Search - Schumann :: Piano Works

The memorable aristocratic pianism!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a Schumann hard admirer as I do, go for this records!

Alfred Cortot (b. Nyon, Suiza, 26-11-1877; d. Geneva, 15-06-1962) was the most remarkable exponent of the French school after Pugno. After having played Appassionata's first movement in front of Anton Rubinstein, A.R told him: "Beethoven's music must not be studied. It must be reincarnated." He was possessed by a strong intellectual authority, virility, poetry and aristocracy.



If you examine his unexhausted career, you will realize why his performances are so permeated of Symphonic breath. He conduced the Premiere of The Ring in 1902. He was a true Wagnerian, and someway his approach at the moment of playing any work was enriched by a broad vision. Consider besides, the happy meeting with two legend musicians as Thibaud and Casals; I mean, in despite of the fact the natural gifts, Cortot was surrounded for wisdom companies.



The Symphonic Etudes Op. 13 & Op. Posth. (rec. & March 1929, Small Queen Hall) have been one of the main battle horses and most beloved preferred compositions by the most of high caliber pianists (as in the case of Frau Carreño, for instance) ; while Kempff gives a dreamy approach, Cortot makes a mesmerizing, disturbing and nervous performance, plenty of electricity and sublimate passion. I must insist: Cortot never played a romantic note, he preferred to express the noblesse and the lyricism by themselves rather play under the glassy romantic mood.



Carnaval, Op. 9 (rec. 5 June & 11 Dec 1928, Kingsway Hall & Small Queen's Hall) integrates colorful outwardly gay and inward melancholy. Cortot `s figures are fascinating due its unexpected elegance blended with a marked violence. The slow passages are aristocratically played with a conception that we don't see actually. Something lost in the road there is no doubt about it. Cortot illuminates the score and produces a skeletal atmosphere in the environment. The febrile elegance in every one of the inner passages are captivating and spelling.





Kreisleriana has always been one of the most expressive and enrapturing pages ever written for the keyboard. It owns an overflowing poetry and is to my mind the nearest composition related with the autumnal approach of Franz Schubert in his last days. Written In just four days Schumann expressed to his beloved Clara:" Play my Kreisleriana often. A positively wild love is in some of the movements, and your life and mine, and the way you look."



In Papillions Op. 2 (rec.4 July 1935) we find seriously less gifted pianist but at the meantime, a wiser man , this admirable set of variations are played with hat sense of elusiveness and dreams so typical of the youth years.



Scenes from the childhood (rec. 4 July 1935) - conceived by Schumann as " Souvenirs for those who have grown up" - is a superb poetic homage to those years of the childhood seen through adult eyes. Traumerei is simply a superb lesson of inspired pianism. Delicate but without affectations or mannerisms; noble but not tearful, a serene candidness under candlelight.



Davidsbündlertänze is Schumann's most subjective work: Under his double pseudonym: "Florestan and Eusebius" , this work is considered for many as the quintessence of Schumann's pianistic art."



We have to recognize and acknowledge the impressive and notable Engineering process about the clean and almost imperceptible hiss for Music & Arts personal.

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A different view of Schumann

Hiram Gomez Pardo | 10/14/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Cortot brings his own well-thought-out views to several of Schumann's central piano works, including Kreisleriana, Kinderszenen, and Symphonic Etudes. If you are used to other versions, Cortot will lead you to unexpected subtleties in these pieces. (Cortot's Traeumerei has been much studied--he speeds up where others slow down, for example.) This album makes an excellent complement to the more familiar versions in the catalog. The discs are packed full of well-selected works, and the sound is excellent for that era (1930s)."