<<  -- 8 --  Jennifer I Paull    CATHY BERBERIAN: LEGACY

The Oratorio circuit is a steeplechase, in which many an amateur choral society murders Händel (he falls not alone), and by which soloists -- some more professional than others -- pay their heating bills. Many performances can breed the nervous horse, which chomps at the bit and takes itself far too seriously, trampling style mercilessly under hoof. Ticket to Ride, portrayed in the racing colours of one such soloist, was a recital favourite of hers. The words of the song itself: 'He said that living with me was bringing him (her) down -- yeah', were daring at a time when Agony Aunts still adhered to the 'no sex before marriage' theorem. The Beatles -- as Philip Larkin so rightly said -- modified that equation. Here was the great singer satirising it all to 'classical' music audiences, everywhere she performed!

Today's translation? Perhaps as an Eminem rap song and dance routine articulated after elocution lessons with Joanna Lumley? The title itself was daring with its implication of prostitution in Hamburg, a Beatles' stomping ground of yore. Cathy would have coordinated much better combinations than my simplistic suggestions, and risen to the challenge of today as she rose to its defined perimeters during her lifetime.

The work Folk Songs by Berio is the couple's communally picked garland of eleven songs, sung by eleven voices, in eleven styles, and almost as many languages. Only Cathy could ever cultivate that flower garden alone. She dared, she sang and she conquered.

My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast.
-- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish author and philosopher, predecessor of existentialist philosophy (1864-1936)

De Unamuno's father had owned a bakery shop. Cathy's had adored the stage ...