EXPLORING MUSIC: Enormous Dynamic Range/Frederic Chopin's Complete Etudes

As usual, the UPS man left my materials for this release in the garbage can. Actually that particular can is a clever ruse to foil such thkves as might want to purloin MHS packages left on the doorstep, it having never been used for its intended purpose. When I opened the envelope, I was stunned to find, among the reused TeachYourself-Urdu cassettes, a "jewel box" sporting a color photograph of Louis Lortie (half-length) clad in a sweater apparently knitted for Paul Bunyan.

I was touched. I choked back a tear and mentally retracted all the nasty things I had ever thought about the parsimony of the proprietors of MHS. They had sent me a genuine CD--and after only 17 years of faithful service. Nor had they included a bill. Filled with a Dickensian warmth, I set the thing aside for an appropriately hushed moment. When it came a few nights later, I turned on the amplifier and the CD player and opened the jewel box. It was empty. I was subsequently able to acquire an LP (in a plain wrapper), but not in time to do a careful comparison of Lortie with his rivals in the MHS catalog.

Written keyboard studies go back nearly 500 years. The 1950 Harvard Dictionary of Music cites a 1515 organ tablature by Oswald Holtzach that contains a Lauffwerck, mit beiden Handen zu bruchen (roughly "running action requiring both hands"). Sebastian Bach's Klavierubung and even the Wohltemperierte Klavier were essentially studies; they were almost certainly not intended for concert performance and Sebastian would probably be puzzled by the number of great keyboard players who have recorded them.

There is some small disagreement about who "invented" the concert etude. In 1821, Franz Liszt, then ten years old, was brought to Vienna to study composition with the aged Salieri and piano with Carl Czerny. His first piano work, begun in 1823 and published when he was already wowing Parisian audiences three years later, was an Etude in 12 Exercises. What his intent was is not clear, but in 1837 he expanded this material into the horrendously difficult 24 grandes etudes (dedicated to Czerny), which, in 1833 were metamorphosed into the more familiar set of Transcendental Eludes.

These two latter publications wt·n unabashedly concert etudes. But in the meantime, in 1833, Chopin had publish ed his op. 10 set, following it with op. 25 in 1837. By 1833 Chopin had moved to Paris and had initiated a friendship with Liszt; but in actuality Chopin had begun the op. 10 Eludes before he left Warsaw--perhaps as far back as 1828, when the likelihood that he would have known the early Liszt essay would have been minuscule. Hence, Chopin is probably the originator of the genre. The Trols nouvelles eludes were written in 1839 for

a manual by Ignaz Moscheles and Francois Joseph Fetis called The Method of Methods.

Someone Up There (in the MHS director ship) likes the Chopin etudes. Or why else would the catalog offer one or both sets played by Ruth Slenczynska, Youri Egorov, and Peter Orth? And what, especially, does this version have to recommend it? Well, for one thing, it contains all the Chopin ctudes, as none of the other records does. Furthermore, it contains 67'17" of music--better than average for a CD, quite unusual for an LP! It also contains the playing of Louis Lortie, a handsome, young (29) Canadian who won first prize in 1984 at the Busoni Competition in Italy. Not having even heard of him before, I was prepared to yawn. But by the end of side two I was won over.

At first I thought him mechanical, but then I realized that he recognizes that the piano is essentially percussive. He avoids the sonic blur that too often passes for Chopinesque. Careful use of the pedal and a deft left hand allows one for once to see the architecture of these pieces. His dynamic range is enormous: listen to the seventh item in op. 25! And lest he he suspected of soulless virtuosity, I find hh11 most effective in the plaintive numbers.

As usual, the UPS man left my materials for this release in the garbage can. Actually that particular can is a clever ruse to foil such thkves as might want to purloin MHS packages left on the doorstep, it having never been used for its intended purpose. When I opened the envelope, I was stunned to find, among the reused TeachYourself-Urdu cassettes, a "jewel box" sporting a color photograph of Louis Lortie (half-length) clad in a sweater apparently knitted for Paul Bunyan.

I was touched. I choked back a tear and mentally retracted all the nasty things I had ever thought about the parsimony of the proprietors of MHS. They had sent me a genuine CD--and after only 17 years of faithful service. Nor had they included a bill. Filled with a Dickensian warmth, I set the thing aside for an appropriately hushed moment. When it came a few nights later, I turned on the amplifier and the CD player and opened the jewel box. It was empty. I was subsequently able to acquire an LP (in a plain wrapper), but not in time to do a careful comparison of Lortie with his rivals in the MHS catalog.

Written keyboard studies go back nearly 500 years. The 1950 Harvard Dictionary of Music cites a 1515 organ tablature by Oswald Holtzach that contains a Lauffwerck, mit beiden Handen zu bruchen (roughly "running action requiring both hands"). Sebastian Bach's Klavierubung and even the Wohltemperierte Klavier were essentially studies; they were almost certainly not intended for concert performance and Sebastian would probably be puzzled by the number of great keyboard players who have recorded them.

There is some small disagreement about who "invented" the concert etude. In 1821, Franz Liszt, then ten years old, was brought to Vienna to study composition with the aged Salieri and piano with Carl Czerny. His first piano work, begun in 1823 and published when he was already wowing Parisian audiences three years later, was an Etude in 12 Exercises. What his intent was is not clear, but in 1837 he expanded this material into the horrendously difficult 24 grandes etudes (dedicated to Czerny), which, in 1833 were metamorphosed into the more familiar set of Transcendental Eludes.

These two latter publications wt·n unabashedly concert etudes. But in the meantime, in 1833, Chopin had publish ed his op. 10 set, following it with op. 25 in 1837. By 1833 Chopin had moved to Paris and had initiated a friendship with Liszt; but in actuality Chopin had begun the op. 10 Eludes before he left Warsaw--perhaps as far back as 1828, when the likelihood that he would have known the early Liszt essay would have been minuscule. Hence, Chopin is probably the originator of the genre. The Trols nouvelles eludes were written in 1839 for

a manual by Ignaz Moscheles and Francois Joseph Fetis called The Method of Methods.

Someone Up There (in the MHS director ship) likes the Chopin etudes. Or why else would the catalog offer one or both sets played by Ruth Slenczynska, Youri Egorov, and Peter Orth? And what, especially, does this version have to recommend it? Well, for one thing, it contains all the Chopin ctudes, as none of the other records does. Furthermore, it contains 67'17" of music--better than average for a CD, quite unusual for an LP! It also contains the playing of Louis Lortie, a handsome, young (29) Canadian who won first prize in 1984 at the Busoni Competition in Italy. Not having even heard of him before, I was prepared to yawn. But by the end of side two I was won over.

At first I thought him mechanical, but then I realized that he recognizes that the piano is essentially percussive. He avoids the sonic blur that too often passes for Chopinesque. Careful use of the pedal and a deft left hand allows one for once to see the architecture of these pieces. His dynamic range is enormous: listen to the seventh item in op. 25! And lest he he suspected of soulless virtuosity, I find hh11 most effective in the plaintive numbers.