Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
24 Préludes, Op.28 (1834-39)
14 Waltzes
Études, Op.10 (1829-32)
Études, Op.25 (1832-35)
Nouvelles études (1839)
Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.35 (1839)
Robert Lortat (piano)
rec. 1928-31, Paris
APR 6042 [152]
French pianist Robert Lortat (1885-1938) made a select sequence of Chopin recordings between 1928 and 1931 that have long earned the admiration of listeners. What they haven’t always managed, at least in recent years on CD, is to be transferred at the correct pitch and with care as to the studio acoustic. I have two of the Dante releases and the pitch question there is acutely problematic in the études but the whole assemblage is bedevilled. I don’t have the Doremi transfers but my experience with their 78 work has not always been especially happy. Lortat is an important artist deserving of the best possible transfers from his 78s and APR has enlisted Mark Obert-Thorn to carry out the restorations to the great benefit of that legacy.
Lortat was eight years younger than Alfred Cortot but was to make an earlier set of the Études which included the three Nouvelles études, in the years 1929-30 (Cortot wasn’t to set down these complete sets until several years later). Backhaus, of course, had beaten them both but with stylistically incongruous results. Lortat played on a Gaveau piano which lent a very personal sound to his performances. That sound is tricky to convey in words but it is intimate and sometimes reminiscent of an upright; the treble is quite discreet but there is a rounded sound to the bass – and Lortat was a master of the bass register and its apt placement. It’s almost the opposite of an American-produced Steinway, lacking a sense of hard glamour but possessing an inbuilt decay. It would be wrong to say that it’s a salon piano because Lortat was famous for his multi-recital complete Chopin series that took place in Paris, London and elsewhere. A photographic reproduction in the booklet shows, for example, a five recital Chopin series given in London before the First War. However, it’s clear that the instrument suited him perfectly.
Despite his long friendship with Fauré – whose complete works he also performed in a series – and his work on behalf of many other French composers, his discography is given over exclusively to Chopin. The Préludes were recorded in 1928 and are salutary for a robust musicality and an impetuous sense of vitality. The G major is brilliantly conceived, the E minor nobly done without extraneous gestures, the bass richly audible. His finger work is scintillating in the B flat minor. From time to time one is aware of his desynchronous chording, a product of deliberate thinking, not sloppiness; a function of performance practice at the time. As the 14 Waltzes also show, his narratives can often be idiosyncratic to modern ears, tempi being fluid, the poetic and lyric nature of the music emerging just as fully as metrical wit. Lortat’s readings are as far from the streamlined verities of modern performances as one could expect to hear.
The Études draw from him impetuous drama. He drives into the contrary motion octaves of the E major with a sure sense of the music’s flow and he is passionate in the C sharp minor. Refinement of colour illuminates the F minor and he moves into the transition of the E minor of the Op.25 set with a masterly sense of colour. Power is certainly not held back in the penultimate A minor. Here and there, and more especially in the Sonata in B flat minor, one is aware of his impetuous sense of rubato. This is a failing in the sonata as, for all the passion he brings to bear (there’s no repeat in the first movement), at this speed it’s subject to some intrusive rubati. The Scherzo, too, can’t help but sound breathless given the speed at which Lortat takes it. The final two movements are much better.
So not everything is perfect even in a pianist as musically and artistically elevated as Lortat. It simply means he is an individualist with strong ideas. He died at the age of 52, from the results of gas inhalation suffered during his war service.
The recording of the études was originally presented in an order that could accommodate ease of coupling – that’s to say they were out of sequence – but for this transfer the normal sequence has been re-established. Frédéric Gaussin’s booklet notes, in French and English, are admirably comprehensive and as mentioned earlier, Mark Obert-Thorn’s restorations honour the pianist in their excellence. Even better, the two discs are available for the price of one.
Jonathan Woolf
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