Learning first from his parents, Berthier was trained in music at the École César Franck in Paris.
In 1975, Berthier was again asked to compose for Taizé, this time for chants to be sung by the increasing numbers of young people coming to worship there.
Over nearly twenty years, Berthier built up a body of church music that has been utilized around the world.
In 2006, the Jubilate Deo Award was granted to him posthumously and accepted by Brother Jean-Marie (Taizé).
In more than twenty years, Berthier left an important corpus (232 songs in 20 different languages) in wide use today by other communities and around the world.