ALFRED CORTOT: HIS INTERPRETIVE ART AND TEACHINGS BY KAREN M. TAYLOR Submitted to the graduate faculty of the School of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Music in Piano Pedagogy and Literature Indiana University May, 1988 In memory of George C. Taylor iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Musical Examples viii List of Figures X Preface and Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Notes to the Introduction 11 Chapter One. Childhood and Background (187701887) 14 Musical Debuts Geneva An Unremarkable Entry Notes Chapter Two. The Paris ~onservatoireand the French 26 School of Piano Playing The Ecole franqaise de piano 29 The Conservatoire Towards the End of the 19th 33 Century: Policies and Teaching Conditions Piano Teaching at the Conservatoire: Attitudes and 42 Practices Notes 53 Chapter Three. Cortotts Studies at the Conservatoire 61 (1877-1896) Decombest Class 61 Di@merls Class 73 Cortotts Struggle for Academic Recognition: Some 87 Possible Explanations Notes 101 Chapter Four. Forging a Style: Influences and Initiatives (1896-1910) Pugno Risler Franck's Circle Wagner Cortot's Beethovenism Conductor, Animateur and Chamber Musician Notes Chapter Five. The Mature Artist: Repertoire, Musical and Interpretive Aesthetic, Technique I. ~epertoire Constants and Shifts in Repertoire 11. Cortot's Musical and Interpretive Aesthetic Cortot and the French Tradition Cortot and the Romantic Tradition Cortot's View of the Art of Interpretation and the Interpreter's Role 111. Cortot's Technique Instrument, Posture, Stage Demeanor Technical Resources: Variety of Power Sources, Coordinations, Touches Notes Chapter Six. Cortot's Performance Style: A Discussion 265 of the Major Features, with an Examination of Specific Interpretations Imagination (Chopin's Fantaisie, Op. 49) Intellectual Understanding Design (Schumann's wFurchtenmachenw and Debussy's Danseuses de Del~hes) Sonority characterization through sonority and Rhythm (Chopin's Prelude in f# minor, Op. 28, No. 8) Multi-Focal Image Projection (Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in f minor) Rubato and Declamation (Bach s 'fArioso" from the Concerto in f minor and Chopin's Ballade No. 4) Composer-Performer Perspectives: Cortot and Ravel (Ravel's Sonatine in f# minor, Mvt. I) Notes Chapter Seven. Professor: The Conservatoire Years (1907-ca. 1918) The Conservatoire Appointment Personal Charisma and Musical Fervor Aims and ~xpectations Tone and Touch: Cortotls ~echnicalPremises Cortotls Re~etitrices Teaching Repertoire Cortotls Editorial Debut: The First Commented Study Editions International Recognition Notes Chapter Eight. Master Teacher: The Ecole Normale Years (ca. 1920-1962) A New School of Music Cortotls ~irstPublic Interpretation Course Making the Commitment A Place of Honor for Pedagogy In the Seat of Power Cortotls Major Didactic Writings: The Commented Editions and the Princi~esrationnels... Cortotls Teaching in the Cours dlinterDretation Other Class and Private Teaching Cortotls Thoughts on Teaching Notes Summary. Appendices. Select Documents and Letters from the 563 Conservatoire Years (1892 to ca. 1920) Select Documents Related to the Ecole Normale Years (ca. 1920 to 1950) Tentative Inventory of Cortotls Performance Repertoire IV. Alfred Cortot - Tentative Discography ~ibliographies. I. Primary Sources 11. Other Works Cited vii List of Musical Examples Example 1. Chopin, Fantaisie in f minor, Op. 49, incipits of passages commented on by Cortot. 2. Chopin, Fantaisie in f minor, Op. 49, mm. 1-4. 3. Schumann, llFiirchtenmachenll(No . 11 from Kinderszenen), incipits of themes (A), (B) and (C). 4. Debussy, Danseuses & Del~hes(Preludes, Book I), mm. 1-9. 5. Debussy, Danseuses de Del~hes,rnrn. 1-2. 6. Debussy, Danseuses Del~hes,mm. 3-5. 7. Chopin, Prelude in f# minor, Op. 28 No. 8, mm. 1-2. 8. Chopin, Ballade No. 4 in f minor, Op. 52, mm. 1-3. 9. Bach, Concerto in f minor, S. 1056, "Ari~so~~ [Largo], arr . Cortot, mm. 1-3, Cortot s declamation. 10. Bach, llAriosolt[Largo] arr., mm. 13-15. 11. Chopin, Ballade No. 4 in f minor, mm. 7-12. 12. Chopin, Ballade No. 4, mm. 7-13, Cortotls declamation. 13. Chopin, Ballade No. 4, mm. 1-4. 14. Ravel, Sonatine in f # (1905), Mvt. I, mm. 1-5. 15. Ravel, Sonatine, Mvt. I, mm. 7-12. 16. Ravel, Sonatine, Mvt. I, mm. 20-21. 17. Chopin, Etude Op. 25 No. 1 in major, mm. 1-2 (original and exercises by Cortot). viii 4 C a, c, rl fd G 4 2 4 . H k m a, 0 kc, k- UJ -n a, PI a, m -4 c, k c,c, 4 a, 2 4 Pca, brl fd U 2£? rl c: G Q) 8 i U U 8' % c,rd X C -4 a d' 4 4 a, .d I . w O4 0 rl U 00 m 4 rl CO ~5 CV = C m m oa -a, rl'd rla -n C a, C a, C a = a, i C fd C fd 2 $. 0 C N 4 C C a, m b 0 fd Ob In -d rl - d fd d $2 c, c, m C k d d fd fd a, fd 0) -d 4J PC k m k m a, m3 0 -d =d 0 Q) E d Z 4 !E Q) 2 a, mu m c, m a c cm. 9. -d4 rdCrl dm Wh U F4fdw \a,CV =: & I &I ma. a, 4 0 &a 4kl PI a, a, E: w CV Carl 4 -d 4 -4 L= 4 4J k c, k fdH E: a0C5 CI 0 'a, 0 '0) 4Jm 4~ m ene -.ae BE]~-+ k k 0 0 4 4 U cn 9 m 8 ~istof Figures Figure 1. Expressive plan of Cortotls performance of Schumann s I1Fiirchtenmachen.It 2. Debussy, Danseuses & Del~hes,mm. 1-5: comparison of the expressive/syntactical plans of Debussy and Cortot in performance. 3. Ravel, Sonatine in f# (1905), Mvt. I: comparison of tempi and agogic modifications in performances by Ravel, Cortot and Vlado Perlemuter. (Paris), a prolific music writer, lecturer and editor, a devotee of scholarly pursuits and a music collector who amassed one of the finest private libraries of manuscripts and early printed books assembled in modern times--Cortot exemplified the ideal of a versatile and comprehensive musicianship and artistic culture. Cortot was an extremely complicated and fascinating personality. The interpreter was a past master at evoking all the rapturous, passionate, tender and intimate aspects of Romantic music. The man was aloof and self-possessed, concealing a secretive nature behind a public persona that wielded every charm and social grace with virtuosic refinement. The musical thinker was an incorrigible idealist, a visionary of soaring imagination and penetrating insights. The man of action was an ambitious, tough-minded pragmatist, as adept at the business and politics of music as he was at the art of I music-making. The semblance of fervent, spontaneous outpouring projected in Cortotls playing was a consciously cultivated element of an interpretive conception that was rigorously thought out, controlled, measured. This innovator who discovered unknown potentialities in the piano's tonal resources did not really want to play the piano, but rather to transform the instrument into a singer, an orator, an orchestra. He had sublime interpretive ideas and unreliable fingers. He wrote an exhaustive and still valuable compendium of technical exercises, and then made it almost a point of xii honor not to discuss technique in his master classes. His interpretation courses and recordings brought him a host of distinguished disciples, yet he accepted no regular students during the prime decades of his career. Self-sufficient but never self-satisfied, solitary and almost monomaniacally absorbed in his own work, he attracted countless talented and dedicated individuals into his projects--collaborators, sponsors, assistants and devoted admirers who were eager to help him further his ends. There was something so exceptional in the artistry and the personage of Cortot that they willingly overlooked his temperamental and domineering character, his technical imperfections, his habit of couching his artistic opinions in categorical dicta which he himself did not always follow in actual practice. That I1somethingI1 deserves our close attention. The desire to do justice to the complexities of Cortotls nature and art has prompted the somewhat unusual organization of this study. It was originally envisioned as a I straightforward examination of Cortot's teaching and pedagogical legacy. During research in France, however, a wealth of documentation came to light which led me to see his accomplishments in a broader and no doubt more accurate perspective. In the course of piecing all the evidence 1 together, it became clear that a narrow approach to the subject was inappropriate: Cortot was not a pedagogue in the modern sense of the word, and any attempt to codify his teachings into xiii fixed rules or to extrapolate a ttsystemttfrom them would entail supplementing and ordering the evidence in an arbitrary manner that could only falsify the picture. A compartmentalizing approach is not only methodologically inadvisable in Cortotts case, it would also be contrary to the very spirit of his art. Cortotts artistry was all of a piece: the master teacher was inseparable from the interpreter, the musical thinker and formulator of ttpoeticlt explications, the erudite humanist and the highly charismatic personality. However many contradictory and sometimes controversial aspects there were to Cortotts character, in the artistic domain his work displays a remarkable unity of spirit and purpose. In order to fully appreciate the significance and originality of Cortotts achievements in performance and teaching, moreover, it is necessary to situate him in his historical context. Certain features of his art that may perplex or annoy a present-day musician--characteristic value priorities, exaggerations and limitations, odd inconsistencies and dichotomies of thought, for instance--only begin to make sense when one knows the French musical and pianistic tradition from which Cortot emerged and against which he often rebelled.