If, as it has been said, a pianist who can play Chopin's etudes can play anything, then Lortie can play anything. Having conquered all of the technical difficulties of these pieces, he plays each one as a miniature tone poem, aiming for the maximum of musical expression without any seeming interest in technical display. There have been a few other great recordings of the Chopin etudes--Cortot's, for example, on Arkadia 1CD 78511, or Zayas on Music & Arts CD 891--but Lortie doesn't have a great deal of competition in this repertoire. --Leslie Gerber