music clip of the day

never enough

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Preludes, Op. 28 (1835-1839); Alfred Cortot (1877-1962, piano), 1933

He is the one pianist who equally satisfies my mind, my senses, and my emotions…three-dimensional playing.

A good performance is complex. Cortot’s recording of Chopin’s 24 preludes (1933), I listened to that recording very early on, not each week but a few times a year. And even today it has lost none of its overwhelming freshness and surprising variety. It’s a mixture of spontaneity and exact calculation, actually a calculated spontaneity which nonetheless seems utterly spontaneous. Perhaps only Cortot, in his best performances, could achieve that. You have 24 pieces, sounding like 24 different characters. Character for me is always a very important factor. It’s not just a question of keys and tempi, but of 24 different individuals expressed in miniature form. Which is precisely what Cortot achieves in this recording. He has the control to give each piece its character at once; you have, as it were, the impression that each first note is already a signal for what is to follow.

—Alfred Brendel (1931-), pianist, writer