The Master Speaks … and Plays

A century ago, before the world was so flat, national styles of music making were a given.The French school of pianism, for example, was known for its fleet technique and lyrical delicacy – the aural equivalent, perhaps, of the nation’s haute cuisine. German playing was a weightier and less nuanced affair: Think meat and potatoes, hold the schlag. In a discussion of these differences some years ago, the American composer Ned Rorem offered a useful comparison: French music, he explained, is characteristically charming and often humorous. On the other hand, “a German joke is no laughing matter.”The French pianist Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) fell into neither camp comfortably. He managed to forge elements of both national styles into a remarkable blend that enthralled audiences and influenced generations of students. Cortot had a completely original take on the music he performed.His French side was reflected in a highly polished technique, honed at the Paris Conservatoire under Emile Descombes, a disciple of Chopin. But Cortot’s fascination with Wagner’s music led him to Bayreuth, where he became a choral coach and then an assistant conductor, under the tutelage of the great conductors Felix Mottl and Hans Richter. Back in Paris in 1902, 23-year-old Cortot gave the Parisian premiere of Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung.” Later, he introduced to the City of Lights Wagner’s “Parsifal,” Brahm’s “German Requiem,” Liszt’s “Saint Elizabeth Oratorio,” and Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis.”The surface beauty of Cortot’s French style took root in that German soil, and the result was an interpretive method that placed dramatic context and mood above the more formal, emotionally distant approach valued by his peers. Nu merous recordings – made solo or featuring the trio he formed with violinist Jacques Thibaud and cellist Pablo Casals – document his individuality and his brilliance. But an equally important part of his legacy rested on his role as teacher.In 1907, Gabriel Faure appointed Cortot professor of piano at the Conservatoire. And in 1919, he founded his own school, the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, where private students included such legendary figures as Gina Bachauer, Clara Haskil, Magda Tagliaferro, Dinu Lippati, Ruth Slenczynska, and Vlado Perlemuter. Cortot’s annotated editions of the standard repertoire still guide aspiring pianists.Those editions and a handful of books seemed to be all that remained of his teaching. But recently, pianist Murray Perahia learned from Cortot’s son, Jean, of the existence of some 30 hours of recorded master classes delivered by Cortot between 1954 and 1960. Listening to them was, he discovered, an ear-opening experience.“He looks at music in relation to literature and to life,”Mr.Perahia told me recently. “And this is in a way a dying thing. It is rare to find an exponent like Cortot.”On the tapes, Cortot performs music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin – some of which he never recorded elsewhere – and provides a poetic narrative for each work. Mr. Perahia edited the material down and Sony Classical is issuing it on three CDs, along with an accompanying booklet that carries Mr. Perahia’s comments and translations of Cortot’s instructions to the students, which were delivered, of course, in French.Mr. Perahia’s analysis of Cortot’s pianism makes clear how unique it was. “In a word, the playing would be ‘free,’ ” he explains in the liner notes. “It was not whimsical, however. It followed an inner emotional logic, but it had a fluidity of pulse and it was extremely personal. His Beethoven ran against the current of his time, but it presented a powerful case for an important and valid point of view.” Cortot, he says, felt that music’s masterpieces were treated by others with too much awe, and he wanted his playing to reflect a more familiar, personal quality. “Therefore, he would change tempo if he felt the dramatic context required it,getting faster if the mood became more restless, slowing down if one wanted to show the culmination of a thought.” The result was unconventional but thoroughly convincing.The surprise is that Mr. Perahia, a formidable artist who has long championed an interpretive approach based on intricate harmonic analysis (developed by theorist Heinrich Schenker) finds Cortot’s bold, idiosyncratic style so gripping. “One doesn’t cancel the other,” he told me.”There are many nuances along the way – there is not one way of thinking. But the approach is different: He always looked for a story, and therefore tied the music to the literary world. From his point of view, music has to make a dramatic point, there is never theorizing for its own sake. It has to be full of life, which means full of color.“These are the most basic points of Cortot – all quite necessary today, when many pianists get either too timid or too probing for its own sake – that is, they become academic and outside of life in a way. Cortot drives the music back to its main source, so it becomes a comment on life. For that reason alone, it’s important. And maybe that transcends performers and specialists and instead serves everyone. People are always fascinated about going into the studio of a great performer and learning what they think about. That’s why I felt there would be interest in these tapes. In some ways they answer questions that many people may have.”Cortot’s force of personality brings to mind another pianist who figured prominently in Mr. Perahia’s life: Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz had a tie with Cortot, according to Mr. Perahia. “He actually studied with Cortot for a while.He told me that when he left Russia his teacher, Felix Blumenthal, told him that the only person in the West that he really must work with was Cortot. He studied all the Beethoven Sonatas with Cortot, but Cortot wasn’t very nice about Horowitz. Of course, there probably was a touch of anti-Semitism in Cortot. He had a very dodgy war record.”Indeed, Cortot’s affection for German culture led to a cultural role in the Vichy government in World War II, and he was found guilty after the war of collaboration with the enemy. As punishment, he was banned from performing for a year.Yet Cortot’s criticism of Horowitz might have resulted more from an aversion to players with virtuosic inclinations. In fact, the French master developed a reputation for unpredictable performances that often included wrong notes and terrifying memory lapses. But, according to Mr. Perahia, “Horowitz valued Cortot’s type of playing, and it had a lasting influence. At the end, when he played an octave passage he wasn’t concerned with the notes, he was more concerned with the energy behind the notes.”The master class tapes, which were made late in Cortot’s life, also include many wrong notes. (Arthur Rubinstein once commented that audiences at Cortot’s concerts would often wait impatiently for the moment when disaster would strike.) Mr. Perahia finds them inspiring nevertheless: “It might be the fault of recordings, or of inhibitions, but today there is much more concern about accuracy,” he said. “And that is a loss. There is something special about being in contact with this larger-than-life personality. I find that you can’t imitate it. One can’t imitate his rhythmic gestures, for example, because they work only for him. I wouldn’t recommend them for anyone else. I find there is something sincere about the playing nevertheless. I don’t think it’s a mannerism. And, in drawing on every inspiration that he can, he’s actually scholarly as well, which I find very bracing. In that way, I get a lot from it.”

The Master Speaks … and Plays

The Master Speaks … and Plays

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