Search - Chopin, Corot :: Sonatas 2 & 3 / Polonaise 6 / Fantasie

Historical performances!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The great pianist Alfred Cortot in those times must have been a total surprise in the great audiences. His profound erudition and the special circumstance of being one of the few pianists in the music history who played admirably Schumann and Chopin conferred him a special approach of Frederic Chopin; revealing the man and his circumstance but also the neurotic gaze of Chopin, going far beyond a simple exercise of good manners and tearful concessions to the great audiences.

That's why there are so many listeners who disagree with his performances. I am not a devoted admirer of Cortot but I must confess this is a valid approach. The Romanticism conceived in the XIX Century usage, kept its virginity in certain music teachers. But also discovered that Chopin literally demystified that squalid and painful vision of the Chopin we are so accustomed to see in the old daguerreotypes, impregnating of discrete sexuality and suggestive seduction instead simply a lone romantic.

In the Third Sonata Cortot makes an impressive and graceful figure in the final coda of the First Movement. Cortot is far distant from being another Romantic pianist. Paderewski was the highest ambassador of that old fashioned concept of the lacerating and distorted vision. In the third movement you listen an anti romantic performance, Alfred is much worried to remark hidden aspects of the musical score, cleaning the ancient patina of reminiscent airs that will never come. This apparent puzzle obeys perhaps to the aristocrat vision so misunderstood after the French Revolution, that substituted it by oligarchy.

The Finale is a breathtaking movement, powerfully expressive without regretful air.

There is little to comment about this approach around the Second Sonata. It's elegant quite elegant with a superior refinement in the Funeral March There are better choices in the market.

The Polonaise No. 6 is one of the standouts of this CD . Impeccably played with epic taste and heroic ardor.

The Fantasy in F minor is another example of the supreme interpretative excellence.

Finally let me remember you Cortot was the teacher of Dinu Lipatti, Samson Francois and Clara Haskill. Doesn't it mean anyhthing?

Go for this album because it will give you some facets never underseen beneath Chopin's soul.



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