If Alfred Cortot performs and interprets Chopin’s, it is not only as a pianist but also as a theoretician. His exegesis, expounded in many writings, is the correlate of his instrumental performance. The purpose of our research is to show how both aspects of interpretation complement each other and generate a fruitful dialogue between concerte sound and abstracte thought. This implies to consider in which terms Cortot proposes and creates, as a biographer, a singular image of Chopin, but also the process through which he switches from a theoretical formalization to the embodiment of his thought in his performance.Our work is organized along three axes: a review of historiographical methods used by Cortot, a study of the hermeneutical process – especially in the student edition of Chopin’s work – and finally an analysis of some recordings of the Preludes op. 28.
