Alfred Denis Cortot

Alfred Denis Cortot , 1877-1962, French pianist and conductor. Among his appearances as a conductor were those at Bayreuth (1898-1901). He joined the faculty of the Paris Conservatory in 1907 and in 1919 founded the École normale de Musique, Paris. For many years he played trios with Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals. As a pianist he was a noted interpreter of Schumann and Chopin.

Cortot, Alfred (Denis) (b Nyon, Switz., 1877; d Lausanne, 1962). Swiss-born pianist and conductor, long resident in Fr. Début as pianist Paris 1896. Keen Wagnerian, went to Bayreuth and became ass. cond. to Richter and Mottl 1898–1901. Cond. first Paris perf. of Götterdämmerung 1902. Became cond. of orch. concerts of Société Nationale 1904. Cond. f.ps. in Fr. of Parsifal (concert perf.), Beethoven's Mass in D, and Brahms's Requiem. From 1905 played in celebrated pf. trio with Thibaud and Casals. Prof. of pf., Paris Cons. 1907–17, succeeding Pugno. In 1919 founded École Normale de Musique, where he gave interpretation courses. One of 3 conds. of Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, founded 1928. Ed. pf. works of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt and wrote several books. Salzburg Fest. 1933 (Saint-Saëns conc. No.4 and Franck Sym.-Var., Vienna PO cond. Krauss). Arrested 1944 on charges of collab. with Nazi occupation forces but released.

Loisy, Alfred Firmin (1857–1940). French biblical scholar and RC Modernist. An enthusiastic exponent of the historico-critical study of the Bible, he was dismissed from the Institut Catholique in Paris in 1893. In 1902 he wrote LʾÉvangile et lʾÉglise, a defence of Catholicism against A. von Harnack. He denied that Christ founded the Church and established sacraments; and he was sceptical about the possibility of recovering the words of Jesus, and about the traditional doctrines of the Church. His Autour dʾun petit livre (1903) made his divergence from traditional Catholicism still clearer. Several of his books were put on the Index in 1903, and Loisy was excommunicated in 1908 after publishing a critique of Lamentabili. From 1909 to 1930 he was professor of the history of religions at the Collège de France.