Top 10 pianists on recording-Part 1 Alfred Cortot

In this first part of my series about great musicians on record, we talk a bit about the marvelous, magical, Alfred Cortot.
Recordings referenced in the video:
1.Chopin Waltz op. 69 no. 1 (L'adieu) (1940's video)
2.Schumann Concerto in A minor op. 54
Recorded in 1934 with Landon Ronald and the London Philharmonic
3. Saint-Saëns, Etude en forme de valse, op. 52 no. 6
Recorded 1919
4. Bach Brandenburg Concerto no. 5
Recorded in 1932 with the Orchestre de l'Ecole Normale de Musique
5. Chopin Concerto no. 2 in F minor, op. 21
Recorded in 1935 with John Barbirolli and London Philharmonic
6. Le faune from "Fête galantes" Deuxième livre
Recorded in 1936 with soprano Maggie Teyte
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[@HenriDucrocq]

The muted strings effect in Faune has to be one of the first examples of "prepared piano"!

[@olivermundy4220]

I have loved Cortot's pianism for more than fifty years. I think the 1934 Schumann Concerto (in which, besides the examples noted in the video, he transposes the right hand in bar 111 of the first movement up an octave) was the first example of his work I heard, followed by his complete Chopin Preludes of the same year which, to me, make every other interpretation sound mechanical. I still have these 78s and have added many others since then. In Brahms's Double Concerto (1928) he conducts for his long-standing chamber-music partners Thibaud and Casals.

[@donthuis]

I regularly play his rendition of the Chopin Barcarolle, still one of the most convincing performances and assembled over the years most of his recordings that reappeared on CD's. Including those resurrected via mechanical piano technologies, the same road Rachmaninoff once followed. Demonstrations of their piano rolls on the associated instruments is no longer tried for in our museums due to the bad state lots these piano's are in (I attended one of the last), But there used to be one company in the UK that still mastered the technology on the best of them the Duo Arte from the Aeolian company, which even included the soft "una corda" pedalling, not covered by other mechanical piano designs and made CD's from those rolls as well. One looses the hiss, clicks and crackles of 78rpm disks on these modern recordings and Cortot always said that mechanical piano recordings were how one thought one played all the time, while in reality live performances always varied and in his opinion rightly so. Most present performers are almost errorfree, but also lost some of this 19th century understanding of what was behind these compositions way back in time when Cotot was still young.

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Piano rolls can be very interesting sometimes, although I find them often times to be a bit of a mixed bag. They don't always reflect the full variety of sound and rhythmic subtlety that these pianists seemed to have possessed... still there are some nice ones out there! Thanks for the comment!

[@donthuis]

@@TheIndependentPianist I once saw the Grieg concerto on TV with the orchestra playing together with a Duo-Arte pianola with the piano roll made from the performance of the pianist Percy Grainger, who even met composer Grieg himself at the time to discuss the interpretation of his music score (who preferred his rendition above all others) . This concert can be found on KZbin as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pl6qe3WLfseEgLM Note that just as Cortot did with Chopin, Grainger did with Grieg : the rubato's are much more free, than is dared by contemporary pianists. Since the mechanism has a near constant speed Grainger's variations were deliberate. BTW I put some of Cortot's Chopin recordings with my own pictures on video and posted them a long time ago on my own KZbin channel. E.g. see kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5LdamaIbr2ApJY

[@TheIndependentPianist]

@@donthuis Thank you for the links! I love that Grainger Grieg Concerto recording. Of course he was preparing a revised version of the concerto with the composer right before Grieg died, and his edition for Schirmer is still the best in my opinion. I do have a few recordings I've made of Grainger pieces on my channel :-) kzbin.info/www/bejne/amXNfmath7VgkLc

[@fightbacktohealth9625]

Thank you for this video and the erudite commentary

[@metteholm4833]

VERY exiting stuff! Thank you!

[@nsk5282]

Cole, I'm so glad you decided to address the subject of favorite pianists! Even though many of us have their own list, it's always great to learn more and find other outstanding pianists. As always, it's wonderful that you point out interesting details in the performances that otherwise might've gone unnoticed. Great job, I'm looking forward to Part 2!

[@shelleybinkley4266]

Delightful! would have loved to hear him play Bbg 5 on an actual harpsichord. His piano rendition is fabulous, but for that particular piece, the voice of the instrument doesn't carry that same magical intoxication of the harpsichord, at least to my ears. His rendition of Chopin 2, with his orchestral embellishments and his treatment of those filigrees, however is enchanting, takes genius to the genius power.

[@TheIndependentPianist]

I love the Harpsichord also! I don't think Cortot had much experience with it however, so he probably preferred to stick to what he knew well...

[@peterwatchorn5618]

@@TheIndependentPianist and yet, all of the five other concertos are recorded with harpsichord continuo (perhaps even played by Cortot himself). The instrument was (as would be expected in Paris in the 1920s/30s) a Pleyel Landowska model (Cortot and Landowska were good friends - he played and taught at Landowska's academy at Saint-Leu-la-Forêt).

[@michaelreich2306]

Die Klangfrage mag Geschmackssache sein - der moderne Flügel bietet aber so ungleich viel mehr Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten als das Cembalo. Ich bin sicher , Bach selbst hätte einen Konzertflügel bevorzugt!

[@cz3996]

Fascinating!

[@Felix_Li_En]

Cortot seemd to love the bombing bass (like Ignaz Friedman 💣)! I think that kind of interpretation probably affected Horowitz and Cziffra slightly. 🙂

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Yes, no doubt! They all liked those deep, rich bass sonorities.

[@michaelreich2306]

@@TheIndependentPianist me too 🥰, and I do it until today...

[@grahamtwist]

I wonder, Cole, if you've seen this quote from the American pianist and conductor, Murray Perahia? He said Cortot: “represents a kind of piano playing that has virtually disappeared: free, impulsive, personal, daring; yet at the same time, cogent and intelligent … First and foremost, he thought music ‘must live’.” Even the music critic, Harold Schonberg, who admired the sheer intelligence of Cortot's playing, said of the pianist’s mistakes: “One accepted them, as one accepts scars or defects in paintings by an old master.” So, in one sense, how I envy Cortot living in that bygone era when music was more an 'aspirational art' and note-perfect performances were not the be-all-to-end-all. I often think we seem caught in an age where the mechanical perfection of reproducing the written notes in performance seems to be more highly valued than the passion that produces aspirational art. Having said that, Cole, for me, your piano performances are always 'aspirational art' . . . and as far as I can tell, they are always note perfect too! (So, on a selfish note, as much as I enjoyed your presentation here and listening to Cortot perform in those old recordings . . . I hope it will not be too long before we hear you play again. You are our modern-day Cortot, minus the memory lapses and wrong notes, of course!)

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Thank you, you are too kind! I have had my fair share of memory slips and wrong notes in live concerts believe me-that is one advantage with recording things for the channel. If there is a serious mistake, I can always re-record! It is true that standards for accuracy have certainly increased since recordings became ubiquitous, but there are still artists out there who really strive to play with imagination, and take real risks-even occasionally allowing a drop in professionalism to do so. Maybe I will make a video about some of these artists in the future...more performance videos are coming up shortly though!

[@liliaaliciaduhaldebruz6712]

​@@TheIndependentPianist❤

[@DanielKolbin]

very interesting

[@CatkhosruShapurrjiFurabji]

Thanks for this! Also, I prefer that you share your views on the recordings of Samuil Feinberg, a groundbreaking interpreter of various composers (mainly Bach, Beethoven and especially Scriabin) and to my dismay, a criminally underrated composer born a year before Prokofiev. I am aware of his abrupt accelerandi at some passages of Chopin's 4th Ballade and some Beethoven sonatas, but I perhaps overlook it as the tradition of the time, or admire it as his adornment.

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Thanks Pranav! Maybe I will look at Feinberg on the channel sometime. He was a remarkable artist, rather out of step with his contemporaries-in a good way!

[@RModillo]

That Chopin waltz is a little eccentric! For those, Lipatti is hard to beat. But Cortot's gifts are extraordinary. I also (surprisingly) do like his Brandenburgs. Saint-Saens was still alive in 1919-- I wonder how he liked that recording!

[@pianoplayer123able]

I really love his Chopin Etudes. He cares about them as character pieces.

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Yes, I really love those recordings also. I also didn't talk about his great recordings of the Preludes either...there are so many wonderful Cortot recordings! Thanks for watching Andreas!

[@AsrielKujo]

Amazing video what's the intro piece? just wondering

[@TheIndependentPianist]

Earl Wild: Etude after Gershwin's "Liza" :-)

[@CarmenReyes-em9np]

Yo lo puse​@@TheIndependentPianist

[@richardresseguier1]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@awprice123]

Anthony Price All excellent as usual, except for a bizarrely condescending mention of the incomparable Maggie Teyte (born in Wolverhampton!), who contrasts with her less vivid successors much as Cortot contrasts with his. ( I can -- or perhaps I can't -- image a specialist in French melodies talking analogously about Cortot as being less well known now that he used to be.) She had the misfortune that HMV adopted her when she was just beyond her vocal prime -- and then recorded her prolifically. Yet even her late recordings have moments of magic -- and, happily, she was in good enough voice in her sessions with Cortot that their barely rehearsed collaboration remains the gold standard in the greatest of all French melodies.

[@TheIndependentPianist]

@@awprice123 I love Maggie Teyte! Maybe she is better known nowadays than I thought… I don’t know, but I never heard any specialists in art song ever talking about her. It’s quite possible I didn’t meet the right ones. For that matter, I very rarely have heard pianists talking about Cortot either (except to condescendingly mention his wrong notes). I think it’s only us niche aficionados of older performing styles who go in for that kind of thing.

[@awprice123]

@@TheIndependentPianist Very good to hear this! Some English writers are less appreciative of Teyte -- and it has indeed been common to dismiss Cortot for inaccuracy. A lot of Teyte was reissued on CD by EMI, Naxos, Dutton, Decca, and Pearl (the Decca showing her voice at its peak, the Pearl being kindest to the voice that recorded Debussy) but it seems almost all now to have disappeared (in anticipation, perhaps, of CD's themselves.).

[@CarmenReyes-em9np]

Traductor.