This collection brings together Alfred Cortot’s complete electrical recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company. 

 

Of special interest to collectors are the March 1925 recordings of the second half of Chopin’s G minor Ballade, which here receives its first CD release outside Japan, and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11, transferred for this Naxos release from a vinyl test pressing for the unissued twelve-inch 78rpm. 

 

All these early electrical recordings are notable not only for the improved quality of sound, but for the way the microphone captured Cortot’s huge palette of tonal colours, on a Steinway piano rather than his preferred Pleyel. As a critic wrote after Cortot’s 5th January 1927 recital at New York’s Aeolian Hall: “He is one of those great musicians from whose readings of familiar works there is almost invariably something to learn and remember… it would be hard to surpass his sincerity, his feeling, his colouring, and  declamation of the music. Nor are many as fortunate as he in striking the mean between what is nobly expressive and what is sentimental….”

 

Schubert (arr. Cortot): Litany*
Chopin: Impromptu in F sharp major, Op. 36*; Etude in A flat major, Op. 25, No. 1*; Waltz No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2*; Ballade in G minor, Op. 23* – Part 2; (“Fragment from Ballade”)
Brahms (arr. Cortot): Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4*
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11*

 

Weber: Invitation to the Dance**
Handel: Suite No. 5 in E major HWV 430**; Air and Variations ‘(The) Harmonious Blacksmith’
Albeniz: Sous le palmier, Op. 232, No. 3**

 

Weber: Invitation to the Dance‡

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2‡; Concert Paraphrase on Verdi’s “Rigoletto”‡

 

Chopin: Ballade in G minor, Op. 23†

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11†

 

Chopin: Berceuse, Op. 57††

 

Recorded in Camden, New Jersey:
21st March, 1925* / 27th October, 1926** / 27th December, 1926† / 28th December, 1926†† / 27th and 28th December, 1926‡