Pierre Louis Bernac (né Bertin; 12 January 1899 – 17 October 1979) was a French singer, a baryton-martin, known as an interpreter of the French mélodie. He had a close artistic association with Francis Poulenc, with whom he performed in France and abroad. Poulenc wrote 90 songs for him during their 25-year musical partnership.
Bernac was well known as a teacher; among the singers who studied with him were Elly Ameling, Grace Bumbry, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Carol Neblett, Jessye Norman and Gérard Souzay. He gave masterclasses in France, Britain and the US.
In retirement, Bernac wrote two highly regarded books about the interpretation of mélodies in general and Poulenc's in particular.
Life and career
Early years
Born Pierre Bertin in Paris on 12 January 1899, he started his working career in his father's brokerage house. He later changed his surname to Bernac to avoid confusion with the actor Pierre Bertin. He began taking singing lessons at the age of 18, and was first taught by the composer André Caplet. He was later coached by Yvonne Gouverné, who accompanied him at his first recital, in Paris, in 1925. He studied German lieder with Reinhold von Warlich in Salzburg, but it was as an interpreter of French mélodie that he became best known.
Bernac's name came to be closely linked with that of the composer and pianist Francis Poulenc. They gave the first performance of Poulenc's Chansons gaillardes in 1926, but it was another eight years before they worked together again. Poulenc agreed, and they found their musical rapport so great that they decided to form a musical partnership. and including songs by Brahms, Mompou, Schubert, Schumann, Verdi and others.
They began performing outside France quite soon after launching their partnership: in November 1935 they performed at the French embassy in London at a reception for the Duke and Duchess of York, the following year they broadcast the first of many recitals together on the BBC, and their first British tour, in 1939, took in four cities in addition to London. The Second World War delayed their American debut until 1948;
Poulenc wrote 90 songs for Bernac, "his style influenced by the baritone's peculiarly refined artistry", according to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Although Bernac avoided the operatic stage after 1936, Poulenc relied on him for technical advice on vocal matters when writing his opera Dialogues des Carmélites, and his late Gloria. Other composers who wrote for Bernac include, from France, André Jolivet, Henri Sauguet and Jean Françaix; from Germany, Paul Hindemith; from England, Lennox Berkeley; and from the US, Samuel Barber.
Teacher
While still active as a singer, Bernac was also a teacher. In Grove's Dictionary, Alan Blyth says of Bernac, "Among his many pupils the most distinguished was Gérard Souzay, whose style owed much to Bernac's example". Others who studied with Bernac include Elly Ameling, Grace Bumbry, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Carol Neblett and Jessye Norman.
The Musical Times called him "an outstanding teacher of song interpretation – visionary, precise, tireless and loving." In retirement, Bernac conducted masterclasses in France, Britain and the US and was on the faculty of the American Conservatory, Fontainebleau. and his counterpart in the British Music & Letters called it "a 'must' for any serious student of the French repertory".
Francis Poulenc: The Man and His Songs (1977)
The second book was written in French, but first published in English translation. In 1977 Gollancz in London and Norton in New York published a translation by Winifred Radford. The original French text was published in Paris by Buchet-Chastel the following year as Francis Poulenc et ses mélodies. Bernac used an approach similar to that in his earlier book: a short biographical study of Poulenc is followed by a discussion of the composer's style and the singer's approach to it, and the bulk of the book considers the songs individually, grouped by the various poets' names. The English edition has a preface by Sir Lennox Berkeley and the French by Henri Sauguet. In 1980 Berkeley became the first president of "The Friends of Pierre Bernac", a charitable trust set up to promote the reissue of Bernac's recordings.