Paul Tortelier at the BBC Chamber Music at the BBC

French cellist Paul Tortelier could have been MADE for television.

His aristocratic manner was irresistible -

his flashing dark eyes

and thick mane of hair.

His love of the rich sound of his instrument,

and his devotion to those composers who wrote for it,

travelled effortlessly through the flickering screen.

In this programme we'll tell Paul Tortelier's story

through 35 years of BBC television archive.

From the Elgar cello concerto in black and white,

to Tortelier's own unique compositions in full colour...

# God, if thou art

# Save our great ship

# And make music save me. #

..talking about his belief in the civilising power of music...

My dream for humanity is that the human society

is like a symphonic orchestra...

..and conducting a hugely popular series of TV masterclasses.

It must emerge.

Shakespeare has said...

Music is the food of love.

In 1961, the arts programme Monitor sent reporter John Amis over

to Paris to meet the master on home ground.

Tortelier lives in the middle of Paris

in a house littered with cellos.

He lives there with his wife and with his children -

it's very much a musical household.

His daughter, a godchild of Casals, is 11.

Bon. C'est pas mal.

His son, Pascal.

Bon. Bon.

SPEAKS FRENCH

His wife, Madame Tortelier.

That's nice.

People come from all over the world to study under Tortelier

at the Paris Conservatoire.

You see, you must be listening to your playing.

Don't forget.

Don't forget to listen to have this possibility

of being at the same time

the player and the listener

who is seated in the audience.

In the last year or so,

Tortelier has been turning more and more to writing music himself.

Recently, he's been working on a hymn for the United Nations

scored for his own pupils - an orchestra of 20 cellos.

SPEAKS FRENCH

MUSIC RESTARTS

Yes, what I want to emphasise,

the cello can express about all kinds of feelings.

It has a great range.

A great emotional range

and a great physical range, too.

For instance, in the Saint-Saens concerto you can see it.

It goes from the bass voice

to the tenor voice

to the soprano voice.

There are not so many instruments who have such range.

Even the violin has a smaller range.

PLAYS VERY LOW NOTES

PLAYS A RISING SCALE

PLAYS EXTREMELY HIGH NOTES

His earliest surviving television appearance

comes from a Sunday recital in 1955,

when he performed with the pianist Ernest Lush,

a regular collaborator.

Not that Lush gets much of a look in!

In 1930, Paul Tortelier won first prize at the Paris Conservatoire

playing Elgar's great cello concerto.

It was a work that he was to return to

over and over again.

In 1961, he performed the work on television

on the BBC's International Concert Hall series.

The recording, unfortunately,

has innumerable technical problems,

but the magic and virtuosity

of Tortelier's playing

still shines brilliantly through.

Paul Tortelier was a perfectionist.

As a teacher he was incredibly demanding, even severe.

He took his own children out of regular education

so they could focus their entire lives on music,

insisting that they practise for hour after hour

in order to hone their technique.

He decided that his daughter Maria

would become a pianist.

At first his son, Yan Pascal

was going to follow in his father's footsteps

and be a cellist, until his father-in-law declared

that he should take up violin instead.

In the end, Yan Pascal went on to develop a career

as a hugely successful conductor.

It was his masterclasses that really won Paul Tortelier

the affection of British television audiences.

He clearly took huge pleasure in passing on

his vast accumulated knowledge in programmes that were demanding,

informative and - at least for those watching,

if not necessarily those taking part -

highly entertaining.

But it is more difficult.

Voila. This is very important here.

The first time, the first time the A, when we reach this note.

Voila...we drop on this part.

The second time, there is a note in the piano part,

the bass that makes a crescendo.

We must hear to this.

We must hear, also, the ensemble.

Not only the melody separately, eh?

To have the full feeling. The second time...

Second time.

Now.

You see, that was very good but you can emphasise that a little.

It was Paul Tortelier's mother who decided

that he would play the cello,

after she'd heard a string quartet in a cafe, playing Beethoven.

-What do you think now?

-You think we should play the movement?

-I think so.

-Yes.

-Eh...yes?

Well, when we play the whole movement,

I should need a turner over,

so my wife, Brenda, is here somewhere, so...

-Ah, coming.

-Here we are.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

We're going to do the first note...

Thank you very much indeed, Monsieur Tortelier.

In this series of masterclasses,

held before an invited audience of music students,

the great French cellist Paul Tortelier coaches advanced

students and young professionals.

In tonight's programme he works on Elgar's Cello Concerto.

Bien. Very well...very well.

The beginning, will you do the beginning?

Not the phrase itself, the melody, ta-ra-ra-ra-dee...

You see? It is too realistic.

You play as if it was fa-la-la, fa...

but it is fa-la-la.

It is not a real chord, like fa, we are not in D major.

This sounds like...

It should be...play just one bar before.

Listen.

It must emerge...emerge. Will you play that?

Very good. And of course, of bow melody.

Now, you are an immaculate person and your playing must be immaculate

and even when you have a glissando, it is a little spot.

It's a little sticky. Like chewing gum in the mouth of an American.

We really want fresh air.

Out of New York.

Now, you have understood that.

What is interesting, I want to give you another

chance about playing this ending because you see, you must go ahead.

You must go ahead. Play the end.

Before when it is... C'est ca. C'est ca.

Good, good. Excuse me. Here she plays a little too energetically.

It is good but we hear too much...

I make a caricature. But can you play louder?

Can you do that?

Bravo!

Allez!

Allez!

You made it. You must remember that.

When you are afraid you go slower.

Some people, when they are afraid, they go quicker.

But when you are afraid you go slower and you make it worse and worse.

Now, you see the beautiful scale.

We are in E.

The scale of E.

Isn't it interesting to see how scale are important in Elgar,

in, how you should say, in all good music?

Do you agree? That is why we must study our scales.

Because we find scales in Beethoven and then you have beautiful...

Just half a scale, always. And that's all.

Out of pure scale.

Shakespeare has said, "Music is the food of love."

Had he been a musician he would have added,

"And scales are the food of music."

Remember that? "Music is the food of love. Scales are the food of music."

And I discovered the Indian scale.

You know that? Indian scale?

It is interesting.

The intervals are arranged differently, as you know.

Other scales also.

But perhaps you are interested to see how it goes?

This is Elgar's scale.

Very English. And that is Indian scale.

Pardon.

I like to emphasise that.

That you have the root of the soul of a people of a country

in the scale already.

Don't be afraid to be English. Don't be afraid to be Indian.

Because we want variety.

If you are Greek, you do that.

The old Greek, the noble Greek of the antiquity.

If you are Beethoven, you do...

If you are Elgar...

And if you are Indian...

Isn't it already musical? Music is there already.

We try Elgar. He lived in the time of empire of India.

He might have tried to bow to India

and make the Indian scale instead of the Elgarian scale, English scale.

Shall we try to do that? Yes.

HE SINGS NOTES Stick with me.

You would get used to it. Voila! But it would be Indian.

HE SINGS NOTES

More passion. Our scale comes from the Greek who were not passionate.

They were more philosopher.

So speaking of philosopher, since we are at philosophy and scales.

It's interesting to think about philosophers and composers.

In their writings, philosophers teach us how to think.

You must think this way about the world or God or what.

But in their music, composers teach us how to love.

It is a love lesson.

As Tortelier grew older he became increasingly preoccupied with

the state of the world.

He worried about homelessness in London and Paris,

the all-pervading power of big business,

what he once described as the peril of television.

Having lived on an Israeli kibbutz in the 1950s,

he was fascinated by the idea of communal living

and became equally interested about life in China under Chairman Mao.

My dream for humanity is that the human society

is like a symphonic orchestra.

There is no question of freedom there. There is a question of love.

Of common work.

In a symphonic orchestra there is no prima donna, especially

if you play a fugue.

All parts are equally important. All members are equally important.

Parallel in the human society, I would say,

all men are equally important. All men are equal.

When you eat you are very happy that somebody had grown

the potatoes for you.

So, there should be no distinction between manual

and intellectual workers. This is not new.

Mao Zedong has said that, obviously.

But now what is new is my image,

my symbol of the symphonic orchestra as the best symbol, I think.

As the media world changed, Tortelier proved

he could easily adapt.

He seemed to be equally at home on a daytime talk show or breakfast

television programme as he had been hosting his legendary

master classes.

We doubt about peace in the world.

Whatever we do, we think that it is in vain.

So I thought why not put the power of music...

It's a great strength, music.

Why not put this power to help for the sake of peace?

Now I have written also the words of this song

and I thought this song would be sung not only in half

of the world, either the west or the east, but in the whole world.

You cannot make peace with only half of the world.

That's always a problem.

So that the words can be sung in Moscow as well as in Roma.

In New York as well as in Peking.

I decided to put two alternative words in the beginning.

One is

God, thou on high save our great ship that sails on troubled seas.

That is for the people who believe in God.

But for those who do not, unfortunately, who are like me.

Who built another religion. My religion is music or nature.

So the words are

God, if thou art, save our great ship that is sailing on troubled seas.

It's a lovely piece.

We won't have time for you to sing all the way through for us but would

you just play a little bit of the theme for us

so we know how you set those words?

Yes.

# God

# God if thou art

# Save our great ship that sails on troubled seas

# Nature we praise

# And let her face preserve our beauteous world

# Let us make life

# Sing and dance and shine

# Just like golden light

# Open our heart that we may have justice for all

# And hail the size of the day

# Bringing the rain of love

# God, if thou art

# Save our great ship and may music save peace. #

Paul Tortelier, thank you very much indeed.

APPLAUSE

What? What? Problem? What? Problem?

Difficult. Very quick finger.

Mocking. It is mocking. It is a lady who mocks a man.

It is very French.

Because there is a story in France. There is a story of Pierrot.

You have heard of Pierrot? He is a sort of unhappy hero. Very unhappy.

He is always in love with a girl but she has scorn for him.

The cellist Paul Tortelier is 75 tomorrow.

Tonight, Paul Tortelier is in the studio with his wife,

the cellist Maude Tortelier and their daughter, the pianist

Maria de la Pau to play Paganini's Variations on a Theme by Rossini.

Tortelier could appear somewhat eccentric in older age so perhaps

best to end this programme with a reminder of him in younger days.

And now, Chopin.

One of the 24 piano preludes arranged for cello

by Paul Bazelaire.

The Prelude in E Minor.