Wyss was born to a musical family in La Neuveville, Canton of Bern, Switzerland.[3] Her two sisters, Emilie Perret-Wyss and Colette Feschotte-Wyss, were also singers, and the three sometimes performed together.[4] She studied at the Geneva Conservatoire and the Basle Music Academy. In 1925 she married a British army officer, Captain Arnold Gyde, who had retired from the armed forces and become a publisher in London.[3] He also became the treasurer of the Committee for the Promotion of New Music,[4] founded in 1943.[5]
Making her home in England, Wyss embarked on a career as a soloist.[3] At first she failed to impress the critics. After an early recital in London in 1927, The Times said, "Miss Wyss has some pleasant notes in her voice, but the tone was tight in the upper range. A pronounced wobble, which appeared now and then, and a tendency to go out of tune showed that she has not yet gained sufficient control over her voice."[6] By the 1930s her notices had improved from reserved to enthusiastic. The Times said that Wyss "possesses a soprano voice of an exquisitely yielding quality ... a singer so completely satisfying that we would not trust ourselves to say how much of the pleasure we derived from her performances was due to her or the music itself."[7]
Wyss encouraged British composers to set French texts for her to perform.[3] The most famous work that resulted from this was Britten's Les Illuminations to words by Rimbaud, which Wyss premiered in London in 1940 with Boyd Neel and his orchestra.[9][n 1] Wyss was equally at home with English texts, such as those in Britten's Our Hunting Fathers (1936)[3] and On This Island (1937).[13] Britten dedicated Vol. 2 of his Folk Song Arrangements (1942) to Wyss and Gyde's two sons, Arnold and Humphrey.[14] Britten was also Humphrey's godfather.[15][n 2] She gave the first performance of his 8 French Folksongs, in a 1942 National Gallery recital with Gerald Moore, and she and Britten later recorded five of these songs.[17] However, by 1942, Britten's knowledge of voice and vocal technique had greatly increased, and he preferred Peter Pears's interpretation of Les Illuminations to Wyss's performance, which he described to a close friend as "hopelessly inefficient, subjective & (of all things) so coy & whimsey!!!"[18] Though Wyss was keen to resume her professional relationship with Britten, he was no longer interested but confessed to Pears that he was "too fond of her to be rude, & not interested enough to be critical".[19][n 3]
Wyss recorded for Decca Records from 1941 to 1946. The works she sang included some by English composers: Bliss's "The Hare" and "The Buckle" from his Three Romantic Songs; Britten's sets Two French Folk Songs and Three French Folk Songs, and Rawsthorne's Three French Nursery Songs. From the French repertoire she recorded Chabrier's "Villanelle des petits canards" and "Les cigales"; Debussy's "L'échelonnement des haies"; Duparc's "Chanson triste"; Fauré's La bonne chanson, "Aurore" (Op. 39/1), "Les roses d'Ispahan" (Op. 39/4) and "Les berceaux" (Op. 23/1); and Ravel's "Nicolette". Her accompanists included Britten and Kathleen Long.[24] In 2012 Symposium Records released recordings made by Wyss in the 1950s. They were: Louis Durey's Images à Crusoé; George Enescu's Sept chansons de Clément Marot; Arthur Honegger's Six poésies de Jean Cocteau; Frank Martin's Trois Chants de Noël; and Jules Massenet's Poème d'Avril.[4]
Notes, references and sources
Notes
^In April 1939 Wyss had premiered the only two songs then composed for the cycle, "Marine" and "Being Beauteous".[10] She repeated them with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood at a promenade concert in August of that year.[11] In later years Britten insisted that the cycle should be sung by a tenor, though this was almost certainly due to the influence of Pears.[12]
^Towards the end of her life, Wyss claimed that the final rift between herself and Britten was due to her husband, Arnold Gyde, taking offence that Britten preferred Pears singing Les illuminations. Although Wyss would have preferred to remain friends, her husband "could not forgive the slight" he believed Britten had committed.[20]
^"Deaths". The Times. London, England. 29 December 1983. p. 18. 'Gyde'. On Dec 25th, 1983 peacefully at Bognor Regis aged 86, Sophie Adele Gyde (née Sophie Wyss), widow of Captain Arnold Gynde [sic] and mother of Arnold and Humphrey.
Britten, Benjamin (1991b). Donald Mitchell (ed.). Letters From a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Volume 2, 1939–45. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN0571160581.
