Berthe Sylva

Berthe Sylva , pseudonym of Berthe Faquet, is a French Chanteuse , born according to the sources, with Saint-Brieuc towards 1886 or with Brest the February 7th 1885, deceased with Marseilles the May 26th 1941.

Biography

It would have passed its childhood to Brest before being made employ like chambermaid. It would have been put at the song towards 1910, after having given up a first child. Of his beginnings, one does not have many testimonys, except an interview during which she speaks about voyages in South America, in Russia, Romania and Egypt, as well as a photo catch during the First World War, on which one sees it at the sides of Eugenie Buffet and of the chansonnier plugs Rene de Buxeuil (buried with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise).

In 1928, Berthe Sylva is employed with the Caveau of the Republic. The accordionist and type-setter Leon Raiter the remark and proposes to him to pass to the antenna of Radio Eiffel Tower. It is thanks to Leon Raiter, the author of the White Roses , that it starts to record, first of all at Idéal, then at Odéon, firm for which it will have engraved in very nearly 250 titles, against of quite thin royalties…

Success is striking down. the Mender of Earthenware , recorded in 1929, would have been sold with 200 000 specimens in two years. The rounds in province multiply. In Paris, one hears it with Pacra, European, the Bataclan, the Gaieté Montparnasse, but the most prestigious rooms are sulky it. It divides one moment the poster with Fred Gouin, very prolix singer in recordings (450 faces of 78 turns for Odéon between 1927 and 1935, now fallen into the lapse of memory, with which it engraves duets such Ferme your pretty eyes (1932) and One evening with Havana (1933). Their relation is passion. Fred Gouin was very affected by the loss of sound amante and friend. He took the maquis during the years of war, then left the world of the song to reconvert itself into the trade of chips.

Some anecdotes of a more or less doubtful authenticity mark out the blazing course of Berthe Sylva. In 1935, its Marseilles admirors lacerated the benches of the Alcazar, where she will play closed counters at the beginning of the war, and insert the door of its cabin. In 1936, with the investigation “which is your singers preferred? ”, a majority of young girls between 13 and 15 years answer “Berthe Sylva”. Another source mentions a passage on Radio-Toulouse in 1925 which would have been worth 16.000 letters of admirors to him.

Berthe Sylva is fixed at Marseilles at the time of the Armistice of 1940. The singer Darcelys was one of his most faithful friends there. She dies mined by drink and poverty. Its recording company finances funerals to which only some friends assist. Its skin was transferred to the common grave, when, several years afterwards, it was nobody to renew the concession.

The legends surrounding Berthe Sylva would have been created of all parts or starting from extrapolations of actual facts by journalists after his disappearance. The propagation of these legends was facilitated by the fact that one has almost no solid testimony of biographical nature, and by the absence of cinematographic documents. Moreover, if one relativizes the importance (exaggerated) of his services on scene, the immense success of Berthe Sylva is above all related to its many recordings.

Its voice specifies which Marie very well with technology in full rise of the microphone and the recording, its wide register vocal, its sometimes pathetic expression, sometimes enjouée, its ungrateful physique of ravaged woman by the life was the keys of success that she knew of alive sound. Its discography draws with all the sources, except American: old successes of the years 1900, success of Operetta like cabaret, or more recent repertory, realistic song, Haversack, film musics with great success. Berthe Sylva excels in the narrative song.

After his disappearance, one will retain of it, not the songs which tell the bluettes and the joys of the ball, but those which denounce misery, the injustice, wounded childhood, the loss of a expensive being, disillusion and the sentimental failure.

Summary discography

1926

white pinks (Ch.L Words. Pothier; Music Leon Raiter)

Recording of reference 1937; Orchestrates André Valsien, Méridian

1929

the earthenware mender

1930

Fleur of misery .
Grinding machine of barrier (Rene de Buxeuil /L. Stollé).
Rustle .
It is my gigolo .
the tango of the warblers .

1931

If had not been known.
Of the gray .
Under the roofs of Paris (of film of Clear Rene).
In love with the head to the feet (of the film the blue Angel : Ich bin von Kopf (a) Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt)
You cannot like

1932

the voice of mom (C. Fortin/R. de Buxeuil)
Mousmé of love (with Fred Gouin)
Firm your pretty eyes (with Fred Gouin)

1933

One evening in Havana (with Fred Gouin)
the clown and the child
Lilac-white
the kids of the bell
Come to dance

nevertheless

1934

My old Very pale lump

1935

the p' tit Boscot
One does not have the every day twenty years
Like a sparrow

1937

Arrêter needles (If one could stop the needles)
If you return
Of the sun in his eyes

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