The French pianist Alfred Cortot did for the music of Chopin what his contemporary Artur Schnabel did for Beethoven.
Cortot was a pupil of a pupil of Chopin and was one of the first to give entire Chopin recitals and record complete sets of pieces. He collected Chopin's manuscripts, edited his works and wrote a book about him. Above all, he helped modernise and intellectualise the interpretation of a composer too often played sentimentally. His recordings have stood the test of time.
But Cortot's interests and activities were broad. He conducted Wagner's operas at Bayreuth and Paris. He championed new music. With Pablo Casals and Jacques Thibaud, he formed the most celebrated piano trio of the day. A noted teacher, he was professor at the Paris Conservatoire and founded the Ecole Normale de Musique.
He was so busy he probably had little time to practise, which may explain the abundance of wrong notes in his recordings. Yet all had elegance, intelligence and idiosyncratic style.
He was known as the poet of the piano and died in 1962, aged 84.
-Roger Moodiman, Marine Parade, Brighton
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