Chopin Impromptu No 3 Op 51 Cortot Rec 1933

This has always been my favorite recording of this Impromptu. (It was on the flip side of Cortots 78rpm recording of the Fantaisie Impromptu that I purchased as a teenager.)
Any mention of Cortot always reminds me of one of my early faux pas. (I have had many since.) It may have been this recording or some other, but I, thinking at age 14 how impressed the record clerk would be by my knowledge of cultural matters, asked for a recording by Alfred Cortot. Unfortunately, I pronounced his name sounding the last T. The record clerk gave me a withering look and said, Do you mean Cortoh? Needless to say, I was seriously deflated.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Chopin
• Impromptu
• No
• Cortot
• Rec
• 1933

[snaaptaker]

My favorite, too.

Unsurpassable and unequalled, IMO.

[soami2u]

I just made this one of my favorites--I'm with you, Beckmesser--never have I heard this played more beautifully. I was just listening to some other interpretations of this piece, including Arrau's (his usual late-career fussiness), the fine English pianist Howard Shelley's, and Grigory Ginzburg's. None of them even begin to compare with Cortot's version. More and more I am convinced that Cortot was the greatest Chopinist who ever lived--at least in the last century!

[soami2u]

The music positively flows from Cortot's fingers, almost as if being improvised rather than interpreted! The rubatos are more lavish that we are used to hearing from today's pianists, but what a sound! What a naturalness, what an unforced elegance!

[daughtersprince]

Beautiful and warm interpretation! Chopin composed this impromptu at Nohant, in France, where he spent 8 summers.