This replica of the previous Music & Arts issue (1/89) of “the legendary 1926 and 1929 recordings of the Ballades, Preludes and Berceuse” is complemented by two thrilling additions: the Impromptu No. 2 and the A flat Etude, Op. 25, both performances dating from 1925. Yet again I found myself marvelling at playing of a unique, elemental fire and poetic verve. For Cortot, music was always an exalted language above and beyond the commonplaces of day-to-day discourse; a supreme glorification of both intellect and emotion. You may wave a disapproving finger at his frequent inaccuracy (the wildly flailing left-hand octaves in the Impromptu’s central march, for example), or raise an eyebrow at what can sometimes seem like rhetorical violence or excess. But you can hardly deny that every bar quivers with a spine-tingling joie de vivre, colour and vibrancy.
Cortot unquestionably saw sheer ecstasy as the prime requisite of great music-making. Listen to his freely elasticated rubato in the First Ballade, tugging and stretching the music to the very edge (and in the opening of the Fourth, arguably, beyond), to that sobbing, quasi-operatic declamation. The Second’s Presto storms (complete with Cortot’s opening chordal reinforcement) blaze with heroic defiance, and the vertiginous semiquaver flights in the Third (at 3'41'', after an awkward side-join) can rarely have cascaded with such dazzling virtuoso aplomb. No more rhapsodic account of the Fourth Ballade exists, one unforgettably coloured by the haunting sweetness of Cortot’s cantabile, and the melody of the A flat Etude floats on a seeming air-cushion of harmony.
My copy of the disc skipped from band to band in the Preludes, yet nothing can dim the glory of Cortot’s performance. Who knows, if Chopin had heard this pianist’s prestissimo flight through No. 23 he might well have had second thoughts about his moderato marking.
Today such breathless ardour would be laughed out of court in both the exam room and on the competition circuit. But the loss would be ours, for Cortot had an elegance and vivacity that can make more ‘tasteful’, accurate and executive-style pianism seem small beer indeed. A few flaws notwithstanding, the transfers have been excellently managed; and the fault mentioned in the Preludes may be peculiar to my copy.'