Volume 4 of APR’s “Alfred Cortot: The Late Recordings” is the last of an inimitable series. At 76, Cortot’s light shone as brilliantly as ever, making his legendary mishaps (hilarious in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody) scarcely a marginal issue. Everything is blessed with a life-affirming charm, wit and vitality, Cortot’s burning romantic conviction complemented by endless touches of wit and illumination. Schubert’s F minor Moment musical could hardly be more perky, the selection of Ländler (diamond chippings from the master’s workshop) more affectionate, while in Cortot’s fifth and final recording of his own arrangement of “Litanie” you hear all of that legendary cantabile, the vocal line surging and singing in bold relief against its background. The Liszt Rhapsody is spiced with emendations wholly in the spirit of the composer and Schumann’s Carnaval includes a gloriously rowdy Florestan and a “Reconaissance” that dances on points. All the Chopin items are alive with a poetry and daredevil aplomb as required, also with a polyphonic magic all but extinct today. Confronted by today’s pianists, Cortot would surely have found much to admire while also noting a constriction, a deadening form of “correctness” and a fear of emotion, of stepping outside the prescriptive worlds of the exam room and the competition circuit. Bryan Crimp has done Cortot proud, prompting one to wonder whether there was ever a pianist of greater human richness and coruscating vitality.