Cathy Berberian

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

Our castaway this week is a singer who covers a very wide range of songs. It's Kathy Berberian.

Presenter0:37

Mr. Verian, where do we start? Let's have the first disc. What have you chosen?

Cathy Berberian0:41

Well, the first recording is of folk songs, Bulgarian folk songs, basically because I adore folk songs and they were practically the first things that I heard when I was a little girl.

Cathy Berberian0:53

Um they were Armenian and Russian actually, but

Cathy Berberian0:56

I have since become a great fan of the Bulgarian folk songs.

Speaker 30:59

Mm-hmm.

Cathy Berberian1:00

Also, because my father was born in Bulgaria, even though he was you know, he came from an Armenian family.

Cathy Berberian1:06

And somehow, even though it's not it's an environmental background,

Cathy Berberian1:10

It uh has an en enormous influence on me.

Presenter1:12

And what about the song?

Cathy Berberian1:14

It's uh three voices, female voices, working in uh seconds and beautiful dissonances, and some of the widest use of the voice that I know.

Cathy Berberian1:24

I think it's one of the most exciting pieces of folk music.

Speaker 31:28

Is it my boss?

Speaker 31:41

Yeah.

Speaker 31:46

Is it Martha?

Presenter2:00

The drums roll by the chorus of the Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic.

Presenter2:05

Right. So you were born of Armenian parents in America, of course.

Cathy Berberian2:08

Yes. In Massachusetts.

Presenter2:11

Did you hear a lot of music as a child? Were your parents musical?

Cathy Berberian2:14

My mother is very musical. My father could take it or leave it and generally left it. But um my mother had a lot of records around and she was wise enough to permit me to use the records even as a little girl. She figured that it

Cathy Berberian2:27

All right, if a record broke it was okay, but the important thing was that I should want to play a record and hear music.

Presenter2:33

What sort of records were they made?

Cathy Berberian2:34

They were opera. Most of them were opera.

Presenter2:36

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian2:36

The first record was sort of like the blinding revelation that Saul had in the Bible.

Presenter2:42

Was singing then your first first ambition, your first information.

Cathy Berberian2:42

I see

Cathy Berberian2:45

Well, it was my first interest in classical music came from listening to this record of Tito Schipa singing Echoridentecello from Barbara Saville.

Presenter2:54

Yes.

Cathy Berberian2:54

And I literally flipped my lid.

Presenter2:56

So you wanted to sing? I wanted to sing.

Presenter2:59

Where did you study?

Cathy Berberian3:01

Well, I studied with the records, believe it or not. I used to sing along with Lily Pons and sing along with with Ezio Pinza and and old recordings of Shaliapin. So I was doing the baritone repertoire, the bass repertoire and the colouriteur repertoire. And nobody had told me that you can't, you see, so I did.

Presenter3:11

The basement which is

Presenter3:17

And learning piano as well?

Cathy Berberian3:19

Yes, rather reluctantly, but I learned it.

Presenter3:22

And then when you went to music college?

Cathy Berberian3:25

No, you see what happened was that uh that I had a very small voice, a very thin voice as a matter of fact, my family called it a frog's voice, and every one would laugh at the idea of my wanting to be a singer.

Cathy Berberian3:37

And uh you know, for them the the big voices, the you know, the more saracabaya type of voices were the ones that really counted. But I was very stubborn and I knew that I had to sing and I just continued, you know. So what I did was I would s when I s finished high school, I took a part-time job to pay for my lessons. I wouldn't have to ask my father and go through that whole hassle, you know, what do you want to sing for?

Presenter3:57

Hm. Now you did in fact go to study in Italy?

Cathy Berberian4:00

Yes, I had all the icing. I had all of the interpretation and and the repertoire and everything, but the voice wasn't in line.

Cathy Berberian4:07

And I went to Italy to find the voice, and I found a teacher who could put it in line, and I also found.

Cathy Berberian4:15

a husband who was a young music student in the conservatory at the time and who later became the very great Luciano Berrio.

Presenter4:23

Well, let's break at this point your arrival on the Italian scene for your second record.

Cathy Berberian4:29

Yes, the second record is

Presenter4:31

Opera

Cathy Berberian4:32

but which has always been very important to me as a as a young girl in America.

Cathy Berberian4:36

After discovering Tithoskipa,

Cathy Berberian4:38

I used to spend all of my pocket money for piano scores, piano voice scores, and I would listen to uh the Saturday afternoon performances of the Metropolitan.

Cathy Berberian4:49

In a way, I was learning the repertoire. And in the beginning, I thought I was a choratura, so I learned all of the high parts, the manon, the lucia, and gilda, and all that. And then I was told by Herbert Graf that I was a mezzo, so I started learning Carmen.

Presenter5:03

It had already been through the bass and barry term rolling.

Cathy Berberian5:05

Oh, yes, well that was continued. Of course you should hear me on a.

Cathy Berberian5:10

On a late night when I do my version of Shalyap into singing the flute.

Speaker 35:15

Uh

Cathy Berberian5:15

But um

Speaker 35:15

But

Cathy Berberian5:17

Opera has been a consistent love with me.

Cathy Berberian5:20

And uh perhaps the opera that I have loved most, the whole opera, is La Boheme. And I would like to hear the Liti Albanese recording of it, because that's the one

Cathy Berberian5:29

that that became very important to me when I was a young girl, because I heard the live performance of this recording.

Presenter6:34

Lucia Albinese as Mimi in Laboin. So an American, Armenian, Bulgarian opera student in Italy.

Presenter6:43

What happened next? You got a Fulbright to help you study a a scholarship.

Cathy Berberian6:47

Yes. In order to get a full bride I needed an accompanist and uh someone found him for me and that was Lieutenant of Berrio.

Presenter6:53

Command

Cathy Berberian6:53

And that's the man I married. And the day that we married was the day that my Fulbright began. And so we had our first year of married life very comfortably subsidized by the United States Government.

Presenter6:53

The day

Presenter7:04

Splendid. And did you sing the the Italian repertory in Italy?

Cathy Berberian7:08

Well, uh we began that way because in order for to earn some money Luciano was conducting, and he conducted Lucia.

Cathy Berberian7:15

and uh Rigoletto, and I sang uh Aliza, the handmaiden of Lucia, and uh did uh Magdalena in Rigoletto.

Cathy Berberian7:26

But I didn't find that the opera world was was for me. Um I have too many things going on in my head to be able to

Cathy Berberian7:33

to settle down into that routine.

Presenter7:35

Now Luciano Berio discovered that his musical ideas were really rather different from those of Buccini Oberdi.

Cathy Berberian7:44

I would say they were a continuation, but uh in another line. Actually when we had gotten married he um he brought up this new field that he was interested in,'cause as a singer I was ox very square.

Cathy Berberian7:56

uh strictly classical and uh he talked about Wocek of Alban Berg and uh when I first heard that I thought, Oh my god, if he writes music like this we're going to starve

Cathy Berberian8:07

And little by little I began to understand it, to appreciate it, and finally to love it.

Cathy Berberian8:13

And then it was just one more step for me to do that kind of music, the kind that he was writing.

Presenter8:13

Yeah.

Presenter8:17

How would you describe what he was writing? He was really enlarging the the the frontiers of music.

Cathy Berberian8:23

Yes, well it's very difficult because lots of labels have been given to th the kind of music, uh the the new music that was being written in the fifties. It was called post Webern and uh post uh I don't know what else and serialistic they called it. But the real composers couldn't be fitted under a title. They used avant-garde, but it's become such a cliché that that avant-garde doesn't work any more.

Cathy Berberian8:46

I just consider it good new music.

Presenter8:50

Now you spent a a number of years performing this music. Did you find it was rather limiting to your career that you became a sort of high priestess of o of this kind of music?

Cathy Berberian9:01

Well, actually in a way it expanded many aspects of my my career that I hadn't anticipated and it literally made a name for me. But it became rather harrying to think that I was only considered as a contemporary music singer when I had a whole complete background of other things behind me. But I owe a great deal to contemporary music because in a way it it made it possible for me to meet uh one of the greatest musicians of all times, uh Igor Stravinsky.

Presenter9:30

With whom you worked?

Cathy Berberian9:31

with whom I worked. We did several concerts and uh recordings together.

Presenter9:31

What we

Cathy Berberian9:35

But the relationship, the friendship relationship was one of the high m moments of my life.

Presenter9:41

So that's why you've chosen a record by Strabinski that's on your list here.

Cathy Berberian9:45

also because it happens to be one of the masterpieces of all time, and that's the Sacre de Prentin, the Rites of Spring.

Cathy Berberian9:51

And um I've chosen, I think, uh one of the most exciting moments of that.

Presenter10:57

The sacrifice from Stravenki's The Rite of Spring, Pierre Monteur conducting the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra.

Presenter11:05

What

Cathy Berberian11:05

Yeah.

Presenter11:06

Other composers if you worked with have have written for you.

Cathy Berberian11:09

Well, there have been lots of composers that have written for me. There was Darius Millot and Bussotti and Pousser.

Cathy Berberian11:17

Um

Cathy Berberian11:18

It was getting to be a little bit stuffy, though, because it it got so that no one wanted to think of me. That there was this cliché of of contemporary music.

Cathy Berberian11:28

To the point I'll I'll tell you, I was at an Avant Garde festival in Sweden and I found out that they were performing the film of Rosenkavalier with Herbert von Kayan.

Cathy Berberian11:36

Conducting

Cathy Berberian11:37

And I wanted very badly to see it, and I asked an avant-garde sculptor to take me there, and he was fairly unwilling, but he said he would.

Cathy Berberian11:44

And we went there and of course uh unfailingly um during the trio I started to cry and he was so shocked.

Presenter11:52

That last actrio.

Cathy Berberian11:53

That drove him I I don't know, I think my reputation was completely shattered because he couldn't reconcile the fact that I was an avant-garde performer. I should have been totally committed to avant-garde and all of the the rest of music ought to be trash.

Presenter12:07

And that is another of your Desert Island discs, the trio from the Rosen Cavalier.

Cathy Berberian12:12

The trio from and it has to have a little bit Schwarzkopf in it. I don't care who else is singing, but Schwarzkopf's marshalling is unbeatable.

Speaker 312:32

Yeah.

Presenter13:22

The trio from the last act of Der Rosen Cavalier.

Presenter13:26

Krista Ludwig, Theresa Strick Randall, and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf.

Presenter13:31

There's an intriguing note here that you did some experimental work with Peter Brooke. What was that about?

Cathy Berberian13:36

Well, he invited me and about five or six other people, of different uh crafts, I should say,

Cathy Berberian13:43

To um

Cathy Berberian13:44

To exchange ideas and experiences with his nuclear group.

Cathy Berberian13:49

I would be teaching them the use of voice in other ways besides acting. And there was an actress and there was a there was a director, uh, Chakin from the Open Theatre.

Cathy Berberian14:01

And we spent three weeks exchanging information, performance information, and trying and dancing and singing and

Cathy Berberian14:10

And it was one of the most important moments of my career too.

Presenter14:14

bouncing off each other.

Cathy Berberian14:16

bouncing off each other, the things I learned. As a matter of fact, when I first went in to the group I felt like it was Mars. And at the end of three weeks

Cathy Berberian14:25

I thought going back to earth was Mars. It was uh totally mind-boggling.

Presenter14:30

You have this extraordinary gift for languages. How many do you sing in?

Cathy Berberian14:35

Well, for the moment, twenty-six, but I'll take on any language as long as I can hear it performed authentically.

Presenter14:37

But I'll take

Presenter14:41

How many of those do you speak?

Cathy Berberian14:43

Ah, three and three quarters.

Presenter14:45

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian14:46

French, English and Italian I speak fluently.

Speaker 314:50

Hmm.

Cathy Berberian14:50

Uh Armenian half and half.

Cathy Berberian14:53

and a quarter German, just enough to order a good meal and find my way to the railroad station.

Presenter14:59

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

Cathy Berberian15:01

Well, this in a way represents my uh insane desire to get out of the avant-garde cliché.

Cathy Berberian15:09

Honencour asked me to perform in his recording of Orofeo of Monteverde, and I had never done Monteverdi before, and I hedged a war because I felt that we might conflict on on performance style.

Cathy Berberian15:22

Anyway, he liked what I did, and we recorded it, and from then on I became again a kind of Moto Verdi expert. That's what they called it. And this

Cathy Berberian15:31

Performance is of the Della Consort doing Lamento della Nympha of Claudio Monteverdi.

Cathy Berberian15:39

The part that's called Amour, one of the most beautiful Baroque torch songs.

Speaker 315:56

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 316:18

Yeah.

Speaker 316:31

Uh

Speaker 316:33

Yep.

Speaker 316:40

Please have you

Presenter16:45

The Dalla Consort?

Presenter16:47

Monte Verdes amour from Lamento de la Nympha from Matrigali Amorosi.

Speaker 316:54

Good.

Presenter16:55

Now you've rethought and given new life to

Presenter16:59

The the old recital. And to start with you give your recitals titles let me quote one or two second hand songs, songs by women composers, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and so on.

Cathy Berberian17:11

Yeah.

Presenter17:12

This opens up possibilities.

Cathy Berberian17:14

Well, I feel that there's there's such a possibility of making a recital evening uh far from that stodgy chiffon handkerchief in one's hand school singing.

Presenter17:25

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian17:25

And I started out with my Monteveda to the Beatles, making it a kind of panorama of different vocal styles, and then I went into Sublime the Ridiculous, which was a funny recital in costume. And second hand songs grew out of

Presenter17:29

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian17:37

uh that which are derivative things, things which were originally for, let's say, symphony or for s for piano, that some crazy people had put words to and delivered them into utterly insane areas.

Cathy Berberian17:51

And then I did, um

Cathy Berberian17:53

Folklore and the composer, which includes all of those twenty-six languages we were talking about.

Presenter17:56

Folk songs of all sorts of folk.

Cathy Berberian17:59

But generally in relationship to the composer.

Presenter18:02

And you do some rather malicious impressions of out-of-tune singers. It's very difficult to sing out of tune, isn't it? Unless you do it naturally, I mean

Cathy Berberian18:10

Yes, that's true. I think it's probably the most difficult part of of uh my clowning to sing bad. I cannot listen to my recordings of singing off key. I I love to perform that way, but I cannot listen to them.

Presenter18:22

And you talked about your Baroque versions of Beatles songs. Of course, you do some teaching and and and

Cathy Berberian18:28

Oh yes, I do a lot of masterclasses. I find that uh that most singing teachers have their hands full just getting the voice in line. They don't usually have en enough time to develop the contours that every singer should have that goes beyond just the singing. Um how many times I've been asked by the pupils, what do I do with my hands?

Cathy Berberian18:48

And it's so strange because I I don't have any problems, so I have to start from way back and figure out what would I do if I had trouble with my hands.

Presenter18:48

And it's so strange.

Presenter18:56

A cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

Cathy Berberian18:58

Right. That's uh but I find that uh m many people uh have been vocally prepared, let's say, for opera, but they don't understand what it is to be a global performer, for example, the way Kalas was. She was so totally perfect in her performances. The character was was absolutely right, and the gestures and the

Cathy Berberian19:20

The inner light which illuminated her was as if she herself was the the character.

Speaker 319:25

Hmm.

Cathy Berberian19:26

And that happened so very rarely.

Cathy Berberian19:29

Of course there'll never be another cars.

Cathy Berberian19:31

And that's one of the reasons why I felt that I couldn't go on that desert island without her.

Speaker 319:48

Oh, it is the actual hey now to get

Speaker 320:00

We call it the farm.

Speaker 320:26

Yeah.

Presenter20:37

Maria Callas in the second act of Puccini's Tosca.

Presenter20:42

Of course recording plays a very big part in your career, doesn't it?

Cathy Berberian20:45

Yes. I would say that it's the philo conduttore, as we say in Italian. It's the thread that goes all the way through the little pearls of my existence. First of all, because it was a recording that turned me on to classical music.

Cathy Berberian20:57

And uh I studied with them, literally, without knowing that I was studying, because I sang along with them. And then I I sold records at G. Shermer's music store in America.

Presenter21:07

The bank

Presenter21:09

Successfully? Of course.

Cathy Berberian21:10

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian21:11

Cause do I do anything not well?

Presenter21:13

But well

Speaker 321:13

Uh

Cathy Berberian21:14

Ha ha ha!

Cathy Berberian21:15

No, because I loved it. I loved helping people to find the records that they were looking for, you know.

Cathy Berberian21:20

Um and then of course making records is very important, although I prefer live performances and and in making records I'm um

Cathy Berberian21:30

In a way, I'm not a perfectionist in the sense that I refuse to do a piece thirty and forty times. I do it two and a half times the maximum because I f I lose

Presenter21:39

Spontaneity.

Cathy Berberian21:40

That spontaneity. There are other people who are just the the reverse. You know, they have to build up to it and it takes them the time. I'm just the opposite.

Presenter21:48

Another of your activities you've translated a number of books from Italian.

Cathy Berberian21:51

Yeah. Well, most of them are are are comic books. Comics in the sense of uh humorous books. Jules Pfeiffer cartoons and I translated the two Woody Allens.

Presenter21:56

Do

Cathy Berberian22:01

Because you have to be an American to understand the the humor of the Odi Allen, and you have to know the uh analogous idea, the Italian idea. And then of course someone who was really Italian cleaned it up and and adapted it for the

Cathy Berberian22:15

Pure Italian language.

Presenter22:18

Have we got to record number seven? What's that to be?

Cathy Berberian22:20

Well, that's uh a very important part of my life. Luciano Berrio. I mean, having to choose one record.

Cathy Berberian22:26

Out of all the magnificent things he's done, it was probably the most difficult decision I had to make.

Cathy Berberian22:33

And I think I picked uh one of the richest of his compositions. It's got everything in it.

Cathy Berberian22:39

And the section that I chose is the very famous one, the third movement, which incorporates the Mala Resurrection Symphony theme.

Cathy Berberian22:50

And it has

Cathy Berberian22:52

Oh, about thirty or forty musical quotations popping up.

Cathy Berberian22:56

And uh one can hear

Cathy Berberian22:59

The Revelle Waltz and the Rosen Cavalier waltzes wedded together in the most ingenious way.

Speaker 323:07

Wait for the compulsory show to begin.

Speaker 323:11

It takes time. You hear a voice. Perhaps it's a recitation. That is the show. Someone reciting selected passages, holding their breaths, or someone improvising. You can barely hear them. That's the show. You can't leave. You're afraid to leave. You make the best of it. You try. And be f ⁇ ed.

Speaker 323:35

Just a little bit.

Speaker 323:50

Show waiting for the show to the sound of a hand.

Speaker 323:56

Oh, perhaps it's the air ascending these.

Speaker 324:02

The men are badly receiving accident finding

Presenter24:07

part of the third movement of Luciano Berrio's Symphonia.

Presenter24:11

The swingled singers were the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer.

Presenter24:16

I suppose you're as likely a castaway for a desert island as anyone. How well do you think you would stand up to being a castaway?

Cathy Berberian24:24

Uh, practically rather badly, because I'm a a very sophisticated city dweller type.

Cathy Berberian24:32

I think one of the first things I would do is to find out

Cathy Berberian24:36

How many living people are on that island? I don't care if they're tribes or even cannibals. I was.

Presenter24:42

I assume there's nobody on the island except you.

Cathy Berberian24:45

Oh, how disastrous I was counting on playing the White Goddess.

Presenter24:49

Yeah.

Cathy Berberian24:52

Oh, that that really smashes all of my plans.

Presenter24:55

I'm sorry, Cathy. We have rules, you see.

Cathy Berberian24:58

I see. Well, uh I'm just going to have to live uh rather primitively, I'm afraid. Uh

Presenter25:05

Are you good cooked?

Cathy Berberian25:06

That's about the only thing I can do very well.

Presenter25:09

Yes.

Cathy Berberian25:13

Uh well, that goes back to the practicality bit. Um I might have ideas, but I don't think any of them would work.

Presenter25:20

You don't fancy yourself doing a little woodwork and knocking together a ship.

Cathy Berberian25:24

Well, I could probably knock it together, but it would probably fall apart, knowing my uh proficiency.

Presenter25:31

You stay just where you are.

Cathy Berberian25:32

Yeah.

Presenter25:33

Record number eight.

Cathy Berberian25:35

Well, record number eight is a very important part of my life, too. It's the Beatles.

Cathy Berberian25:40

Because partly it it's involved with my daughter. She was in her teens when the Beatles came out, and I lived through that period with a great amount of joy.

Cathy Berberian25:50

and I consider them to be an important aspect of contemporary music, and perhaps the best of them all.

Presenter25:56

And what are we going to hear?

Cathy Berberian25:58

Well, we're going to hear Eleanor Rigby, which is something that pulls at my heart strings.

Speaker 326:16

Helena Ring

Speaker 326:18

Except the rice in the church where a wedding has been

Speaker 326:23

Lives in a dream, waits at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in her jar by the door

Presenter26:33

Eleanor Rigby from the long player called Revolver by You Know Who. Now out of these eight records you've played to us today, which one would you take if you could only take one?

Cathy Berberian26:46

I think I would have to have to take Luciano Sinfonia.

Cathy Berberian26:50

most representative of what I am.

Presenter26:54

And you're allowed to take one luxury to the island with you nothing of any practical use.

Cathy Berberian26:59

Well, it depends on what you call practical. I consider it a luxury if you're on a desert island and uh as wild a combination of gourmet and gourmand as I am, I would have to have a box of spices with me. How can you eat those stuff without any

Presenter27:12

Oh yes, yes, we have a lot of that.

Cathy Berberian27:15

Corianderer.

Cathy Berberian27:17

Terror

Presenter27:18

It's not possible. A great big box of spices.

Cathy Berberian27:20

Oh, endless bucks.

Presenter27:22

Right.

Presenter27:23

And one book

Presenter27:25

The Bible and Shakespeare are already placed on the island for you, and we put the bar up on big encyclopedias.

Cathy Berberian27:32

Well, I figured that some kooky friend of mine would have the insight to give me on my

Cathy Berberian27:39

on leaving on the boat. It is a boat we're taking.

Presenter27:42

A boat, I should think, yes.

Cathy Berberian27:43

Uh

Cathy Berberian27:44

Yes, a sailing ship. Well, he would he would put in into a a basket of fruit.

Cathy Berberian27:51

Either How to Survive on a Desert Island or Robinson Crusoe if that were not available.

Presenter27:58

A good practical

Cathy Berberian27:59

A good practical book to help me survive.

Presenter28:02

Right, we'll sort out the best one for you. In fact, we might even give you a selection. And thank you, Cathy Barberian, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Cathy Berberian28:11

I'm sinking into the water.

Presenter28:13

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 128:24

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