Chopin - Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor Op.21 (reference recording: Clara Haskil, Igor Markevitch)

Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
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Click to activate the English subtitles for the presentation (00:00-02:33)
00:00 Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor - I. Maestoso
13:47 Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor - II. Larghetto
22:37 Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor - III. Allegro Vivace

Piano: Clara Haskil
Orchestre Lamoureux
Conductor: Igor Markevitch
Recorded in 1960
New mastering in 2022 by AB for CMRR
Painting: Michael Garady
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Alfred CORTOT on CHOPIN. The edition of Chopin 's Second Piano Concerto usedfor this historic recording, made by the late Clara Haskil in October 1960, is by the great French pianist, conductor, and critic Alfred Cortot (1877-1962). Cortot, who studied with one of Chopin's last pupils and who edited most of his works, was asked to write thefollowing briefintroductory note. It proved to be one ofthe lastpieces hepublished before his death.

« The project of editing this wonderful concerto, which for me was to mean some detailed retouching of the orchestral scoring, should be seen in connexion with a helpful suggestion of Wilhelm Furtwängler's. The first performance in this form took place under his baton in 1934 at the Berlin Philharmonic Society.

It goes without saying that, taken as a whole, my treatment avoids variants likely to affect the authenticity of the work's conception. For the sake of musical proportion I have merely abbreviated the opening tutti, an exposition which by its excessive length brings in an element of conventional rhetoric at odds with the air of infectious vitality in this introduction.

Elsewhere I have taken pains to observe the few marginal notes Chopin jotted in the piano part of the version used when, supported by very limited instrumental forces, it was first heard in 1829 at his parents' Warsaw home. This was the version used for the first public hearing. The necessary filling-out of the orchestral part was probably not his own handiwork.

He had intended revising it himself when he subsequently planned to entrust the printing to the Parisian publisher Farrenc, with alternative orchestral accompaniment or string quartet reduction, as witness Farrenc's letter dated May 4, 1832: "This is how I stand with the composer: he is going to correct his manuscripts meticulously, cueing the wind solos into the string parts so that his work might also be performed with a double quartet and double-bass."

Unhappily, this reworking stopped at the planning stage, as Farrenc again indicates on December 21 in the following lines, couched in by no means agreeable terms:

"M. Chopin, inordinately idle and eccentric, was daily supposed to be setting to work but would never do so, although he had very little to occupy him in Paris ... and he so tried my patience that I tore up the contract between us."

If, then, the extra instrumental retouching added to the original material on the present recording cannot claim to convey the feats of invention which only Chopin was qualified to perform on his rough draft, I should like to think I have not thereby betrayed the inspiration, by turns dramatic, nostalgic, and picturesque, which brings to life the musical inflexions imparted by the piano.

The exceptionally high-quality recording to which I have been asked to append these prefatory comments is especially touching in that it preserves one of the last examples of Clara Haskil's wonderful talent, accompanied by that other incomparable artist, Igor Markevitch. The two of them come together in my mind for similar reasons, having both from a very early age given me the honour and privilege of being able to promote the flowering of their miraculous gifts and their dazzling musical careers. »
Alfred Cortot

Scarlatti - The Keyboard Sonatas K 322, K 193, K 247, K 132 .. (Century's recording: Clara Haskil):    • Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas K 322, K 1...  

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Frédéric François Chopin PLAYLIST (reference recordings):    • Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849)