Robert Lortat: CHOPIN: The Complete Recordings = 24 Préludes, Op. 28; 14 Waltzes; 12 Études, Op. 10; 12 Études, Op. 25; Trois Nouvelles Études; Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op 35 “Funeral March” – Robert Lortat, piano – APR 6042 (2 CDs: 2:23) [Distr. by Naxos] ****
The Paris Conservatory proudly boasts of 150 years in the development of a select school of keyboard artists, among whom Robert Lortat (1885-1938) occupies a limited but distinct pride of place. Lortat’s repute endures because of his association with the music of two composers, Chopin and Fauré. The Paris school emphasized brilliantly clean finger work, economy of pedal effects, and a light transparency of piano sound produced by the fingers and wrists rather than by the arms and shoulders. Lortat will apply rubato and subtle portamento when he sees fit, but he always maintains a direct and elegant sense of line. As early as 1912 Lortat performed the complete Chopin oeuvre from memory in concert. He recorded the Chopin works – his only recorded documents – between 1928 and 1931, here restored from shellacs to correct pitch by Mark Obert-Thorn. We note Lortat’s premature death at age 52, the result of war wounds he suffered by poison gas during his service in WW I.
Lortat opens with the set of 24 Préludes, recorded 8 May 1928, and they reveal a wealth of individual personality, muscular and spontaneous. Lortat plays a Gaveau instrument that suited his demands for a sonority thin in treble while rich in the bass. To follow the bass harmonies in all of Lortat’s output provides a lesson in itself about tonal weight and dramatic effect. In several respects, Lortat is the more “correct” Chopin player than Alfred Cortot, though Cortot’s reputation looms larger for his poetic licenses. If the slight hesitations in the line of the C Major Prélude did not arrest me, the accented asymmetries of the A Minor did, played with a dry sonority that adumbrates much of Debussy. The G Major moves fleetly; the E Minor urges the bass line as harbinger of tragic wisdom. The uncanny, briskly rendered D Major moves to a compressed tone-poem or ballade in B Minor. Rounded cascades of sound define the Prélude in F# Minor. Pungent bass harmonies follow the somber course in E Major.
Dragonfly execution a la Josef Hofmann defines both the C# Minor and B Major preludes, then the mad mazurka in G# Minor. Nos 14 in E-flat Minor and 15 in D-flat Major “Raindrop” make a contrary moment of exquisite juxtaposition, especially for the D-flat’s chiseled bass line. The No. 16, with its volcanic energies, qualifies as the most brilliant étude of the set. For poetic nuance, few of the préludes match that in A-flat Major, played with fervent passion by Lortat. The E-flat Major, for my taste, always tells me how the pianist would likely play Schumann’s works, while the B-flat Major indicates how gliding metrics and interior lines could gain impeccable clarity from a thoughtful artist. The pellucid F Major finds itself between two demonic storms, those in G Minor and D Minor, the latter of which moves the mortal crisis almost too glibly.
Lortat documented the Chopin 14 Waltzes on two dates, 4 and 12 May 1931. Even if conceived as salon pieces, the Lortat realizations allot them a fuller context, their liquid appeal often made to thunder in sudden surges of enthusiasm. The A-flat Major, Op. 34/1 and F Major, Op. 34/3 dazzle in their impetuous motions and shifts in tempo and dynamics. The sheer ease and lucidity of the last page of the A-flat invokes a sense of pearly wit that likewise inhabits several of other waltzes. The A Minor evolves into a nocturne-ballad of persuasive girth. The bravura “modernity” of approach in the 2/4 Waltz in F should give auditors pause. Yet, the triptych of waltzes Op. 64 reveals aspects of an older tradition, given to tempo rubato and bel canto voicing. The subtleties abound as we traverse further into the set of waltzes, as do the pyrotechnics, such as Lortat’s colored trills. Lortat becomes to the Chopin waltzes what Ignaz Friedman is to the mazurkas, a compendium of taste and polished execution. Just one example will suffice: listen to the panoply of color and dynamic shifts that inhabit the B Minor, Op. 69/2 for every permutation of informed nuance.
The series of Chopin Études, Op. 10 from 1928 pre-date the more famous set by Alfred Cortot by five years, but they reveal no cause to have been overlooked. If the startling confidence of the opening C Major has not mesmerized you, his thorough control in the No. 2 in A Minor should, with its measured coordination of the hands. The lovely simplicity of Lortat’s bel canto in the E Major finds bravura color in its middle section strettos in contrary octaves. Lortat’s inflamed velocity inhabits the studies in C# Minor, G-flat Major, C Major (in astounding syncopes), F Minor, A-flat Major, and the eternal showpiece in C Minor, “Revolutionary.” For Lortat’s poetic sense, we have the Étude in E-flat Minor, and the wispy No. 11 in E-flat Major.
The series of Chopin Études, Op. 25 from 1929 reveal no diminution of digital fortitude. The No. 1 in A-flat Major “Aeolian Harp” exudes a beautiful sense of rhythmic flux and natural bel canto expressiveness. The same, potent discipline in color applies to his No. 6 in G# Minor. Listening to the fluent, even pulsations of the diptych in F Minor and F Major (in studied gallop), we might attribute Lotat’s ease of motion to Egon Petri. The demands of the No. 4 in A Minor on Lortat’s agogic acuities meet their match in awesome, fluid motion. The large Étude in E Minor requires a change of dramatic texture in its middle section that Lortat realizes in bright colors, indicative of what he might have sounded like in the Fourth Ballade. Perhaps the most evocative of the Op. 25 set, No. 7 in C# Minor, fuses nocturne and ballade elements into its ruminative contours, here rendered with poised nobility from Lortat. He devours the studies in D-flat Major and G-flat Major in one gulp, again, akin to Josef Hofmann. For Lortat’s sheer, Herculean power at the keyboard, the last three studies of Op. 25 demonstrate a massive technique that knows when to relent and allow Chopin’s poetry to emerge, as in the middle of the B Minor. The “Winter Wind” of No. 11 in A Minor here deserves its nickname, especially for the volatile cascades Lortat delivers. The No. 12 “Ocean” Étude, along with Lortat’s set of Trois Nouvelles Études, took me back to my introductory performances, from Claudio Arrau, by no means an invidious comparison.
A note in the fine booklet from Frédéric Gaussin tells us that the 27 Études had been recorded originally according to duration of performance, out of order, to accommodate the 78 rpm medium. Here, they are arranged in their established chronology.
Lortat’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor (recorded 9 June 1928) presents us rather a challenge to our modern taste. A surfeit of passion injects Inordinate speed and an infusion of impulsive rubato to inhabit virtually every measure of the first two movements. No repeat in the first movement, with barely atmosphere to inhale the second subject, and a breathless, gasping Scherzo leave us quite shattered. We wonder if such predilection to velocity were endemic to the French school, having been reminded of Artur Rubinstein’s account of Saint-Saëns’ playing of Chopin Third Scherzo. Except for some colossal percussion and a feverish trill in the Funeral March, the movement returns to something like normalcy of expectation; and the last movement, of course, Finale: Presto, accepts Lortat’s inflammatory passion gratefully. Still, a wonderful legacy from a pianist who might otherwise have been forgotten.
—Gary Lemco
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