music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Tag: Alfred Cortot

Saturday, August 31st

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

Tuesday, May 3rd

never enough

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

**********

lagniappe

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

Thursday, March 5th

never enough

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Nocturne No. 2 in E-flat major; Alfred Cortot (1877-1962, piano), 1929

 

**********

langiappe

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

*****

reading table

Error is boundless.
Nor hope nor doubt,
Though both be groundless,
Will average out.

—J. V. Cunningham (1911-1985), from “Meditation on Statistical Method”

Monday, February 4th

If told you had a week to live, what recordings would you want to listen to in your waning days? This, for me, would be one.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), 24 Preludes (Op. 28); Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), piano, 1933/34

 

**********

lagniappe

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

Saturday, January 26th

timeless

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Prelude in C-sharp minor (Op. 45); Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), piano, 1949

 

**********

lagniappe

random sights

today, Oak Park, Ill.

Saturday, February 11th

If I knew I had a week to live, this is one of the recordings I would want to hear.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), 24 Preludes
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), piano, 1933/34


**********

langiappe

reading table

dizzying, adj. making you feel dizzy. E.g., reading a John Ashbery poem.

Listen to it the way everybody
here was naughty today,
of how broad it is.

Foreign man with an affluent cigar,
he used to live on top of this bed
on the local rails he was so proud of
among the recyclables, this morning,
spouting words that I thought were other.
Yes, and they became addictive. Oh,

make me a boy again! Do something!
But the little candle just stood there,
reflected in its lozenge-shaped mirror.
Maybe that was “something,”
a lithe sentence.

He’s only going to do it for the first time.
It’s snowing hard.

Hand me the orange.

—John Ashbery (1927-), “Just So You’ll Know,” New Yorker, 2/13 & 20/17

Monday, January 12th

from my desert-island list

No matter how many times I hear it, this recording, made over 80 years ago, never fails to sweep me away.

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

Thursday, 11/22/12

otherworldly

Maurice Ravel, Jeux d’eau (1901)

Martha Argerich, live (1977)

*****

Alfred Cortot, recording (1920)

**********

lagniappe

radio

After finishing, at midnight, their 24-hour Coleman Hawkins birthday celebration, the indefatigable folks at WKCR-FM didn’t rest for even a minute. Instead they embarked on a 4-day, 96-hour celebration of pianist Teddy Wilson’s centennial.

*****

Happy Thanksgiving!

MCOTD gives thanks for

Lester Bowie and

Blossom Dearie and

The Dirtbombs;

for Mingus, Miles, Monk,

Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, Bartok;

for WKCR-FM and WFMU-FM;

for Morton Feldman and

Elliott Carter and

Alfred Schnittke and

Tristan Murail;

for Hound Dog Taylor, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Magic Sam;

for The Ex, The Heptones, The Swan Silvertones, The Impressions, The Art Ensemble of Chicago;

for Von Freeman and Art Pepper and Vernard Johnson;

for Friedrich Gulda and Martha Argerich, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Ursula Oppens;

for Ed Blackwell and

for Phillip Wilson;

for Julius Hemphill and

Henry Threadgill and

D’Angelo and

Dorothy Love Coates;

and for all the others—singers, musicians, composers, painters, photographers, printmakers, novelists, poets—who have graced this site;

and for you, who have found your way here, somehow, from Mongolia and Slovenia and Jamaica and Saudi Arabia; from Myanmar and Syria; from Angola, India, Ethiopia; from Finland, Thailand, Ireland, Iceland, and over 100 other countries.

Sunday, 5/20/12

three takes

“Trials, Troubles, Tribulations” (E.C. Ball)
(AKA “Tribulations”)

Andrew Bird
Live, Nashville (Grimey’s New & Preloved Music), 2009

***

Wayne Henderson, Martha Spencer & Jackson Cunningham
Live, Maryland (Rockville), 2010

***

E.C. Ball & Lacey Richardson
Recording (Alan Lomax), 1959-60

**********

lagniappe

listening room: (some of) what’s playing

 Face A Frowning World: An E.C. Ball Memorial Album (Tompkins Square)

• Merle Haggard, If I Could Only Fly (Anti- Records)

• The Canton Spirituals, The Live Experience 1999 (Verity Records)

• Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests, Moa Anbessa (Terp Records)

• Derek Bailey, Bill Laswell, Tony Williams, Arcana (DIW Records)

• Peter Brotzmann Octet, Machine Gun (FMP)

• Peter Brotzmann Sextet & Quartet, Nipples (Atavistic Records/Unheard Music Series)

• Miles Davis Quintet, Live in Europe 1967 (Columbia)

• Cecil Taylor European Orchestra, Alms/Tiergarten (Spree) (FMP)

• Alfred Cortot, piano, The Master Pianist (EMI, Icon Series)

• Nathan Milstein, violin, J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas (Deutsche Grammaphon)

• Arnold Schoenberg, Das Klavierwerk, Peter Serkin, piano (Arcana)

• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)

Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)

• WFMU-FM

Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture“new bass and beats”)
Sinner’s Crossroads 
(Kevin Nutt, gospel)
Cherry Blossom Clinic (Terre T, rock, etc.)
Fool’s Paradise (Rex; “Vintage rockabilly, R & B, blues, vocal groups, garage, instrumentals, hillbilly, soul and surf”)
Downtown Soulville (Mr. Fine Wine, soul, etc.)

• WHPK-FM (broadcasting from University of Chicago)

The Blues Excursion (Arkansas Red)

Thursday, 5/17/12

old stuff

Claude Debussy, Children’s Corner, 1908
Alfred Cortot (piano), Marcel L’Herbier (director), 1936

More Cortot? Here. And here.

*****

Children’s Corner was written for Debussy’s three-year-old daughter, Claude-Emma (nicknamed ‘Chou-Chou’ [AKA Chouchou]) and bears the following dedication: ‘to my dear Chou-Chou, with the tender apologies of her father for what is to follow.’

All Music Guide to Classical Music (2005)

*****

Claude & Chouchou
picnicking in a pine forest near Archachon, 1915