The school of freedom

Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals and Alfred Cortot team formed in 1905, sharing a repertoire of about thirty works, including their favorite were played dozens of times during the three decades that their association lasted, before the Catalan cellist is absorbed by its own concert activity.

For the London studios of HMV, they engraved in 1920 a selection of sonatas and trios which we find here the Beethoven slope.

The three men shared the same taste for teaching: with Marguerite Long Thibaud will base the prestigious contest that bears their names; Cortot constitute the Ecole Normale de Musique in 1919 and will host master classes deemed while Casals was an emblematic figure of the Prades Festival in 1950.

Indeed, the Swiss pianist and violinist Bordeaux were more admired for their artistic personality, their stylistic intuition, for their strict instrumental agility.

The formidable stunts in double-strings of the presto of the "Kreutzer" feel here the limits of the bow, and correctness of notes do not appear to be the primary concern of the fingers on the bridge.
We also experienced more swirling keyboards. Yet the dramatic tension never wavers.
It's in the sublime variations of the Andante that narrative virtues of both musicians find a poetic space in their measurement.
The artistic vision transcends to the art.

As in "The Archduke": light, elegant, spring, radiant happiness of making music with friends, free from all allegiance to the smooth virtuosity, subject to the whims of a subjectivity that the three artists were able to preserve and assume.

Seventy years later, the fun is still contagious.