Chopin: 27 Etudes,Opp. 10, 25 and posth

"As many readers will recall, the Canadian pianist, Louis Lortie, was one of the outstanding talents brought to light on this side of the Atlantic at the 1984 Leeds International Competition. That his new recording of Chopin's complete Etudes holds its own alongside the three distinguished LP/CD versions listed above speaks for itself. Technical hurdles are overcome with effortless fluency. But virtuosity is never an end in itself. It's Lortie's intuitive, unselfconscious response to the music's poetry that wins the day.

In this respect he has more in common with the hyper-sensitive Ashkenazy (Decca) than the commandingly brilliant Pollini (DG). True he hasn't Ashkenazy's wonderfully varied tonal palette as yet, nor is his sense of wonder quite so breathtaking. But on the other hand, Lortie's revelations are made without the rubato that just sometimes draws a little too much attention to itself in Ashkenazy's performance-as, for instance, in the searching introspection of the C sharp minor Etude in the second set. It's in slower pieces like this-including the E major and E flat minor Etudes from Op. 10, also the meltingly nostalgic, lyrical central sections of the E minor and B minor Etudes from Op. 25-that Lortie (like Ashkenazy) is so much more persuasive than Pollini, whose faster tempo rarely allows him time to get to the music's heart. With his urgency and intensity caught in a bright, forward recording, Pollini of course projects the more dramatic and turbulent studies at higher voltage than any of his rivals. But Lortie, with his less forcefully insistent accentuation and point-making, often emerges more truly Chopinesque.

The recording was made in the Maltings at Snape, which helps to account for its mellowness. But I did wonder if Lortie was wise in always observing Chopin's own generously-held pedallings in such a venue. Occasionally I thought his texture could have been more transparent. This is brought home by comparison with the Erato release from the highly-disciplined Duchable (here, happily, more romantically responsive to this composer than is sometimes his wont), who within often deliberate tempo, brings up every demisemiquaver with pin-point clarity. But this is no serious deterrent. Nor is Lortie's disregard of Chopin's ff marking at the end of No. 8 in F from the first set. For someone still only 27, the performance is as remarkable for keyboard finesse as imaginative vitality. Last but not least, take note that unlike his three CD rivals, Lortie finds space for the Trois nouvelles etudes ending with that so very beautiful benedictory farewell in A flat."
- Joan Chissell
(Gramophone)