was a perfectionist?

Dame Maggie Teyte5:02

Uh yes, very much so.

Dame Maggie Teyte5:04

Although I heard him say one day, Wagner and Mozart and everybody else, they don't know anything about music, you can tear up their music. And yet I sang his music to him exactly as Doreschki taught me to sing Mozart. And it was for this perfection of Mozart singing that he what he liked. And I it's it's always been a mystery to me, this business.

Dame Maggie Teyte5:29

Because people whenever uh you asked people to play Debussy Oh, I couldn't do that, I can't write read Debussy, they said, and they all get frightened to death about it. But it's not at all uh it wasn't a bit difficult. I learnt Debussy just the same as I learnt a Mozart earlier.

Presenter5:47

Yeah.

Presenter5:48

Where did you make your professional debut in this country?

Dame Maggie Teyte5:51

With Tommy uh Sir Thomas Beacon, I should say.

Presenter5:54

I should

Dame Maggie Teyte5:55

at His Majesty's Theatre with the British uh National Opera Company that he had.

Presenter6:02

And in the end,

Dame Maggie Teyte6:02

Again in Mozart.

Presenter6:04

Yes. And in the United States?

Dame Maggie Teyte6:06

I went to the United States in nineteen twelve, I think, nineteen thirteen, just before the war.

Presenter6:13

To sing opera once again.

Dame Maggie Teyte6:14

Oh yes, I went to the uh Chicago Opera Company there to sing Cinderella with the with the famous Mary Garden.

Presenter6:18

To sing

Presenter6:22

Mm-hmm.

Presenter6:23

Mary Garden, of course, had been the original Melissande. How did she take to meeting her successor?

Dame Maggie Teyte6:30

She didn't take to it very well. She wasn't very kind. She

Dame Maggie Teyte6:34

I shouldn't say this, of course, but to me she was the real Prima Donna. I don't know what that means to you.

Presenter6:40

Yeah.

Presenter6:42

Let's have your third record.

Dame Maggie Teyte6:44

My third record.

Dame Maggie Teyte6:47

is Flagstead. I must have a record of Flagstead.

Dame Maggie Teyte6:51

because of this wonderful voice. And when I was near to her at the Mermaid Theatre, I learned how she used her body so beautifully. It was the timing and the in fact she had turned her body into a beautiful machine because nobody before or since I've heard breathes like Flextett. She had the most wonderful breathing capacity.

Presenter7:22

The closing passage of Brunhilde's immolation scene from Goethe Dammerung, sung by Kirsten Flagstadt.

Presenter7:29

Now you spent the years of the First World War in the United States because you were more or less marooned there. When you came back to this country you adopted a rather lighter type of work for a little while.

Dame Maggie Teyte7:39

Yes, I remember I wanted to come back home.

Dame Maggie Teyte7:43

And of course there was nothing here, nothing happening. A cotton garden was closed, I believe. And so I sent a cable to Lionel Powell, the big impresario at that time, and said must come home. Please find me something to do. And by the next post I received a cable saying, a message.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:03

is having his opera, Monsieur Beaucare.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:08

presented here, what about it? And I said yes.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:12

Took up

Dame Maggie Teyte8:13

Uh tickets and

Dame Maggie Teyte8:15

the journey and everything and got back here as fast as I could. Well, then that led uh of course Boca it went for six months and then we closed because there was a general strike or something.

Speaker 18:23

Yeah.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:28

Then I went in to the little Dutch girl.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:32

And uh again six months.

Dame Maggie Teyte8:35

General strike, I'm that close. So I was forced back on the straight and narrow path of art. I had to go back to into recitals and concerts.

Presenter8:46

Then in the thirties your career seemed to come unstuck a bit. You you hit a bad patch, didn't you, for a few years?

Dame Maggie Teyte8:52

Yes, exactly, because life was unsettled and th the bad nineteen thirties, I believe they were called here. I don't know what happened here in nineteen thirties, something. Anyhow, I read a great deal about the radio.

Presenter8:59

Uh

Speaker 18:59

What?

Speaker 19:02

Eh, anyhow.

Dame Maggie Teyte9:06

of America. And I thought, well, why shouldn't I?

Dame Maggie Teyte9:11

Get into that racket over there. Well, I went there in nineteen thirty-seven.

Dame Maggie Teyte9:18

and couldn't make any progress at all. Everybody said to me, Oh, Miss Tate, but you mustn't forget you're forgotten here. Well, that was a challenge.

Presenter9:29

It was a series of records that put you back on top, wasn't it?

Dame Maggie Teyte9:31

That came the year after.

Dame Maggie Teyte9:33

When Joe Brogan of the Gramophone Shop of New York suddenly insisted on having the DeBissi album and they were made

Dame Maggie Teyte9:43

and I then that I hope to use it to bring me back before the public again.

Presenter9:47

A big comeback in the United States and international success.

Dame Maggie Teyte9:51

And then of course nineteen forty came and another war came.

Presenter9:56

Cheers.

Dame Maggie Teyte9:56

So that's the way it goes.

Presenter9:59

Well, let's have your fourth record now. What next?

Dame Maggie Teyte10:02

Uh well, you know that I'm a radio and T V uh fan.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:07

And lately I have missed the um cultured English voice speaking its own language.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:19

So I'm going to take

Dame Maggie Teyte10:21

A record of John Gilgood.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:25

to bring back memories of how English should be spoken.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:33

Um so let us hear John Gilgood, please.

Presenter10:37

SIR JOHN GILGOOD, THE TEMPIST.

Presenter10:40

Now, Maggie, you kept singing at a pitch of perfection for over fifty years, long after most other singers had given up. What was your secret?

Dame Maggie Teyte10:49

Oh, the method of Jean Doreschque, of course.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:53

Nothing lives without method.

Dame Maggie Teyte10:57

Or tradition. When I say tradition, everybody fights shy of this word of tradition here in England. I don't know why. They w you see, they think that they're being squares when you use the word tradition.

Dame Maggie Teyte11:11

And it's not true.

Dame Maggie Teyte11:13

Because no one can build a house that will stand unless they build it with tradition. Because if you don't build your plumbing right according to tradition, what's the good of the house? So that's what I say to some of the pupils who rather look at scornfully at me when I say tradition. You must learn your Mozart and learn tradition.

Dame Maggie Teyte11:34

Ooh.

Presenter11:34

Did you continue to do daily vocal exercises even if you were singing A Roll of Night?

Dame Maggie Teyte11:40

Every day

Presenter11:40

B

Dame Maggie Teyte11:41

B You have to, because uh when you sing before the public

Dame Maggie Teyte11:46

Everybody lets their hair down, so to speak. And this is the time that you collect faults. Therefore, the next morning you must come back to the to the rules, you see. You must do exercises. It's very essential for any singer, if they have any

Dame Maggie Teyte12:06

Um

Dame Maggie Teyte12:08

Pro if they are real singers I'm talking I'm not talking now about uh demi

Dame Maggie Teyte12:14

amateurs, you know.

Presenter12:15

You know?

Dame Maggie Teyte12:16

I'm talking about the real thing.

Dame Maggie Teyte12:18

and you'll find that they all do exercises every day.

Presenter12:22

Now you're teaching yourself, of course.

Dame Maggie Teyte12:24

Well, I have been up to but now I'm gradually letting letting it go. I just

Dame Maggie Teyte12:30

give a few hints here and there to my friends, that's all.

Presenter12:34

Let's have another record. We've got to number five now.

Dame Maggie Teyte12:37

Oh, now I'm going to take

Dame Maggie Teyte12:41

Catchaturians waltz, because I think that I shall have to exercise my body. So I want to dance round this island, and I must have this. I adore this w waltz of this man, and it inspires you to move and to dance. So let's have this one now.

Presenter13:01

Cachaturian's Waltz from Masquerade, conducted by the composer.

Presenter13:07

Now we've got to number six. What next?

Dame Maggie Teyte13:11

Shall I be allowed to put one of my own on, Ross? Well, I don't like doing it because it always seems like self adv you know, so self-advertisement, and I don't like that. But anyhow, I don't think a little Offenbach will do us any harm. I'm going to ask for my little record of La Péricole, tunes pariche, tunes par beaut.

Dame Maggie Teyte13:38

Um

Dame Maggie Teyte13:40

I think it um besides it's lighten us up a little bit because uh all the rest of my programme perhaps is a little heavy. I don't know, not the not the last one, but um

Dame Maggie Teyte13:52

Let's have this just for a little bit of fun, a little bit of French.

Presenter13:57

Tou nes parbot, tou nes pariche from La Pericole, one of my favorites.

Presenter14:01

You're not

Dame Maggie Teyte14:02

Correct.

Presenter14:02

Practical personal job.

Dame Maggie Teyte14:04

I don't know. Do would you I suppose the Scotch are. Being Scotch, I suppose I should be. But I don't think I am, really. I

Presenter14:11

I've been looking up some some cuttings about you and and I find that you invented a fire extinguisher once.

Presenter14:17

and that you took a course during the war and became an expert mechanic.

Presenter14:22

And you made yourself an expert on acoustics. All this sounds to me very practical indeed.

Presenter14:27

Now, how well could you look after yourself on this island?

Dame Maggie Teyte14:29

I don't think I g no I'm not going to this desert island to do anything at all. I'm not going to do anything.

Presenter14:38

Well, you'll have to do something. I mean, you'll have to.

Presenter14:41

Pick up some

Dame Maggie Teyte14:41

No, I shall play my records.

Presenter14:42

Mm-hmm.

Dame Maggie Teyte14:45

Just go on playing my records. That's why I think you're awfully stingy, only giving us eight, you know.

Presenter14:52

Back to music, what next?

Dame Maggie Teyte14:53

Let's let's go back to music.

Dame Maggie Teyte14:56

Oh, now I'm going to take a record of Highfits, playing the clairdolin of Debussy. I must have a bit of Debussy somewhere.

Dame Maggie Teyte15:06

And it's his beautiful, dreamy Claire de Lune is such a beautiful piano piece anyhow. And I love Heifitz because to me he is the

Dame Maggie Teyte15:15

uh a great musician. And there's one thing, you know, when we learn a piece of music very, very well, and we know a piece of music, anybody knows a piece of music very well

Dame Maggie Teyte15:28

We are inclined to put our own interpretation on it.

Dame Maggie Teyte15:33

instead of the composer.

Dame Maggie Teyte15:35

Now if I can find a person like Heifitz who gives me the composer and still gives me the interpretation that suits my idea of that piece of music, then of course he's a god.

Dame Maggie Teyte15:49

And this is what I get from High Fitz.

Presenter15:52

High Fitz playing Debussy's Claire DeLune. And what's your last record?

Dame Maggie Teyte15:57

Well, my last record will be

Dame Maggie Teyte16:00

Um

Dame Maggie Teyte16:01

Harry Seacombe.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:03

I want to have I must have had a seekum and his voice.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:08

I think is the most wonderful voice. But, of course, we know Harry Seacombe.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:13

as one of the goons and you know, uh comedy and uh laughing and this and that and the other, making a fool of himself.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:22

Now, I want to hear him.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:24

As an operatic singer. And I

Dame Maggie Teyte16:27

I have chosen

Dame Maggie Teyte16:29

The Nesundorma, isn't it, from Turundot?

Dame Maggie Teyte16:35

Because he really is serious here, and this voice and this like Fleistad.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:42

He's got the volume.

Dame Maggie Teyte16:45

And the quality together. I think this is a wonderful record to end my little seance with you to.

Presenter16:53

Paddy Secum.

Presenter16:54

Nesum Doma from

Presenter16:56

Turundor.

Presenter16:58

Now, three other things you'll have to choose, one disc out of the H you've chosen, one luxury, and one book.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:06

Oh.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:07

Yes.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:09

Um

Dame Maggie Teyte17:11

I have to think about this.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:13

Well, Roy, I must tell you right away.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:17

I shall break all rules and regulations.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:22

I shall not take a book.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:24

I shall stick to my eight records, but

Dame Maggie Teyte17:27

I shall take you and the whole of your library with me to the desert islands.

Presenter17:31

Good.

Presenter17:32

There are rules against this.

Presenter17:36

I'm afraid.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:38

I can't help it.

Presenter17:40

So this is this is kidnapping, is it?

Dame Maggie Teyte17:42

I I s I don't know, you can call it what you like.

Dame Maggie Teyte17:46

I don't mind.

Presenter17:46

Thank you, Dame Mankey Tate, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.