The Best of Cortot’s Recorded Legacy
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Alfred Cortot produced more than 150 recordings in the 1920s and 1930s alone and sometimes went back into the studios to revisit the same works. This can create confusion when searching for the best among the many Cortot reissues. He made three versions of the Chopin Preludes, for example, but the 1933 recording was certainly his finest.
To help sort things out, I asked three experts for their recommendations. Jerome Lowenthal is a former Cortot student who teaches piano at the Juilliard School; pianist Charles Timbrell is the author of “French Pianism: A Historical Perspective”; and David Dubal, another Juilliard faculty member and radio personality is the author of “The Art of the Piano.”
Cortot is most famous for his Chopin, but all three experts also cite his playing of Saint-Saens’s Fourth Piano Concerto, as well as that composer’s “Etude in the Form of a Waltz.” Mr. Lowenthal also suggests his Beethoven recordings as revelatory, along with his rendition of Debussy’s “Children’s Corner” and his collaborations with singer Maggie Teyte.
In addition to the 1933 Preludes, Mr. Timbrell likes the 1933 Chopin Ballades; the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 with Sir John Barbirolli conducting; Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” and, with violinist Jacques Thibaud and cellist Pablo Casals, the Beethoven “Archduke” Trio and the Schubert Trio Opus 99.
Mr. Dubal calls Cortot’s Chopin Etudes “the most imaginative of all time,” and also points to a reissue of the complete Victor recordings from the 1920s, transferred by Ward Marston, as essential. It contains not only the aforementioned Saint-Saens “Etude in the Form of a Waltz,” but Cortot’s own transcription of Brahms’s “Cradle Song,” among other delights. Mr. Dubal also praises Cortot’s versions of Schumann’s “Symphonic Etudes,” Franck’s “Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue,” and Albeniz’s “Malaguena.”
To that I add my own experience of almost swooning upon first hearing Cortot’s recording of Chopin’s Posthumous Etude in F minor. Certainly any combination of the above will be a feast for the ears.
