Paul Tortelier

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 nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway this week is the eminent French cellist, conductor and composer Paul Tortellier.

Presenter0:36

We put you on this desert island with a miserable allowance of just eight discs. Would you prefer to have scores rather than discs?

Presenter0:44

I think I would prefer to have records. You'd have the records. Oh, yes. How well could you endure loneliness?

Paul Tortelier0:53

I am prepared for that because most of my life I was uh alone and I was also when I was very young I was alone because my sister my only sister was much older than I. So I think I could stand pretty well, but I would miss my wife.

Presenter1:10

Now eight records, did you find it very difficult to choose?

Paul Tortelier1:14

Not

Presenter1:14

It's so difficult, no.

Paul Tortelier1:16

No, no, no. There are things which stick out of the literature in the

Presenter1:21

Do you have a big collection? Do you keep a lot of records?

Paul Tortelier1:24

What's in your hand?

Presenter1:24

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier1:25

Well, uh f reasonably big, but I never listen to any of them. I never have time.

Presenter1:32

Where is your home now? Do you still live in Paris? No, I'm in Nice.

Paul Tortelier1:36

Yeah.

Presenter1:36

And this

Paul Tortelier1:37

In the sunshine. In the sunshine. Uh sun is my my great passion.

Presenter1:45

Now, your small collection of eight records, what's the first one?

Paul Tortelier1:48

I think uh I must really uh give a chance to my dear friend and ex former pupil, Jacqueline Dupre, to be heard at once, to start, because she plays so beautifully the Elgar concerto. And that's what I would like to hear.

Presenter2:00

Yeah.

Presenter2:06

Which section of the work shall we play?

Paul Tortelier2:08

I w I think she marvels in the slow movement.

Presenter3:12

Part of the slow movement of the Elgar Cello Concerto, Jacqueline Dupuy, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbie Raleigh.

Presenter3:22

Monsieur Tortelier, you were born in Paris, at the bottom of the hill of Maublin.

Paul Tortelier3:26

Yes. Uh Absolutely.

Presenter3:28

Were your parents of Parisian stock?

Paul Tortelier3:29

Uh

Paul Tortelier3:30

No. My father came from Brittany, and my mother had her origin in Lorraine, the country of Joan of Arc.

Presenter3:39

Was there music in your family? Were your parents musical?

Paul Tortelier3:42

They were amateur they played an instrument which has disappeared now. It's a la mandoline. But they they were loved music. That's what's important.

Presenter3:50

And they started you early.

Paul Tortelier3:53

They started me as a yes at the age of six. It's very early for a cellist.

Presenter3:58

So at the age of six you had to practise every day. Did you mind that?

Paul Tortelier4:02

Well, not so much. No, no, no. I did not enjoy that at all. I preferred to play marbles in the street because my bedroom was directly on the ground on the yes. So I could hear the little children playing uh in the streets. So how could I resist? No, no, no. I preferred to to play in the streets and to play the cello. Who was your teacher? Ah, that was a second father. First it was a a lady called Beatrice Blum, and then Feyard, who was a teacher in the conservatory. And this Feyard I think he loved me like his own child.

Paul Tortelier4:40

And uh I remember every day I am thinking of Fayard as much as of my father.

Presenter4:47

Let's have your second record. What's that?

Paul Tortelier4:49

That is a great, great thing of uh Wagner, uh Tristan and Isold. The death of Isold at the end of the opera, which is sung by the wonderful uh singer Linda Esther Gray. Uh Tristan is Isold is something unique, is unique, and I would like to have it.

Presenter6:08

Linda Erster Gray as Isolde, with the orchestra of the Welsh National Opera conducted by Reginald Goodall.

Presenter6:15

You were doing well at your ciano lessons. How are you doing at school?

Presenter6:19

Ah, not so well.

Paul Tortelier6:21

I understand.

Paul Tortelier6:23

Clearly what I explain. But what the other explained to me I don't understand very well.

Presenter6:28

You did in fact leave school very early? Very early, yes. Around ten. When did you start playing professionally? When did you start being paid for your cello playing?

Paul Tortelier6:37

Call up day. I think uh right after my sickness uh I I I was very sick when I was thirteen, so it was about thirteen years old when I played in Bracery in cinema, movie houses to earn my living because I was alone with my mother.

Paul Tortelier6:56

I had to earn my living.

Presenter6:57

A playing for silent movies is a very skilled operation, you have to change mood every few seconds.

Paul Tortelier7:04

Yes, and you have to do a lot of sight reading. Uh sight reading, you know, is uh something difficult in music. It's a special ability. And um as uh my eyes are not as good as my ears, I was not a very, very good sight reader, but then I could develop a lot and finally I become a good sight reader.

Presenter7:26

And sometimes, of course, you could make it up as you went along.

Paul Tortelier7:29

Oh yes, I could improvise if I was lost. If I was lost I I could get into the key. I I had the perfect pitch and I could always manage something. But uh that was not always to the taste of the conductor who thought uh

Presenter7:43

Now he was studying at the Conservatoire. When did

Paul Tortelier7:46

When did that Oh, well, I certainly got into concerto when I was twelve.

Paul Tortelier7:53

Twelve for the Solfejo, because Solfejo in France is something sacred, huh la la.

Paul Tortelier7:59

So I had my first medal, solfeggio, then the cello in the preparatory class, then cello again in a superior class, and then a gap of two years or three years, and then again the conservatoire for harmony. And so I entered when I was twelve, and I finished

Paul Tortelier8:21

In thirty-five, when I was twenty-one. So from twelve to twenty-one, it is nine years in the Cosarado. Can you realize that?

Presenter8:28

Can you re

Presenter8:29

Yes, I can.

Paul Tortelier8:30

One doesn't stay so long nowadays.

Presenter8:32

But you won the first prize for cello?

Paul Tortelier8:35

for cello and for harmony. But you know, I was prouder with the harmony prize than with the cello, because uh it was a battle to get it. I wasn't prepared. Uh you know, it helps to be a pianist if you want to be a good harmonist.

Presenter8:51

You had, of course, taken piano lessons.

Paul Tortelier8:53

Yes.

Presenter8:53

Yes, that is true. That helped me. And all this time, of course, you were having to earn your living as a musician.

Paul Tortelier8:58

At the same time, so I was working night and day.

Paul Tortelier9:02

and my mother sometimes fed me with a spoon while I was copying my my exercise half an hour before I had to take the bus to the Conservatoire.

Presenter9:12

Well, all that hard work paid off. Let's have your third record.

Paul Tortelier9:17

I think the Schubert Quintet with Pablo Casals, because that is a wonderful remembrance for me. Uh I am sorry I play in it, it's not very modest, but it is just to hear uh the beautiful playing of Isaac Stern and Pablo Casalt, and to remember the Prad Festival when we recorded that live.

Speaker 19:24

Yeah.

Presenter10:31

The beginning of the slow movement of the Schubert quintet in C major for strings, with Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Pablo Casals, and Yu.

Presenter10:43

You've been playing in cinemas, cafe orchestras, everywhere in sight. When did you join your first proper orchestra, your first symphony orchestra?

Presenter10:52

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier10:52

It came progressively. First it was a radio, French radio, then it was uh the Societe des Concerret in Paris, then Monte Carlo.

Paul Tortelier11:03

in nineteen thirty five. And then the Boston Symphony.

Presenter11:06

Now, at at Monte Carlo, really, you had some excellent chances as a soloist. You worked with Richard Strauss, didn't you?

Paul Tortelier11:14

Well that was my luck. You must have a bit of luck in life. And I have two or three bits of luck. And that was the first. I was simply first cellist, I was leading cellist, but he was invited, the great Richard Strauss. Imagine. He had the Don Quixote on the programme, and I had to play it. That was a great challenge, because it is a fantastic work. Did he rehearse it? Oh, yes. But you know, there was no record of it. I had no records of it. I had never heard the work. I have not the possibility to try it with the piano, nothing. Just my cello and this little pocket score. And I remember that night and day I studied that. I went almost as crazy as Don Quixote himself. And when the day came, really I was wondering if I wouldn't be lost in this ocean of sounds. Because, you know, Strauss music is enormous. And I had to swim over in the middle of that. And it went well.

Presenter12:11

Mm-hmm.

Presenter12:16

And how was Richard Strauss to work with? Was he encouraging?

Paul Tortelier12:20

He he was very nice, very sober in his manner, but I felt that he liked my playing. Uh he did not disapprove of anything. A very very funny thing is that after the performance there was an old lady seated in the first row who applauded vigorously and she joined me after on the stage and said to me, You know, monsieur, it is the first time that uh I don't find this work too long, a little b b boresome. You said that? Boring. Boring, boring. And and and I said, Madame, I'm sorry, but it is a beautiful work. But it yes, but it is the first time. Usually it's I find it scattered in pieces, chopped. But this time I locked because you played not only like a cellist, but like an actor. And I said, Excuse me, madam, now I want to go to see the maestro Richard Schroes to have a little uh dedication on my programme. She said, Oh, it's very easy, it's my husband's, follow me

Presenter12:52

Yeah.

Presenter13:17

Uh

Paul Tortelier13:17

Uh

Presenter13:17

That's a nice story.

Paul Tortelier13:18

That is nice.

Presenter13:19

Well, from Monte Carlo to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, there's always been a close relationship between French musicians and and and Boston. How how did that grow up?

Paul Tortelier13:30

Well, there has been always a close relationship between France and Russia.

Paul Tortelier13:35

The Russians before the the nineteen seventeen revolution, they spoke French in the aristocracy. And Kusevitsky was attracted by France like so many Russians, so many Czechoslovakians, so many Poles, you know. There is a really something. So Kusevitsky went to appreciate very much the playing, the temperament of the French player. I wouldn't say that the French orchestra are as good as the French individually, but he appreciated the French individually. So he picked up the best of you know, he ruined the French orchestra by attracting the first au boy there or the first cellist there. And then finally he found himself with thirty-five French in his American orchestra. In that time it was possible because there was no union to prevent him from doing that. He was absolutely the Maitre. He was a dictator.

Speaker 114:14

And so

Paul Tortelier14:37

So he bought all these people in uh including me.

Presenter14:41

Blender

Paul Tortelier14:41

So I had a French family around me. We spoke French, all of us.

Presenter14:46

Good. We've got to record number four. What's that?

Paul Tortelier14:49

Ah, speaking of Kucvitzki, I like to have a recording of Hindowit concerto for brass and strings. Because uh Kucvitsky loved to play Hindamit. I discovered the music of Hindamit there in the Boston Symphony.

Presenter15:02

But this isn't Kuzevitski conducting on this recording.

Paul Tortelier15:05

No, uh no, it is Ormandi with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Presenter16:08

The second part of Hindermit Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Eugene Ormondy with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Presenter16:16

Now, Monsieur Tortelier, we're coming up to.

Presenter16:19

The nineteen forties and the German occupation, were you back in France?

Paul Tortelier16:23

I was in France when the war broke out in thirty-nine, but I wasn't taken as a soldier because I had had a rheumatic fever and I had a murmur, two murmurs in the heart. So I was uh free to join the Boston Symphony once more because I have been uh three years there and I had to fulfil my contract.

Speaker 216:42

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier16:44

So I went back to the States. However, in May nineteen forty, this time, uh when the really uh the war became bad, uh my mother and I decided that I would come back to France because we didn't like to be av away from my family. She was with you in Boston? She was with me always, oh yes, until I married. Yes. And uh I went and I married in nineteen forty.

Presenter17:04

Maria

Presenter17:10

What

Paul Tortelier17:10

Door

Presenter17:10

Orchestra where you play.

Paul Tortelier17:11

Yeah.

Presenter17:11

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier17:11

It was a

Presenter17:11

It was a

Paul Tortelier17:12

Yeah.

Presenter17:12

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier17:13

You are bad

Presenter17:13

And put the radio orchestra.

Presenter17:16

Now, you couldn't really begin your career properly as an international solarist for the time being, with with four years of of the occupation. But you were soon, after the war, very much in demand.

Paul Tortelier17:28

Suddenly it came thanks to two conductors, Eduard von Benham, a Dutch conductor, and Sir Thomas Beacham. The first to engage me was uh Eduard von Benham in Amsterdam, but he wasn't conducting then, it was a guest conductor, and the guest conductor was Sir Thomas Beacham. He saw me there, and the next morning he asked me in his hotel uh with a beautiful uh dress, you know, na command guitant gone uh gone uh gone.

Presenter17:57

Gown, dressing gown.

Paul Tortelier17:59

Gown, dressing gown, yes. Cigar, yeah. and asked me if I knew a work wi by the name of Donquiksot. My God, when I and when I heard that, I said very phlegmatically, very coldly, I said, Yes, I know, I played with Richard Strauss, just as if it was something very ordinary.

Presenter18:08

And when I

Speaker 118:08

Uh

Paul Tortelier18:19

Penley had a strong reaction, and said, You played that with my friend Richards.

Paul Tortelier18:25

So you must play it in London because I organize a Strauss festival in Drury Lane next fall and that's how I began my career in London. And in London really, as my mother felt it, London was really the starting point for my international career. My all my mother always felt I should start from London. Strange.

Presenter18:48

Tell me about your instrument. Tell me about your cello. What what is the one that you have with you in London at the moment? Or do you have two?

Paul Tortelier18:56

No, no, no. Well, we ha we have to, because I play with my wife. She has a gagliano, nice, very nice Italian. I have a simple French cello, but um it is a friend's the cello that belonged to a dear friend of mine and I treasure it for this reason and because it has a beautiful sound. So I keep my Italian cello at home. It is too dangerous now. Uh I'm not a good traveller, you know. I am absent minded. Sometimes I put my cello with a baggage in order to save money. Yes, I'm stingy, you know. And um I think it is unfair to ask a cellist to play two tickets all the time for his voice and for himself. Because uh a singer will pay only one ticket because he doesn't pay for his voice. I feel it is unfair that I should pay for my voice.

Presenter18:59

Yeah.

Speaker 119:28

No.

Speaker 119:41

Because

Presenter19:49

They have to buy a seat for your cello. It does seem silly.

Paul Tortelier19:51

I travel all around the world all the year and I go to China, I go to you know, I ruin myself nicely if I do that.

Presenter20:00

Let's have your fifth record. What's that to be?

Paul Tortelier20:03

It is uh something I treasure also. It is uh the voice of Kathleen Ferrier. L La Mour d'un Famme is a record. I don't know how to put it in English. La Mour d'une femme, the love woman, uh

Presenter20:13

The law

Presenter20:14

It's usually known by the German title Fraun Lieben and Leibniz, isn't it?

Paul Tortelier20:17

Ah, Cesar, Cesar, Cesar. By Schumann, of course, the man who speaks with his heart.

Paul Tortelier20:24

In music.

Speaker 220:30

Here is the forfeit of feel so good.

Speaker 220:38

Holy boy, Clara's August, and our sin of faith the wound.

Speaker 220:47

So they tortured him now, too.

Speaker 220:57

Also hell and mine people

Presenter21:08

Kathleen Ferrier in an excerpt from Schumann's Frauen Lieber und Leiben.

Speaker 121:12

Yeah.

Speaker 221:12

Blip

Presenter21:13

Monsieur Tortelier, there's a book just out, A Self Portrait of yourself, which lists your compositions, of which there have been many. Which do you value most?

Presenter21:24

It is always the last.

Paul Tortelier21:26

What was the last?

Presenter21:27

What was the last?

Paul Tortelier21:28

The last is this sonata breve, which uh i is called Buscephalus, the horse uh belonging to Alexander the Great, and which I have dedicated to Prince Charles, because uh I know the royal family is they like very much horses. And there's not any horse as famous as as any man in history, Buccephalus.

Presenter21:53

Bury this.

Presenter21:55

One of your activities that you look on as very important is teaching. In fact, it was by teaching that you met your wife, wasn't it?

Paul Tortelier22:04

Not by teaching really. It's by composing again. It's it's a good reason to compose to meet the right wife, you see? Because uh the piece I composed was called The Clown and uh it was a piece given for the competition in the Paris Conservatory and she was competing that year.

Presenter22:07

Yeah.

Speaker 222:22

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier22:23

And I was invited to hear the candidates, the competitors, before the competition. And she was chosen by the teacher, among twelve, to play the work for me and so that I give my opinion. And I fell in love both with the player and with the woman. Perhaps I was grateful that she saved my my work, which was massacred by the others, because I heard it after by other pupils, and it was so bad.

Presenter22:47

Dev's

Paul Tortelier22:50

How many children do you have?

Presenter22:53

I have four children, all musicians.

Paul Tortelier22:55

No, the first one is teaching Italian in school, Anne, for my first wife. But the from the second wife I have three musicians, yes.

Presenter23:04

And you all give concerts together, family concerts.

Paul Tortelier23:07

Yes, we have done that for fifteen years, I think, or more. Well, my daughter was twelve when she we began she was twelve and now hoo la la I don't say what she Yeah.

Presenter23:18

And there's been a very special family concert in London a couple of weeks ago to celebrate your seventieth birthday.

Paul Tortelier23:25

Oh yes, something I shall never forget.

Presenter23:27

Uh

Presenter23:28

All the family on parade.

Presenter23:31

Record number six.

Paul Tortelier23:33

Ravel? Ravel must be there. Not because I am nationalist, but he has written a beautiful slow movement in his piano concerto. And I would like to have it.

Presenter24:44

An excerpt from the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G major by Ruell.

Presenter24:49

Played by Monique Hasse with the National Orchestra in Paris.

Presenter24:54

You work very hard, Monsieur Tortellier you travel everywhere, you teach, you compose.

Presenter25:01

And we know now to our surprise that you're seventy. You're very youthful. How do you do it?

Presenter25:06

Because I know you manage on very little sleep. You get up very early in the morning, don't you? Yes.

Paul Tortelier25:10

Okay.

Presenter25:11

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier25:11

Oh, I don't think sleeping much more makes a difference. Maybe what makes a difference is to be happy. And uh I shouldn't be too proud of it, but I cannot help saying that I am very, very happy in in my life.

Paul Tortelier25:28

Well, anyway, uh you see, I can work only if I am happy. Right. And I am happy only if I work.

Presenter25:35

And you like to have a run in the early morning, if the weather is fine?

Paul Tortelier25:39

My father gave me the habit to have exercise, physical exercise. That was his religion with nature.

Paul Tortelier25:48

That's the

Presenter25:48

Yeah. If you are

Paul Tortelier25:49

Seventh record.

Paul Tortelier25:50

Ah, my seventh record. It's Bach. Ah, Bach. You have a special record.

Presenter25:57

Uh

Paul Tortelier25:58

Yeah.

Presenter25:58

Yeah.

Paul Tortelier25:58

Mm oh.

Presenter25:58

A love of Bo

Paul Tortelier25:59

Uh Coal.

Presenter25:59

Well

Paul Tortelier26:00

Bach is my great hope for the future of mankind, because it is there.

Paul Tortelier26:08

It is there. We don't need to worry about any problem, any religion, any ideology, any any ody, theology. No. We have this. We have uh a fugue by Bach is a perfect image of how the society, the human society should be. And uh now, besides the question of uh philosophy, uh it is also the most beautiful thing you can hear. Which

Presenter26:32

Yeah. Uh yeah

Presenter26:36

Fiogo

Paul Tortelier26:36

We got

Presenter26:36

Enty here.

Paul Tortelier26:37

Well, the one that is in the first movement, Kyrie of the Mass, in in B minor by by Bacho, that is sublime.

Presenter27:38

The Kyrie from the Bach Mass in B minor, the Munich Bach Choir and Bach Orchestra conducted by Karl Richter.

Presenter27:47

I have an idea that an open air life would suit you. You're on this desert island. Could you look after yourself?

Paul Tortelier27:53

No, no, no. No? No, I just have my wife in the island.

Presenter27:54

Are you going to

Presenter27:56

Oh yes. Well that that that's a great pity. Now you've got to get off the island. Could you make a raft? Could you try and get away? Yeah.

Paul Tortelier28:03

In a way I would love to stay there, supposing I am not.

Paul Tortelier28:09

In love with Maude? I would really stay there, because when you are alone you are in peace.

Presenter28:16

Mm-hmm.

Paul Tortelier28:16

and I would invite the whole world to come and share my peace.

Presenter28:20

Oh yes, but you've got a whole engagement book full of concert engagements. You've got to get back. Your father was a a cabinet maker. You should know a bit about working with wood.

Paul Tortelier28:31

Yes. He tried to uh instruct me, but I cut my finger immediately. No. I think I can find some food uh in the sea perhaps. I am better at sea. Have you done some fishing? Oh, yes, I have done some fishing. I can succeed getting some fish after a few hours.

Presenter28:50

Can you

Paul Tortelier28:50

Can you cook? Only eggs.

Presenter28:53

Right.

Paul Tortelier28:53

Eggs. But only one fashion, no, no, no omelette. Only boiled eggs.

Presenter28:57

Just boiled seagulls' eggs. Yes. And fish. And fish. And you're going to stay there and wait for someone to fetch you.

Paul Tortelier28:58

Eagles' eggs. And fish. And fish.

Paul Tortelier29:03

Well, when you make me think of it really, it will be a difficult position, it's true. Even with records. Yes, very much. You can't eat records.

Presenter29:09

Yeah.

Presenter29:11

What's the eighth inedible record that you've chosen?

Paul Tortelier29:15

The one which will bring my wife near me.

Paul Tortelier29:20

Because she's playing in this record. Oh, well. I'm glad that the record has been made in London and that it is uh issued again. It is uh variations on one string by Paganini on a Rossini's theme from an opera called Moses. And we play together. I'm sorry, here I am in this record, but she has not made a a record on her own, so I have to be there too.

Presenter30:45

Part of Paganini's Variations on a Theme of Rossini, played by Paul Tortellier and Maude Martin Tortellier, Madame Tortellier.

Presenter30:55

If you could take only one disk out of the eight, which one would it be?

Paul Tortelier31:00

Ah, that is a very difficult thing. Perhaps finally I would stick to the slow movement of this ravel, where you feel the piano floating, you know, around. Everything is there to please me uh in this slow movement of the ravel. And one book.

Presenter31:17

Apart from the Bible and Shakespeare which are already on the island.

Paul Tortelier31:21

I don't say that it is the best book in the world, but that book is the one that would feed me my ideals. It is The Cathedrals of France by Auguste Rodin. By the sculptor Rodin. Yes, the great French sculptor. It is a guide for happiness. It is a guide for wisdom.

Speaker 131:38

De

Paul Tortelier31:43

And it is a guide for all artists. And if this book was read, was taught in school, the the world would change.

Presenter31:52

For the better.

Paul Tortelier31:53

Yeah.

Presenter31:54

And if you could take one luxury to the island, just one object of no practical use, what would you choose?

Paul Tortelier32:01

If I were a bachelor I would choose a how do you say to s look at the star the telescope telescope telescope. But I am not a bachelor.

Paul Tortelier32:09

So I will choose a photo of my wife.

Presenter32:14

We'll manage to smuggle a photograph of your wife into the telescope case. And thank you, Paul Tortellier, for letting us hear your choice of desert island discs. Thank you. Goodbye, Monsieur. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 132:33

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