Alfred CORTOT - Chopin Etude no.4 op.10 (audio)

Publié dans : Classical Music/Arts

Alfred CORTOT - Chopin Etude no.4 op.10 (audio)

26 September 1877, Nyon (Switzerland)- 15 June 1962, Lausanne (Switzerland)

Alfred Cortot, né le 26 septembre 1877 à Nyon (Suisse) et mort à Lausanne le 15 juin 1962, est un pianiste français. Il est considéré comme un des plus grands pianistes et pédagogues de la première partie du XX^e siècle. La qualité de ses interprétations l'ont inscrit au Panthéon des pianistes et la qualité de son enseignement a permis à de nombreux pianistes d'épanouir leur talent. (Wikipedia)

Despite his birth and death in Switzerland, Alfred Cortot is reckoned one of France’s leading artists. Whenever he was not on tour, he was teaching in Paris first at the Conservatoire where he had studied, later at the ecole Normale de Musique, which he founded in 1919. Dinu Lipatti and Clara Haskil were his most famous pupils. He had been taught by the Chopin pupil Emile Descombes, but valued other teachers more highly: "Diemer taught me piano. Music was revealed to me by Edouard Risler." What Risler "revealed" to him above all was the music of Wagner, which drew Cortot to Bayreuth in 1898. There he gained conducting experience and was assistant to Felix Mottl and Hans Richter; on returning to Paris he conducted the first French performances of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung and Parsifal. At the same time, Cortot vigorously championed young French composers. The piano did not come to the fore again until Cortot founded a legendary trio in 1905 with the violinist Jacques Thibaud and the cellist Pablo Casals. He launched his career as a solo pianist around the same time, enjoying his heyday in the inter-war years. He was particularly admired for his readings of Schumann, Chopin and French composers, and also wrote a series of important books on music, interpretation and piano technique; many more of his ideas are expressed in his editions of Romantic piano works. (http://www.ourchopin.com/pianists.html#2)