Search - Chopin, Cortot :: Cortot Plays Chopin

Effortless, natural Chopin, before note-splicing came along

John Grabowski | USA | 02/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This disc, one of my favorite Chopin CDs around, may be hard for some listeners who are accustomed to note-perfect performances. It was recorded when note-perfection wasn't expected and wasn't the most important aspect of a recording's success. The advance of sonics and editing have largely proceeded at the expense of spontenaity and expressivity. These are very rich and warm and natural Chopin performances from a man who prized honing the content more than honing the technique; there are wrong notes every half dozen bars.



I'll take the wrong notes if one can have Cortot's majesty, however. These recordings, made between 1925 and 1929, sound as though Cortot came over to your living room (or "parlor" as they would undoubtedly say back then) and sat down and played Chopin spontaneously on your piano. There's no melodrama, no affectedness, just beautiful melodies connected with simple lines sung with a purity and directness that has vanished in our age of mannerisms and faked emotions (Kissin). Cortot is not trying to make The Big Statement. He's just playing Chopin distilled through a clear, clean, unfussy intellect, one that can see the path out of the woods when others are stumbling along, blocked by branches. While one might find, for example, individual Preludes one likes better from other pianists, Cortot holds them together as a whole better than anyone I've ever heard.



The sound on this disc is excellent for the time--airy and warm. The piano sounds almost velvety at times; at other points it's a burnished and dark sound he gets. Yet the sonics must hint as to what he sounded like in person, the way the decaying Last Supper indicates what Leonardo must have painted. These are the Preludes I would recommend highest of all recordings I know, the First Ballade is also superb, and one of my favorite Chopin works, the Berceuse for piano in D flat major, Op. 57, is gorgeously done here. After listening to this, the next CD in the changer in my car was more Chopin, this time played by Pollini. I had to turn it off after 30 seconds. I admire many of Pollini's accomplishements (his DG recital of Stravinsky's Petrushka, Prokofiev's 7th Sonata, Webern, etc. is one of the greatest piano discs of the 20 century for my money), but he can't touch Cortot when it comes to Chopin. Few others can, either."