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While I have reservations about the ultimate value of competitions, with the public perception that the "winner takes all" and the rest are insignificant, I think that a comment such as the above has little real value. And while technique seems to be taking a front seat these days in the judgment of many, anyone who wins a competition of some stature cannot be said to be without "a musical bone in their whole bodies." Perhaps the comment says more about its author than about the musicianship of the performers in question.

Regards,

A very high percentage of the major pianists from the last 50 years have won a prize in a major competition. To claim that most have poor musicianship seems plain wrong.

In fact, I'd argue that because the general technical level of pianists today is so high, this means that in order to win a competition one must have qualities beyond terrific technique.

A "semipro tech" has a highly gifted and trained ear. I have a highly gifted ear.

What is at stake here is that we are challenging your entire collective pianistic existence. And do you know what?

I am a highly functioning autistic, and it is impossible for me to "care" what you think of that statement or me.

As I shared with the senior classical music critic for the entire United States today, I was present at a rehearsal when the conductor announced to the soloist, and the orchestra, that Van Cliburn had cancelled on him 15 years earlier "because he had a hangnail."

Do you have even the faintest idea what it means for the summer conductor of the New York City Opera to make a statement like that?

Piano competitions are the death poison to the peformance of classical piano music. And, the sooner you accept that reality, the better.

Then, we can all focus on the music, and bring that true joy to all those who long for this fine art.

And, for those who want to delve into the recent performances of Radu Lupu, Christina Ortiz, and Olga Kern, I beg you to go there. I beg you.

No need to beg. At least do Ms Ortiz the honor of spelling her name correctly, whatever you think of her playing.

Louis: It was good and brave of you to share the personal condition -- very good and brave. It would be still better if you could more fully take into account the limitations that might result from it, and not be so absolutely sure of your own conclusions.

But be that as it may, I want to tell you that despite our disagreements, I have a great deal of sympathy for you, I very much admire your having shared the issue, and I greatly admire what you have been achieving in spite of it.

You aren't convinced he was a great pianist?

I was listening to my collection, which may not all be on youtube, and found some of the playing to be quite remarkable despite being riddled with finger slips, and probably more often, memory slips. One of the funniest ones is right before the fugue in the Liszt B minor sonata, he ends the two scales with the lowest A octave instead of the G. Did he just want that really low note and not think anyone would care or notice?

Are you? You said earlier you were 'not a fan', though admittedly that does not necessarily indicate that you didn't think Cortot a great pianist. I've certainly read a ton of stuff by people who certainly think so.

It was Cortot's recording of the Chopin Etudes which initially created a bad impression as a very 'impressionable' 17 year old. I simply couldn't understand what all the fuss was about; he could barely play the notes, let alone put them into any coherent musical statement.

Recently I had listened to Ashkenazy's first recording of the etudes, so perhaps the bar was set almost impossibly high. Browning and Pollini subsequently gave us super-human recordings, yet I have read that the latter was a patchwork of edits. (Don't know about the Browning.) Neither recording affected me so profoundly as Ashkenazy, and that is the only recording in my library along with Perahia.

I will keep an open mind re Cortot, though perhaps his most staunch admirers might recommend I start elsewhere.

Not really and the Waltz performance I gave in the opening post seemed so horrendous(not just technically)as to make me have serious doubts about Cortot. How could a professional allow such a performance to be issued? I do find some of the other Cortot performances I and others have posted considerably better than the Waltz but so far, for me, not outstanding enough to put Cortot on the stratospherically high level that many seem to place him.

I just read Dubal's description of Cortot's playing in his The Art of the Piano and it is so outstanding that I certainly will not give up in listening for the
Cortot that others hear.

True. I think he compares favorably to others who are considered great pianists so if I were to take that title away, I would also remove it from Cziffra, Paderewski, Wild, Kentner, and a few others. Cortot does a lot of interesting things despite the multitude of errors. I'm not a fan because he trashed his Liszt pieces.

On a side note, I think I read somewhere that he made the first recording of the Liszt sonata.

I realize this is an old thread, but as I was just reading a wonderful article on Cortot, I found out something I didn't know, and something most probably don't know. Cortot is as we know best known for his Chopin and Schumann recordings, many of them done in the 30's when he was around 50 years old. Guess what? During the limited time frame of 5 days, he recorded the following:

Four ballades
four impromptus
two sonatas
12 etudes op 10
fantasie
barcarolle
tarantelle
polonaise nr 6
24 preludes


FIVE days! 4-8th of july, 1933. During 4 days in 1934, he did some re-takes of the preludes and also recorded:

12 etudes op 25
14 waltzes

Now, when people complain about wrong notes here and there, perhaps it's worth remembering you're hearing a pianist in his 50's (who apart from performing was extremely busy teaching, administring a conservatory, writing books, editing scores, touring) who in a time span of just a few days recorded more repertoire than anyone of us would ever dream of playing. Can we perhaps be forgiving of poor old Cortot for not doing full justice to that Chopin waltz that was posted in the beginning of this thread? And can we also consider the possibility that the incredible spontaneity, freshness and boldness in many of his recordings perhaps is a result of him caring less about perfection - which would require endless re-takes - and more about musical flow?

As I pointed out already...more like an impressive 50-year old or 61-year old, depending on which recording you're listening to. Not to mention that his days were busy with more than just practicing the piano.


Indeed, recording around 3-4 hours of Chopin's most demanding piano works during a period of 5 days leave some performances unsatisfactory when it comes to dexterity and perfection. Given the circumstances under which the etudes were recorded howeve, I'd argue the opposite to what you're saying - I have new-won respect for Cortot for his to my mind extremely coherent musical statements and for his overall stunning virtuosity, clarity and pedal wizardry. THIS guy could barely play the notes?






What are you talking about?

Seems like Cortot made some choices that affected, at least for his detractors, the view of his playing for future generations. I don't think he had to record so much repertoire in such little time. He apparently had numerous other musical responsibilities and little time to practice but again that seems like his choice.

I don't think he cared much about future detractors of his, whether on silly internet forums or elsewhere. Besides, you seem unwilling to take into account that times have changed since those glorious Cortot recordings of the 1930's were made. Only with today's perspective and today's way of recording CD's - with re-take after re-take until "perfection" is reached - does Cortot's attitude to the recording process seem odd. But from the perspective of Cortot - a man born in 1879 - it would have been equally strange to have a recording engineer shouting "let's do bar 19 to 23.5 to fix those missed notes". Krystian Zimerman has some wise things to say on the matter of recording music and on Cortot's recordings here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j6PpDQ6miBg#t=496s

I'm sure Cortot didn't care about future detractors in terms of the accuracy of his playing because otherwise he would either have prepared fewer works for recording or did more takes. But I don't see how his not caring is relevant.

I am certainly aware of the different attitude about accuracy for pianists of that era, but most who recorded then seemed to have been quite a bit more accurate than Cortot. I don't recall any other pianist of that era who recordings are often criticized for inaccuracy.

None of this means I don't think Cortot may have be been a great pianist although I did start this thread after hearing the Chopin Waltz performance that I found quite disastrous in terms of interpretation in addition to accuracy. So many knowledgeable people think Cortot was very great that I'm willing to keep an open mind on the matter, and certainly some of the other Cortot performances posted on this thread I find either good or extremely good.

This:


Maybe that's what initially turned me off, and I admittedly didn't go much further, though the Op 25/1 I enjoyed, and thanks for posting that.

That sounded *really* good to me!


-J

I will give the Cortot issue a miss, admit defeat, and move on, especially as the Op25/1 was very fine indeed.

Now that you're comparing Cortot to other pianists of the time, I'd be interested to know what other pianists recordings of the complete Chopin etudes done by the 1930's you might be referring to. There are hardly any, first of all. If you are talking about pianists that recorded one or two of the etudes then you're really comparing apples and oranges. Perhaps you had Koczalski's recordings in mind? As a pupil of Mikuli, it's surely interesting to hear how he played Chopin, but it's hardly 100% accurate playing if that's what you're asking for:





It's also worth adding that most recordings by Cortot was when he was already practicing significantly less and was past his prime due to other duties in his daily life. Anyone doubting Cortot's virtuosity better listen to his early 1919 recordings of Saint-Saens Etude en forme de valse and Liszt's La leggierezza:



Horowitz went to Paris asking Cortot for his fingerings in this piece! He didn't tell. Allegedly, Horowitz also wanted a trilling lesson from Cortot, don't recall if he got at least that or not.

Reading through previous posts here I realized that the S-S piece had been posted already - anyway, it's interesting to compare both that and the Liszt with later recordings of the same piece. A later recording of the Liszt includes a coda invented by Cortot himself! The S-S is a tad slower and perhaps less impressive as a whole, but the sound is more clear and it gives an idea of his evolution as a pianist.

It's a pity he recorded fairly little Liszt. However, the few recordings we have speak millions on his sense for colour, flawless passagework and musical poetry:

Thanks for mentioning him and posting the recordings. Didn't know of him before at all, and indeed his playing is interesting and excellent. But.... no fault of Koczalski's, his Wiki article happens to have the very most nonfactual assertion I've ever seen in a Wiki article, which is saying quite a bit:

"His Chopin recordings reveal him as the most compelling, authentic Chopin interpreter of all time...."

I don't mean anything against him. I'd laugh just the same if this were said about anyone else too -- except perhaps Frederic himself.

I gotta guess that the reason such a statement stands is that hardly anyone knows of him or comes across his name, and so few people ever go to that page.