Maggie Teyte with Two Berlioz Songs

Maggie Teyte

Maggie Teyte (1888-1976), remembered as a sensitive purveyor of art songs, had an unusual career that encompassed opera, music hall and a later specialization in French song.

Born Margaret Tate in Wolverhampton, the "Teyte" spelling was adopted later on when the French insisted on mispronouncing her real name - or so the story goes.

After her debut in 1906, she was featured in productions involving such eminences as Claude Debussy, Reynaldo Hahn and Thomas Beecham. She then spent 1911-19 in the US. A few years after returning to Britain, she married and retired for several years.

Her 1930 comeback was fitfully successful, so she resorted to appearances in music hall and variety shows.

In 1936, her recording of Debussy with Alfred Cortot achieved some success, and soon she was identified with French art song.

This leads us to today's selections - two songs from Berlioz's cycle Les Nuits d'été, recorded in London in 1940. This post is a companion to the 1950 recording of the full cycle by Suzanne Danco with the Cincinnati Symphony and Thor Johnson, which is new on the main blog.

English critics were in love with her singing. Here is Alec Robertson of The Gramophone comparing Danco with Teyte: "Many of us will have the record of Maggie Teyte’s exquisite singing of the second and fourth of these songs [from Les Nuits d'été] and, fine artist though she is, Suzanne Danco simply cannot invest the songs with the sensuous beauty and charm of the incomparable Maggie Teyte."

Dame Maggie (she was made a Dame Commander in 1958) sang only "Absence" and "La Spectre de la rose" from the Berlioz set. Her accompaniment is by the London Philharmonic under conductor Leslie Heward. This transfer is from slightly gritty HMV pressings of the time.

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