CCMusic.com

To mark the centenary of the celebrated French cellist Paul Tortelier (born 21st March 1914), the BBC drew from their archives a selection of films and documents that spanned his whole career and testified to the exceptional rapport he enjoyed with Britain. The programme "Paul Tortelier at the BBC" is here reproduced, and offers a portrait of one of the truly great cellists, an artist of the utmost probity, integrity and sincerity who lived through and witnessed almost an entire musical century. He played under such conductors as Toscanini, Walter, Mitropoulos, Beecham, Boult, Kempe, and Richard Strauss and formed a very close friendship with legendary cellist Pablo Casals. Tortelier's masterclasses shown on the BBC are still renowned today and form a major part of this production. Indeed it was the English rather than the French who most frequently paid homage to him.