Paul Tortelier (1914–1990) was a French cellist and composer.
Tortelier was born in Paris, the son of a carpenter-cabinet-maker in Montmartre. At the age of 12 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied the cello with Gérard Hekking. He won the conservatoire’s first prize when he was 16, playing the Elgar Cello Concerto, and then he studied harmony and composition under Jean Gallon. He made his professional début in 1931 at the age of 17, as soloist in Lalo’s Cello Concerto with the Orchestre Lamoureux.
In 1935, Tortelier joined the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra as first cellist and played with them until 1937. He gave performances under Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini, and played the solo part in Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote conducted by the composer. In 1937, he accepted an invitation from Serge Koussevitzky to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He remained until the 1939–40 season. He was in Paris during the Second World War, teaching at the Conservatoire. He had a short-lived marriage to Madeleine Gaston, which ended in divorce in 1944. After the war he was principal cellist of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in 1946–47.
Tortelier’s international career as a soloist began in 1947 in Berlin and Amsterdam. After a concert in the latter city, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, at which Tortelier again played the solo part in Don Quixote, Beecham invited him to reprise his performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) at a festival of Strauss’s music in London, in the presence of the composer. Within days Tortelier gave a recital with Gerald Moore at the Wigmore Hall and recorded the Strauss piece with Beecham and the RPO.
During his subsequent career Tortelier played throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, North Africa, Israel, the USSR and Japan, but Britain remained central to his career, and most of his recordings over the next four decades were made there. In 1950, Tortelier was asked by Pablo Casals to play as the principal cellist in the Prades Festival Orchestra; out of respect for Casals, Tortelier agreed. He later said, “I have played for Toscanini and Karajan, but I never felt with any conductor what I felt with Casals”. More than any other cellist it was Casals who influenced him the most.
Tortelier died of a heart attack on 18 December 1990 at the age of 76 in the domaine of Villarceaux, Yvelines, near Paris.
His compositions include a concerto for two cellos and orchestra (1950), a solo cello suite in D, and two sonatas for cello and piano. He wrote a set of variations for cello and orchestra (May Music Save Peace). He also wrote a symphony, the Israel Symphony, after he lived for one year in a kibbutz near Haifa. Several of his compositions were included at a special concert to mark his 75th birthday at the Royal Festival Hall in 1989, in which his wife and son joined in his celebrations. He twice edited the Bach Cello Suites; his first version was published by Augener in 1961, and the second by Galliard in 1966.
Tortelier’s students included Noras, Sommer, Jacqueline du Pré, Anne Gastinel and Nathan Waks. He was a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris (1956–69), the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany (1969–1975), and the Conservatoire Pierre Cochereau, Nice (1978–80). He was also an honorary professor at the Central Conservatoire in Beijing. In the 1960s and 1970s he gave a series of master classes which were recorded and broadcast on TV by the BBC.