Feng Shui is such a rich topic that there is lots of room for learning and exploration. Because every aspect of your home reflects part of your being, novices can find it overwhelming. I have aimed to keep my blog posts and videos focused on clear, simple tasks that one can apply in specific areas to make it more approachable and use-able.
I have created an e-book featuring 12 topical themes that fit with the 12 months of the year. These help provide an organizing principle with which to implement some Feng Shui applications, although these suggestions can be put into practice at any time (Christmas decorations perhaps a bit less so).
I’m offering this eBook to anyone who signs up for my new newsletter mailing list. It has recently struck me that as much as I enjoy writing, I haven’t been doing it as much as I could and newsletters give me an opportunity to share some insights – from writings made here, from my Instagram posts, from daily experiences, from consulting and workshop awarenesses. I’m looking to resume regular newsletter sharings with a new account from previous years and therefore building up my mailing list. This new eBook is my first offering for those who sign up.
It is a tremendous blessing that recording technology has allowed the playing of great musicians of the past to be preserved for future generations. In some cases, we are able to hear performances that came perilously close to disappearing into thin air and which now form the foundation of a musician’s current reputation. One such case is the remarkable Chilean pianist Rosita Renard, whose only Carnegie Hall recital – in 1949 – is justly considered legendary and is a milestone of recorded pianism.
Rosa Amelia Renard Artigas was born in Santiago, Chile on February 8, 1894. Her abilities made themselves known at a young age and she made her debut with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra playing the Grieg Concerto when she was 14. The government would provide a scholarship the following year for Renard to study at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where in 1910 she would enter the master class of Martin Krause. The Liszt pupil famously taught Edwin Fischer (who was both her classmate and friend) as well as Renard’s more famous younger compatriot Claudio Arrau (it is apparently Renard who walked the young boy – nine years her junior – to his audition in 1912). After four years of training, Krause stated about Renard that ‘there is no doubt she will conquer the world as an artist,’ noting that ‘her spiritual interpretation, her sound, can only be compared with the great maestro Emil von Sauer.’
Returning to her native land at the beginning of WW1, Renard was offered an opportunity to teach in Rochester, NY but on arrival found that she had been assigned only one student. Despite this bad luck, the pianist was treated generously by admirers who arranged several concerts on her behalf, bringing her what she considered to be an outrageous sum of money – over five hundred dollars – and more flowers than she knew what to do with (she took them to Our Lady’s Shrine in a cathedral as an offering). Critics were bowled over by an all-Liszt recital at Aeolian Hall – the 22-year-old’s second at the venue – comparing her to Teresa Carreño, the ‘greatest woman pianist.’ Max Smith in the New York American wrote:
‘A more amazing, a more thrilling exhibition of bravura power than Rosita Renard gave in Aeolian Hall at her second recital, the musical public of this city has not witnessed in many a year. Indeed, since the days when Teresa Carreño first took the world by storm, no woman has disclosed such prodigious virtuosity, as the dark-haired girl of twenty-two developed yesterday afternoon in a programme devoted entirely to the transcendentally difficult works of Franz Liszt.’
With such accolades, Renard was signed to a two-year contract by Charles Ellis, who also managed Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, and Kreisler. She played in more than 40 cities in the US and her 1920 performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto with the New York Philharmonic was praised to the skies. However, the following year Renard returned to Germany, but the musical climate had changed and she was unable to develop the same level of popularity: critics were unreceptive if not downright hostile to her, and after a few years she returned to the United States. However, she made less of an impression this time, despite playing concerts with the legendary soprano Geraldine Farrar and together with her own sister Blanca, who taught in Alabama. She played again at Aeolian Hall but did not attract the attention that had been lavished on her a decade earlier.
Before returning to her native country, Renard made a few recordings around 1928 – not quite as volcanic as what can be heard in her final recital, but nevertheless both bold and musical. This reading of Beethoven’s Sonata in G Major Op.31 No.1 showcases her marvellous tonal colours, deft articulation, rhythmic vitality, skillful melodic shaping, and a host of other pianistic marvels.
In Europe, she had apparently played the Schulz-Evler paraphrase of Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz between scenes of Die Fledermaus at a New Year’s Eve party. Josef Lhévinne’s abridged disc is the most famous of the transcription, and Renard gives quite a different kind of performance, cutting the work in different areas than Lhévinne (she plays the extended introduction that is completely absent from his) and with an approach in general more fluid than her Russian colleague’s taut, bouncy reading – but of course still highly idiomatic.
Renard settled back in her native Chile in 1930, her profound modesty having led her to stop pursuing a career as a performer. Instead, she assisted reorganizing the Santiago Conservatory’s piano department while transforming a modest country home with a dirt floor into something more amenable – with mahogany furniture and elegant silver – and continuing to teach, having friends and students visit for musical gatherings on the weekend. Two more European tours were undermined by her self-effacement, until conductor Erich Kleiber in 1945 booked her for a Mozart concerto performance after her name had been proposed and he heard her play. Their rapport was such that they traveled throughout Latin America together, and Renard became known as a Mozart specialist, giving cycles in recital and orchestral appearances in Satiago, Montevideo, Lima, Buenos Aires, Bogota, and Havana (a critic in Argentina wrote that the ovation after her performance of Mozart’s C Major Concerto lasted for ten minutes).
Finally after 22 years she would return to New York to give her one and only Carnegie Hall recital, the one which has now secured her place in the pianistic pantheon. Her friend Bernardo Mendel played a key role in arranging the concert: he had founded theSociety of Friends of Music in Bogota in 1945 at the suggestion of Columbia Artists Management. He had heard her prior to that time in 1944, and upon meeting her a second time, he stated that he was now resourced to help arrange a concert for her at Carnegie Hall. As usual, the self-effacing Renard was doubtful of the degree of interest in her artistry: “You are going to lose your shirt because no one is going to come to my recital. Your family and some acquaintances would go, but nobody else,” she declared. However, Mendel would not relent and insisted that Renard prepare a programme and that they meet in New York in January 1949 to go over the final details of the concert. He himself went to New York and organized the recital with Columbia Artists Management, putting together a publicity campaign that included publishing a review of Renard’s success in Bogota in the January 15, 1949 issue of Musical America which stated that she would soon “debut” in New York (a somewhat exaggerated claim: this was her fourth recital in the city – in addition to her New York Philharmonic concerto – but it was her only Carnegie Hall recital).
The critics were unanimous in their praise of the recital. Among them was a young critic by the name of Harold C Schonberg, who would become a leading writer on the topic of great pianists. He recalled later that he had attended and was
prepared to review a piano recital by a (to me) unknown Chilean artist named Rosita Renard. It was a fairly conventional programme that she had announced; and I while I was not prepared for the worst, I certainly did not expect anything out of the ordinary. It took the first five measures of the opening of the Bach B-Flat Partita to get the latter notion out of my head: this was piano playing of individuality, strength, and colour; perhaps not the ultimate technical word, perhaps a little too full of nervous tension, but altogether intriguing…Well, it was quite a recital, and Miss Renard received the acclaim due her.
His review at the time stated that “she likes to play fast, but this speed does not stem from a mere desire to display her large technique. It develops from a restlessness in the pianist’s mind. Her Mozart A Minor Sonata, with those fast tempi, was not orthodox; and yet, like everything else she played, it had logic and authority. Miss Renard carries the stamp of a ‘big’ pianist…”
Mendel had the recital recorded under the auspices of the Society of Friends of Music, an act that would have more important consequences for Renard’s legacy than he might have expected at the time. After the performance, Renard returned to Chile and began displaying symptoms that at first mystified doctors but which were found to be caused by a strain of sleeping sickness that was famously being treated by Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Renard herself was unable to be cured, and within a matter of months she was dead, her bright light extinguishing on May 24, 1949.
It is almost inconceivable to imagine that an artist could have faded so quickly from life when listening to the vivacious, impassioned playing from her recital a mere four months earlier. After her death, the records that had been made for Renard’s personal use were issued as a memorial volume in a two-LP set by the Society of Friends of Music. Schonberg wrote about the experience of finding the records in a New York shop, which he described as a ‘weird experience… the playback of a dead artist’s recital at which I was present; the sound of the audience, the coughs, the applause; the intrinsic merit of the piano playing.’
About a quarter of a century later, Gregor Benko would reissue the performance on a two-disc set on the Desmar label as an International Piano Archives release, and on CD on the VAI label in 1995 (the label that Benko and engineer Ward Marston released on before the latter founded his own label Marston Records). The recording has become one of the most beloved concert recordings of the last century amongst the cognoscenti of the piano world. The playing is indeed, as Schonberg remarked, full of ‘individuality, strength, and colour,’ so much so that it is almost startling to modern ears. The vitality of her rhythmic pulse, the soaring lines that put one in mind of Josef Hofmann, the volcanic exclamations that remind one of Horowitz at his most impetuous, all fused with incredible intelligence and refinement of nuance, point not only to a pianist of the most remarkable ability but also to an era in which pianism was highly individual and personal. It is almost inconceivable today that a pianist could phrase Bach’s First Partita so fluidly and romantically, play Mozart’s A Minor Sonata and D Major Rondo so briskly, be so bold and volcanic in Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses or Chopin Études. The playing is not for the faint of heart (I’ve said that a few times in my postings of Renard and other similar artists) and it can take a few listens – once one gets past the shock of the completely different brand of pianism that one is hearing – to fully appreciate the magic of how she is playing and the power of her musicality.
Give yourself the time to listen well to this recital – and ideally more than once – to hear a kind of music-making that has largely vanished from the concert stage of today. How fortunate we are that the miracle of recording technology makes it possible for us to hear playing that we might simply have read about: listening to Renard’s legendary Carnegie Hall recital, we can experience pianism that simply defies description. What an extraordinary treasure this is!
Many thanks to Jeff Proctor, grandson of Renard’s friend and agent Bernardo Mendel, for sharing some of the rare photographs and information included in this posting
It is a tremendous blessing that recording technology has allowed the playing of great musicians of the past to be preserved for future generations. In some cases, we are able to hear performances that came perilously close to disappearing into thin air and which now form the foundation of a musician’s current reputation. One such case is the remarkable Chilean pianist Rosita Renard, whose only Carnegie Hall recital – in 1949 – is justly considered legendary and is a milestone of recorded pianism.
Rosa Amelia Renard Artigas was born in Santiago, Chile on February 8, 1894. Her abilities made themselves known at a young age and she made her debut with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra playing the Grieg Concerto when she was 14. The government would provide a scholarship the following year for Renard to study at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where in 1910 she would enter the master class of Martin Krause. The Liszt pupil famously taught Edwin Fischer (who was both her classmate and friend) as well as Renard’s more famous younger compatriot Claudio Arrau (it is apparently Renard who walked the young boy – nine years her junior – to his audition in 1912). After four years of training, Krause stated about Renard that ‘there is no doubt she will conquer the world as an artist,’ noting that ‘her spiritual interpretation, her sound, can only be compared with the great maestro Emil von Sauer.’
Returning to her native land at the beginning of WW1, Renard was offered an opportunity to teach in Rochester, NY but on arrival found that she had been assigned only one student. Despite this bad luck, the pianist was treated generously by admirers who arranged several concerts on her behalf, bringing her what she considered to be an outrageous sum of money – over five hundred dollars – and more flowers than she knew what to do with (she took them to Our Lady’s Shrine in a cathedral as an offering). Critics were bowled over by an all-Liszt recital at Aeolian Hall – the 22-year-old’s second at the venue – comparing her to Teresa Carreño, the ‘greatest woman pianist.’ Max Smith in the New York American wrote:
‘A more amazing, a more thrilling exhibition of bravura power than Rosita Renard gave in Aeolian Hall at her second recital, the musical public of this city has not witnessed in many a year. Indeed, since the days when Teresa Carreño first took the world by storm, no woman has disclosed such prodigious virtuosity, as the dark-haired girl of twenty-two developed yesterday afternoon in a programme devoted entirely to the transcendentally difficult works of Franz Liszt.’
With such accolades, Renard was signed to a two-year contract by Charles Ellis, who also managed Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, and Kreisler. She played in more than 40 cities in the US and her 1920 performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto with the New York Philharmonic was praised to the skies. However, the following year Renard returned to Germany, but the musical climate had changed and she was unable to develop the same level of popularity: critics were unreceptive if not downright hostile to her, and after a few years she returned to the United States. However, she made less of an impression this time, despite playing concerts with the legendary soprano Geraldine Farrar and together with her own sister Blanca, who taught in Alabama. She played again at Aeolian Hall but did not attract the attention that had been lavished on her a decade earlier.
Before returning to her native country, Renard made a few recordings around 1928 – not quite as volcanic as what can be heard in her final recital, but nevertheless both bold and musical. This reading of Beethoven’s Sonata in G Major Op.31 No.1 showcases her marvellous tonal colours, deft articulation, rhythmic vitality, skillful melodic shaping, and a host of other pianistic marvels.
In Europe, she had apparently played the Schulz-Evler paraphrase of Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz between scenes of Die Fledermaus at a New Year’s Eve party. Josef Lhévinne’s abridged disc is the most famous of the transcription, and Renard gives quite a different kind of performance, cutting the work in different areas than Lhévinne (she plays the extended introduction that is completely absent from his) and with an approach in general more fluid than her Russian colleague’s taut, bouncy reading – but of course still highly idiomatic.
Renard settled back in her native Chile in 1930, her profound modesty having led her to stop pursuing a career as a performer. Instead, she assisted reorganizing the Santiago Conservatory’s piano department while transforming a modest country home with a dirt floor into something more amenable – with mahogany furniture and elegant silver – and continuing to teach, having friends and students visit for musical gatherings on the weekend. Two more European tours were undermined by her self-effacement, until conductor Erich Kleiber in 1945 booked her for a Mozart concerto performance after her name had been proposed and he heard her play. Their rapport was such that they traveled throughout Latin America together, and Renard became known as a Mozart specialist, giving cycles in recital and orchestral appearances in Satiago, Montevideo, Lima, Buenos Aires, Bogota, and Havana (a critic in Argentina wrote that the ovation after her performance of Mozart’s C Major Concerto lasted for ten minutes).
Finally after 22 years she would return to New York to give her one and only Carnegie Hall recital, the one which has now secured her place in the pianistic pantheon. Her friend Bernardo Mendel played a key role in arranging the concert: he had founded theSociety of Friends of Music in Bogota in 1945 at the suggestion of Columbia Artists Management. He had heard her prior to that time in 1944, and upon meeting her a second time, he stated that he was now resourced to help arrange a concert for her at Carnegie Hall. As usual, the self-effacing Renard was doubtful of the degree of interest in her artistry: “You are going to lose your shirt because no one is going to come to my recital. Your family and some acquaintances would go, but nobody else,” she declared. However, Mendel would not relent and insisted that Renard prepare a programme and that they meet in New York in January 1949 to go over the final details of the concert. He himself went to New York and organized the recital with Columbia Artists Management, putting together a publicity campaign that included publishing a review of Renard’s success in Bogota in the January 15, 1949 issue of Musical America which stated that she would soon “debut” in New York (a somewhat exaggerated claim: this was her fourth recital in the city – in addition to her New York Philharmonic concerto – but it was her only Carnegie Hall recital).
The critics were unanimous in their praise of the recital. Among them was a young critic by the name of Harold C Schonberg, who would become a leading writer on the topic of great pianists. He recalled later that he had attended and was
prepared to review a piano recital by a (to me) unknown Chilean artist named Rosita Renard. It was a fairly conventional programme that she had announced; and I while I was not prepared for the worst, I certainly did not expect anything out of the ordinary. It took the first five measures of the opening of the Bach B-Flat Partita to get the latter notion out of my head: this was piano playing of individuality, strength, and colour; perhaps not the ultimate technical word, perhaps a little too full of nervous tension, but altogether intriguing…Well, it was quite a recital, and Miss Renard received the acclaim due her.
His review at the time stated that “she likes to play fast, but this speed does not stem from a mere desire to display her large technique. It develops from a restlessness in the pianist’s mind. Her Mozart A Minor Sonata, with those fast tempi, was not orthodox; and yet, like everything else she played, it had logic and authority. Miss Renard carries the stamp of a ‘big’ pianist…”
Mendel had the recital recorded under the auspices of the Society of Friends of Music, an act that would have more important consequences for Renard’s legacy than he might have expected at the time. After the performance, Renard returned to Chile and began displaying symptoms that at first mystified doctors but which were found to be caused by a strain of sleeping sickness that was famously being treated by Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Renard herself was unable to be cured, and within a matter of months she was dead, her bright light extinguishing on May 24, 1949.
It is almost inconceivable to imagine that an artist could have faded so quickly from life when listening to the vivacious, impassioned playing from her recital a mere four months earlier. After her death, the records that had been made for Renard’s personal use were issued as a memorial volume in a two-LP set by the Society of Friends of Music. Schonberg wrote about the experience of finding the records in a New York shop, which he described as a ‘weird experience… the playback of a dead artist’s recital at which I was present; the sound of the audience, the coughs, the applause; the intrinsic merit of the piano playing.’
About a quarter of a century later, Gregor Benko would reissue the performance on a two-disc set on the Desmar label as an International Piano Archives release, and on CD on the VAI label in 1995 (the label that Benko and engineer Ward Marston released on before the latter founded his own label Marston Records). The recording has become one of the most beloved concert recordings of the last century amongst the cognoscenti of the piano world. The playing is indeed, as Schonberg remarked, full of ‘individuality, strength, and colour,’ so much so that it is almost startling to modern ears. The vitality of her rhythmic pulse, the soaring lines that put one in mind of Josef Hofmann, the volcanic exclamations that remind one of Horowitz at his most impetuous, all fused with incredible intelligence and refinement of nuance, point not only to a pianist of the most remarkable ability but also to an era in which pianism was highly individual and personal. It is almost inconceivable today that a pianist could phrase Bach’s First Partita so fluidly and romantically, play Mozart’s A Minor Sonata and D Major Rondo so briskly, be so bold and volcanic in Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses or Chopin Études. The playing is not for the faint of heart (I’ve said that a few times in my postings of Renard and other similar artists) and it can take a few listens – once one gets past the shock of the completely different brand of pianism that one is hearing – to fully appreciate the magic of how she is playing and the power of her musicality.
Give yourself the time to listen well to this recital – and ideally more than once – to hear a kind of music-making that has largely vanished from the concert stage of today. How fortunate we are that the miracle of recording technology makes it possible for us to hear playing that we might simply have read about: listening to Renard’s legendary Carnegie Hall recital, we can experience pianism that simply defies description. What an extraordinary treasure this is!
Many thanks to Jeff Proctor, grandson of Renard’s friend and agent Bernardo Mendel, for sharing some of the rare photographs and information included in this posting
Alfred Cortot was a supreme interpreter of Chopin – he studied with the composer’s pupil Émile Descombes – and fortunately he left us many recordings made over the course of several decades. At times his recordings are surprising to modern ears that are used to clinical perfection, as the pianist would drop the odd note here and there. In the age of 78rpm discs, precision editing was not possible, so each 4-to-5-minute disc was cut ‘live’ – meaning that if mistakes were made, each record would need to be cut again or the mistakes would be included in the performance. But at the time that Cortot made his legendary recordings, commercial discs were not considered permanent statements and there was no sense that they would be listened to decades later – rather, they were provisional accounts, certainly not a replacement for a concert experience. As such, note-perfect playing was not the goal but musical insight was, and Cortot delivered this in spades.
Among his most significant contributions to recorded music are his stupendous accounts of Chopin’s Etudes, his expansive, creative interpretations taking these works well beyond the realm of technical studies to reveal their rich musical content. Prior to recording complete sets of these works, Cortot put down a glorious March 21, 1925 account of the Etude in A-Flat Major Op.25 No.1, the ‘Aeolian Harp’ Etude. With the newly implemented ‘electrical recording’ technology (which amplified the instrument with an electric microphone as opposed to the metal horns that had been used previously), we can appreciate Cortot’s beautiful singing sonority and magnificent pedal effects with greater fidelity than his earlier recordings in this desert-island reading of this work:
In 1933, Cortot recorded a massive volume of Chopin works: over the course of the five days from July 4 to 8, the great pianist recorded Chopin’s 24 Preludes, 4 Ballades, 12 Etudes Op.10, Second and Third Sonatas, 4 Impromptus, 6th Polonaise, Fantaisie, Barcarolle, and Tarantelle – a staggering amount of music to commit to disc in the age of 78rpm records. It is all the more miraculous that, with this timetable and the antiseptic nature of a recording studio, Cortot was able to deliver such musically inspiring performances that continue to be held as benchmark readings over eight decades later, and it is little wonder that there are occasional dropped notes! But what glorious readings he left us, with a magnificent account of Chopin’s Etudes Op.10 that is still critically acclaimed. This was not the first reading of the Etudes on record: Wilhelm Backhaus recorded his glorious cycle in 1928 and the vastly underrated Robert Lortat left an incredible set of both books in 1931. Cortot’s recordings, however, has become more widely known than these others.
Cortot did not record the works in chronological order so as to maximize the playing time on each 4-to-5-minute disc. LP and CD transfers of these performances have tended to issue the recordings in the usual chronological order, and I thought it might be interesting to listen to these performances in the order in which Cortot played them on 78s and in which listeners at the time heard on their records – so the upload below features the works as cut and presented on discs in the 1930s. In same cases, Cortot plays three etudes in a row, with only a second or two’s pause (and, remember, no editing was possible). While the photograph of Cortotin the upload, which was taken at around this period, shows him playing a Pleyel piano, it is documented that Steinway No.141 was used at these Abbey Road Studio No.3 sessions.
These accounts are overflowing with Cortot’s brilliant musicality, with soaring phrasing, sumptuous tonal colours, delicate nuancing, and his truly unique rubato – truly mesmerizing playing!
The following year, Cortot returned to Abbey Road to set down another series of works, including the Etudes Op.25, which we can hear here in the original order as recorded and pressed on 78rpm discs:
In both 1942 and 1943, the pianist not only re-recorded the Etudes but also the Preludes and Waltzes; less known is the fact that he recorded all of the Polonaises and Scherzi, which he did not record at any other time and pressings of which have not been found (one certainly hopes that copies will be located). Recorded at the Studio Albert in Paris on November 2 and 4, 1942, this later cycle of Etudes was released on 78rpm discs at the time and then on a French HMV LP in the 1950s, but were rarely available outside of France or anywhere after that time. They first came to wider attention when they were included in a 1990s 6-CD set produced by EMI France featuring a great many of Cortot’s Chopin recordings.
At the time of that CD release, critics found them less interesting than the pianist’s more known cycle from the previous decade – and certainly, the poor transfers and quick fade-outs after each short work didn’t do much to warm the listener to these readings. However, upon closer examination, one can appreciate that Cortot is in fact in remarkably fine form in these accounts, in some cases playing with more precision and just as much fire as in his performances from almost ten years earlier. Op.10 No.1, for example, is taken at the same tempo and at the very least has different dropped notes (a refreshing change!) but in fact even fewer than the equally dashing earlier performance. Instantly recognizable are the élan, elegance, refinement, and nobility of Cortot’s playing: fluid phrasing, a singing tone at all dynamic shadings (and even in rapid works), creative voicing, and the pianist’s inimitable rubato are all on full display.
Here are both books of Etudes from those 1942 sessions – recorded in only two days! – in separate uploads for Op.10 and Op.25:
At the time he made these discs of the 24 Etudes, Cortot did not record the Trois Nouvelles Etudes, but he did so twice later on, in 1947 and 1949. Here is the first of those accounts, in which we can hear with wonderful fidelity his rich singing sonority and magical pedal effects:
Later in life, Cortot’s control at the keyboard waned more significantly, although his tone and phrasing were still marvellous. While he made discs of works that he should not have given his technical decline, some poetic ones were beautifully played, as evidenced in this 1952 reading of the Etude Op.10 No.3
In 1960, Cortot recorded a lecture about the Etudes for Swiss Radio. The pianist’s languaging and verbal delivery are as evocative and elegant as his playing, not easy to fully grasp outside of the French language and therefore challenging to translate (a YouTube commenter has made an attempt in one of the comments in the link below). Listening to the pianist speak is sometimes as marvellous as listening to his playing …
Cortot’s pianism is not appreciated by all, though he continues to inspire music lovers and professional pianists today. Our current ‘Age of Anonymity’ is at odds with the highly individual performances that Cortot put on disc, with his immediately recognizable singing sonority and very personal approach to phrasing and timing, but the tide is changing: the brilliant young pianist Andrew Tyson spoke to the influence of Cortot on his playing, and a few years ago at the Pianofest at the Hamptons, young students were crowded around Jerome Lowenthal asking questions about his time studying with the venerable French master. However one feels about Cortot’s playing, his recorded legacy is a magnificent testament to a truly great musical mind and an astounding champion of the piano, one that will continue to be with us for many more decades to come.
Alfred Cortot was a supreme interpreter of Chopin – he studied with the composer’s pupil Émile Descombes – and fortunately he left us many recordings made over the course of several decades. At times his recordings are surprising to modern ears that are used to clinical perfection, as the pianist would drop the odd note here and there. In the age of 78rpm discs, precision editing was not possible, so each 4-to-5-minute disc was cut ‘live’ – meaning that if mistakes were made, each record would need to be cut again or the mistakes would be included in the performance. But at the time that Cortot made his legendary recordings, commercial discs were not considered permanent statements and there was no sense that they would be listened to decades later – rather, they were provisional accounts, certainly not a replacement for a concert experience. As such, note-perfect playing was not the goal but musical insight was, and Cortot delivered this in spades.
Among his most significant contributions to recorded music are his stupendous accounts of Chopin’s Etudes, his expansive, creative interpretations taking these works well beyond the realm of technical studies to reveal their rich musical content. Prior to recording complete sets of these works, Cortot put down a glorious March 21, 1925 account of the Etude in A-Flat Major Op.25 No.1, the ‘Aeolian Harp’ Etude. With the newly implemented ‘electrical recording’ technology (which amplified the instrument with an electric microphone as opposed to the metal horns that had been used previously), we can appreciate Cortot’s beautiful singing sonority and magnificent pedal effects with greater fidelity than his earlier recordings in this desert-island reading of this work:
In 1933, Cortot recorded a massive volume of Chopin works: over the course of the five days from July 4 to 8, the great pianist recorded Chopin’s 24 Preludes, 4 Ballades, 12 Etudes Op.10, Second and Third Sonatas, 4 Impromptus, 6th Polonaise, Fantaisie, Barcarolle, and Tarantelle – a staggering amount of music to commit to disc in the age of 78rpm records. It is all the more miraculous that, with this timetable and the antiseptic nature of a recording studio, Cortot was able to deliver such musically inspiring performances that continue to be held as benchmark readings over eight decades later, and it is little wonder that there are occasional dropped notes! But what glorious readings he left us, with a magnificent account of Chopin’s Etudes Op.10 that is still critically acclaimed. This was not the first reading of the Etudes on record: Wilhelm Backhaus recorded his glorious cycle in 1928 and the vastly underrated Robert Lortat left an incredible set of both books in 1931. Cortot’s recordings, however, has become more widely known than these others.
Cortot did not record the works in chronological order so as to maximize the playing time on each 4-to-5-minute disc. LP and CD transfers of these performances have tended to issue the recordings in the usual chronological order, and I thought it might be interesting to listen to these performances in the order in which Cortot played them on 78s and in which listeners at the time heard on their records – so the upload below features the works as cut and presented on discs in the 1930s. In same cases, Cortot plays three etudes in a row, with only a second or two’s pause (and, remember, no editing was possible). While the photograph of Cortotin the upload, which was taken at around this period, shows him playing a Pleyel piano, it is documented that Steinway No.141 was used at these Abbey Road Studio No.3 sessions.
These accounts are overflowing with Cortot’s brilliant musicality, with soaring phrasing, sumptuous tonal colours, delicate nuancing, and his truly unique rubato – truly mesmerizing playing!
The following year, Cortot returned to Abbey Road to set down another series of works, including the Etudes Op.25, which we can hear here in the original order as recorded and pressed on 78rpm discs:
In both 1942 and 1943, the pianist not only re-recorded the Etudes but also the Preludes and Waltzes; less known is the fact that he recorded all of the Polonaises and Scherzi, which he did not record at any other time and pressings of which have not been found (one certainly hopes that copies will be located). Recorded at the Studio Albert in Paris on November 2 and 4, 1942, this later cycle of Etudes was released on 78rpm discs at the time and then on a French HMV LP in the 1950s, but were rarely available outside of France or anywhere after that time. They first came to wider attention when they were included in a 1990s 6-CD set produced by EMI France featuring a great many of Cortot’s Chopin recordings.
At the time of that CD release, critics found them less interesting than the pianist’s more known cycle from the previous decade – and certainly, the poor transfers and quick fade-outs after each short work didn’t do much to warm the listener to these readings. However, upon closer examination, one can appreciate that Cortot is in fact in remarkably fine form in these accounts, in some cases playing with more precision and just as much fire as in his performances from almost ten years earlier. Op.10 No.1, for example, is taken at the same tempo and at the very least has different dropped notes (a refreshing change!) but in fact even fewer than the equally dashing earlier performance. Instantly recognizable are the élan, elegance, refinement, and nobility of Cortot’s playing: fluid phrasing, a singing tone at all dynamic shadings (and even in rapid works), creative voicing, and the pianist’s inimitable rubato are all on full display.
Here are both books of Etudes from those 1942 sessions – recorded in only two days! – in separate uploads for Op.10 and Op.25:
At the time he made these discs of the 24 Etudes, Cortot did not record the Trois Nouvelles Etudes, but he did so twice later on, in 1947 and 1949. Here is the first of those accounts, in which we can hear with wonderful fidelity his rich singing sonority and magical pedal effects:
Later in life, Cortot’s control at the keyboard waned more significantly, although his tone and phrasing were still marvellous. While he made discs of works that he should not have given his technical decline, some poetic ones were beautifully played, as evidenced in this 1952 reading of the Etude Op.10 No.3
In 1960, Cortot recorded a lecture about the Etudes for Swiss Radio. The pianist’s languaging and verbal delivery are as evocative and elegant as his playing, not easy to fully grasp outside of the French language and therefore challenging to translate (a YouTube commenter has made an attempt in one of the comments in the link below). Listening to the pianist speak is sometimes as marvellous as listening to his playing …
Cortot’s pianism is not appreciated by all, though he continues to inspire music lovers and professional pianists today. Our current ‘Age of Anonymity’ is at odds with the highly individual performances that Cortot put on disc, with his immediately recognizable singing sonority and very personal approach to phrasing and timing, but the tide is changing: the brilliant young pianist Andrew Tyson spoke to the influence of Cortot on his playing, and a few years ago at the Pianofest at the Hamptons, young students were crowded around Jerome Lowenthal asking questions about his time studying with the venerable French master. However one feels about Cortot’s playing, his recorded legacy is a magnificent testament to a truly great musical mind and an astounding champion of the piano, one that will continue to be with us for many more decades to come.
Anyone who explores historical recordings is interested in ‘what might have been’ – opportunities for recordings that never transpired, missed chances that were not realized. Fortunately in some cases, new technology and the hard work of dedicated fans can lead to revealing what might have been, even if at a different time – a return to the Golden Era but in the present.
One of the artists I have been most fascinated by for the last three decades is Marcelle Meyer, a remarkable French pianist who somehow recorded 17 CDs’ worth of material from the 1920s to the 1950s yet who was virtually unknown to even the most ardent pianophiles: it was I who introduced her playing to Harold C Schonberg 30 years ago – he had never heard of her. Everything that this incredible pianist recorded seems to have been absolutely impeccable: indeed, a pupil of Jorge Bolet told me he considers the ‘discovery’ of this artist (for those who never knew of her) to be one of the most significant he has ever encountered, as he stated rhetorically, ‘Is there anything she did that was less than perfect? I have yet to hear it.’
Indeed it’s a mystery how a pianist of such incredible talent, capability, and intelligence could have been forgotten – and one who was in the right place at the right time to work with among the most legendary composers of her time, among them Debussy, Satie, Ravel, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Stravinsky. One possibility is that she recorded primarily for the rather exclusive French label Les Discophiles Français, which had limited circulation outside of Europe; although some of these were published in the US on the Haydn Society label, these pressings were inferior and still escaped the notice of the likes of Harold C Schonberg. The beautiful French editions included gatefold two-disc sets with textured stitched covers, the recordings themselves engineered by the legendary engineer André Charlin. These albums continue be highly prized by collectors in shops and online auction sites for both their top-level production and the marvellous playing of this fabled pianist.
In the late 1950s, Les Discophiles Français unexpectedly went bankrupt. Meyer’s daughter Anne-Marie di Vieto told me, when I interviewed her for two articles that I wrote, how dejected her mother was that the label manager Henri Screpel simply disappeared without a trace when he had been a close family friend, frequently having dinners with them at their home. Meyer had two more records ‘in the can’ which would remain unreleased on vinyl: the complete Debussy Preludes and several other solo works by the composer. The two discs had even been issued catalogue numbers, their release announced in the French record magazine Disques, and while some Discophiles Français recordings of higher catalogue numbers did come out, Meyer’s did not. These records would be of particular interest because Meyer was coached by Debussy himself specifically on how to play his Preludes in the last year of his life: the composer had met Meyer at the premiere performance of Satie’s Parade and then worked with her until his death.
Test pressings of these unpublished records were found in the collection of Anne-Marie’s sister Marie Bertin in the ’80s and the Preludes were issued as a stand-alone bonus CD in EMI France’s Références series, a release that was not easily available (it was part of a buy-3-CDs-and-get-this-one-free campaign). The performances would later be included in EMI France’s series of Meyer recordings released in the ’90s, and then again in 2007 when Meyer’s complete studio recordings were released in a commemorative box by EMI France (now out of print).
The availability of Meyer’s discography on CD (and the proliferation of YouTube) has certainly spread worldwide awareness and appreciation of her astounding artistry (I’ve certainly not stopped writing and speaking about her for the last three decades, and I never will). That said, audiophiles will be aware that the sound on CDs is simply nowhere near as warm and rich as what can be heard on LPs – particularly when compared with well-mastered and -pressed editions; unfortunately, larger labels often choose to make the sound conform to the framework of a modern recording rather than reproduce the full frequencies of the original recording. This is one of the reasons why Meyer’s original discs continue to fetch top dollar at eBay and other auction sites and stores (I’ve seen sets regularly sell for a high three figures): not only are these limited edition records prized for their rarity, but both the physical presentation and the sound quality are exceptional… to say nothing of her superb performances.
The French Record Company has gone to a tremendous effort to manifest a remarkable vision: the first vinyl release of what should have been Meyer’s final two records for the label, the aforementioned Debussy Preludes as well as other solo works by the composer. To do so, they have reproduced exactly the original vinyl LPs of the Discophiles Français series: the font and embossed text, stitched gatefold jacket, and record labels are all identical to the original 1950s releases. And the sound quality is simply superb: the original tapes, provided by Warner Classics, were cut directly to vinyl using the highest grade of vintage analogue equipment (including vacuum tubes). The result is a degree of warmth and presence that is completely different from the experience of listening in any other format (I truly felt that the piano was in my living room), and the finished product is an absolute replica of how the original LPs would have looked and sounded had they been produced in the 1950s as intended (though the new ones likely sound even better, with quieter surfaces).
Naturally, with the vastly reduced market for vinyls today and this edition not being mass-produced – the covers were hand-stitched (see the details of that process here) – this is by its nature an exclusive production: with only 200 numbered copies available for sale, this limited edition authorized by the pianist’s daughter is for the connoisseur and collector, a Rolls Royce-style audiophile and collector’s item. The cost, while beyond the mainstream mass-produced vinyl being made by the big companies of today, is in fact on par with the current price of the original 1950s vinyl pressings – yet those are both older (and therefore not in new condition) and less rare (between 500 and 1000 were printed at the time). This release was specifically produced for Meyer fans that already invest in the original pressings of her records, as well as for audiophile specialists who want to hear her playing in the highest fidelity possible (indeed, I can think of no better way to honour such equipment, with playing of this standard and a production to match).
An example of the sound quality of this exceptional mastering (which sounds even richer on the actual records):
Vinyl releases are enjoying a revival – the major labels are producing limited run series of both new and old releases (I was surprised by how many I saw when I was in Tokyo last year). There is additionally a new market emerging for rereleases of LPs from the so-called Golden Era of vinyls (the 1950s) – another audiophile outfit, The Electric Recording Company, has produced limited runs of old 1950s LPs, many in lower numbers and at a higher cost than this one (and they’ve sold out, too). What makes The French Record Company‘s current set stand out is that it is not a reissue but a world premiere vinyl release of a 1950s recording. With the glorious playing of Meyer, the sublime music of Debussy, liner notes written by French musicologist Frederic Gaussin, and the exquisite craftsmanship of the 1950s originals reproduced exactly, the set is an example of French artistry at its best… an exemplification of l’Art Total.
It is 101 years since Debussy died, 61 years since Meyer died, and about 31 years since I first heard her playing and became enamoured with this peerless musician. Anything that celebrates her artistry at the exalted level that it warrants is cause for celebration. This production closes a circle left open by the dissolution of the label for whom she so arduously produced the bulk of her recorded output. However limited and exclusive this edition may be, may Meyer’s boundless talent and supreme music-making long be available for music lovers to appreciate.
School can provide some interesting challenges for children. They need study as they grow, and yet they must also play, explore, and rest. Their rooms should reflect these important activities and cultivate each in a holistic way – not always an easy task when so many homes have small rooms for children. How to balance all of these tasks in their home environment?
A child’s ‘job’ is learning (as opposed to ‘studying’ – there is difference), so creating a space of adventure and discovery is important – not “what leftovers are we going to find on the floor today?” but rather a space that encourages reading, experimenting, and inquiry. Their desk needs to be organized and supportive, with a chair that will promote good posture. If they must sit with a window behind them, drawing some curtains while they study can help them feel more settled; if the desk must be up against the wall, have decorative displays that monitor their achievements and goals, as well as the objects of their curiosity (which should surround the desk regardless). Posters of interesting things are great, though perhaps dinosaurs and other creatures that go ‘bump’ in the night would be best in a playroom where they will not come to life as your young’uns approach the land of dreams.
Being able to put ‘study time’ to sleep is essential if they are to avoid feeling pressured to achieve beyond what is truly healthy for them. A desk on wheels that can swing away from the wall and then be put into ‘sleep mode’ once studying is done can help to create a healthy ‘now you work, now you don’t’ attitude. (Of course, the wheels should lock so their studies don’t run away from them…) Putting books and papers back into the school bag when homework is done is a great way to prevent chaos in the morning, additionally providing a clear setting in which to enjoy leisure time. It is not suggested that they study lying on their bed because it creates a fuzzy boundary between school and private time – although reading for pleasure there about topics that truly interest them is wonderful!
Books can provide a challenge because they contain so much information that they can inhibit rest. If possible, place them further away from the bed: this will keep them from feeling some looming pressure or sensing ‘information overload’ while trying to quieten their minds. One book by the bed is fine, but a stack can leave them feeling like they have too much going on.
Play areas are best delineated by an area rug, and toys should be put away after use. Cultivating the habit of returning items no longer being used is best started at a young age and will help children maintain a respectful home space as they age. Similarly, ‘active’ posters of cars, sports players, and various superheroes and villains are best kept closer to the play area and further from the bed (I had an autographed Darth Vader picture as a child – clearly I embraced both Yin and Yang at a young age!).
May your children have their inner balance and innate brilliance reflected back to them in their space.
And… a few reminders from a 2011 feature in the Toronto edition of the 24 Hours paper about how to set up a child’s room for scholastic success:
I’ve recently been uploading some fantastic transfers of 78rpm discs made by Tom Jardine, who has generously allowed me to put them on my YouTube channel. In a couple of cases, joining one side of these records to the other to produce a seamless edit of a longer piece of music can be challenging. In the video below, I explain why these ‘side joins’ are necessary and demonstrate how I accomplish this using computer software:
Here is the complete Mischa Levitzki performance of the Mendelssohn Rondo Capriccioso, with the edit made as seen in the video:
A couple of other examples of some side joins I effected: a very challenging one in this Mark Hamboug recording uploaded by a colleague. Hambourg slowed down significantly at the end of Side A of the Gounod-Liszt Faust Waltz but then continued at the normal speed right at the beginning of Side B. The side join takes place at 3:18.
The join between the second and third sides of Marcel Maas’s glorious 1931 recording of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in C minor BWV 911 was very difficult to implement. Another upload on YouTube doesn’t feature the connections between sides B and C – you can hear the pause between them 8:08 and 8:14 in the following video:
Fortunately, I managed to make a smooth edit thanks to the computer software and musically-trained ears: you can notice it 8:06 as the video shows the shift between sides 2 and 3, though audibly it’s virtually imperceptible.
These are just a few examples of some of the edits that I’ve made. I have some cassettes of 78 transfers that I did when in university, where I did the side joins only by timing very carefully with the cassette deck that I was using to record them, and they worked incredibly well. I’m planning to borrow some equipment to transfer and upload these, as the sound of the transfers (with an incredible stylus at the university library) was really amazing.
In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the work that goes into making recordings from the 78rpm era listenable in long-play formats – and I hope you enjoy these performances as well!
The topic of clutter is very much in the public sphere and seems inextricably linked with Feng Shui. I don’t subscribe to the belief that Feng Shui automatically equates with minimalism, though both approaches nevertheless have something very important in common: a conscious relationship with your possessions. There needs to be space and appropriate storage for your items so that they not become clutter, a concept that fits with minimalism – but again, it is not required to deny oneself variety or abundance… it’s about the nature of the relationship.
This video from my YouTube series explores three criteria that I believe can help one identify how clutter gets formed and how to prevent it:
Once you have space for your items and put them where they belong – and USE them – you then also need to keep the overall space fresh, and that involves cleaning. I’ve long lamented the fact that we are not well taught how to care for our homes, including how to clean efficiently and intelligently. Growing up it was always a chore – and what child hasn’t resisted the calls to “Clean your room!” … and how many of us continue to resist doing this because of the memory of that command, and when there are other things we’d rather do?
The Busy Bee blog is a terrific resource I’ve known about for years for its wonderful common-sense hints on cleaning and home maintenance. I love this feature about the commonly overlooked places to clean (I would add the top of door frames to the list – especially your front door). It is relatively recently that I came to enjoy cleaning and to be amazed at how easily certain areas can be forgotten and how often they truly need to be cleaned. Even if you can’t see some of these areas, the overall atmosphere of the space – and the energetic reality of it – will become much clearer if you clean these spaces.
Of course folks will say that having less clutter will make it easier to clean – that’s true – but that’s not a reason to own less. Keeping things where they belong and having enough space will enable you to clean just as efficiently. Check this video for some insight, and check the Busy Bee blog for some terrific cleaning hints.
Cleaning is one of the many life skills we are not well taught in school (like accounting – I’m still amazed that budgeting is not a required course in high school), so we have to take it upon ourselves to learn how to manage our homes well. Fortunately the online world has created a wealth of insight and resources!
The topic of clutter is very much in the public sphere and seems inextricably linked with Feng Shui. I don’t subscribe to the belief that Feng Shui automatically equates with minimalism, though both approaches nevertheless have something very important in common: a conscious relationship with your possessions. There needs to be space and appropriate storage for your items so that they not become clutter, a concept that fits with minimalism – but again, it is not required to deny oneself variety or abundance… it’s about the nature of the relationship.
This video from my YouTube series explores three criteria that I believe can help one identify how clutter gets formed and how to prevent it:
Once you have space for your items and put them where they belong – and USE them – you then also need to keep the overall space fresh, and that involves cleaning. I’ve long lamented the fact that we are not well taught how to care for our homes, including how to clean efficiently and intelligently. Growing up it was always a chore – and what child hasn’t resisted the calls to “Clean your room!” … and how many of us continue to resist doing this because of the memory of that command, and when there are other things we’d rather do?
The Busy Bee blog is a terrific resource I’ve known about for years for its wonderful common-sense hints on cleaning and home maintenance. I love this feature about the commonly overlooked places to clean (I would add the top of door frames to the list – especially your front door). It is relatively recently that I came to enjoy cleaning and to be amazed at how easily certain areas can be forgotten and how often they truly need to be cleaned. Even if you can’t see some of these areas, the overall atmosphere of the space – and the energetic reality of it – will become much clearer if you clean these spaces.
Of course folks will say that having less clutter will make it easier to clean – that’s true – but that’s not a reason to own less. Keeping things where they belong and having enough space will enable you to clean just as efficiently. Check this video for some insight, and check the Busy Bee blog for some terrific cleaning hints.
Cleaning is one of the many life skills we are not well taught in school (like accounting – I’m still amazed that budgeting is not a required course in high school), so we have to take it upon ourselves to learn how to manage our homes well. Fortunately the online world has created a wealth of insight and resources!
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