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Biography
Infobox musical artist|name = Dinu Lipatti|image = Dinu Lipatti.jpg|caption = Dinu Lipatti|image_size =|background = classical_ensemble|birth_name =|alias =|birth_date =birth date|1917|3|19|df=y Bucharest , Romania flagicon|Romania|origin =|death_date = death date and age|1950|12|2|1917|4|1|df=y Geneva , Switzerland flagicon|Switzerland|genre = Classical Music |occupation = piano|Pianist , Composer |years_active =|label = EMI |associated_acts = Member of the Romanian Academy|website =|notable_instruments = piano Dinu Lipatti (IPA-ro|'dinu li'pati; OldStyleDate|1 April|1917|19 Marchspaced ndash2 December 1950) was a Romania n Classical music|classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from Hodgkin's lymphoma|Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy .
Biography
Lipatti was born in Bucharest into a musical family: his father was a violinist who had studied with Pablo de Sarasate and Carl Flesch ,Anna Lipatti, La Vie du Pianiste Dinu Lipatti , Editions du Vieux Colombier, trans. Giveon Cornfield; quoted on Everest Records LP 3166 his mother a pianist. For his baptism, which occurred not shortly after birth as is usual, but when he was old enough to play the piano, the violinist and composer George Enescu agreed to be his godfather. Lipatti played a minuet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart at his own baptism. He studied at the Gheorghe Lazar National College (Bucharest)|Gheorghe Lazar High School , while undergoing piano and composition studies with Mihail Jora for three years. He then attended the Bucharest Conservatoire, studying under Florica Musicescu, who also taught him privately. In June 1930, the best pupils at the Conservatoire gave a concert at the Bucharest Opera, and the 13-year old Lipatti received a huge ovation for his performance of the Edvard Grieg|Grieg Piano Concerto (Grieg)|Piano Concerto in A minor . In 1932 he won prizes for his compositions: a Piano Sonatina, and a Sonatina for Violin and Piano. That year he also won a Grand Prize for his symphonic suite Les Tziganes .
He entered the 1933 Vienna International Piano Competition but finished second, because the jury considered him too young. Alfred Cortot , who thought Lipatti should have won, resigned from the jury in protest.Jeremy Siepmann, Liner notes for Chopin: 14 Valses, etc , EMI Cat. D114628, 1980 Lipatti subsequently studied in Paris under Cortot, Nadia Boulanger (with whom he recorded some of Johannes Brahms|Brahms 's Sixteen Waltzes for piano, four hands|Waltzes Op. 39 ), Paul Dukas (composition) and Charles Munch (conducting). He gave his first concert, at the École Normale, on 20 May 1935. However, three days before the concert, Paul Dukas died; in memory of Dukas, Lipatti's first piece at his concert, and the piece he first publicly performed as an adult pianist, was Johann Sebastian Bach|J. S. Bach 's '' Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring .
Lipatti's career was interrupted by World War II . Although he continued to give concerts throughout Europe, including Nazi Germany|Nazi -occupied territories, he eventually fled his native Romania in 1943 and settled with his wife (Madeleine Cantacuzene, also a concert pianist) in Geneva , Switzerland , where he accepted the position as piano professor at the conservatory. It was at this time that the first signs of his illness emerged. At first, doctors were baffled, but in 1947 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma|Hodgkin's disease . http://www.markainley.com/music/classical/lipatti/prince_of_pianists.html Prince of Pianists | Lipatti | Classical Music | Mark Ainley As a result, his public performances became considerably less frequent after the war.
Lipatti gave his final recital, which was recorded, on 16 September 1950 in Besançon , France . Despite severe illness, he gave unmatched performances of Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach 's Partita in B& nbsp;flat major, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart 's A minor Sonata, Franz Schubert|Schubert 's G flat major and E flat major Impromptus, and thirteen of Frédéric Chopin|Chopin 's Waltzes (Chopin)|Waltzes . He excluded No. 2, which he was too exhausted to play; he offered instead Myra Hess 's transcription of Bach's ''Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring , the piece with which he had started his professional career as a pianist in 1935. He died less than 3 months later, in Geneva. Lipatti is buried at the cemetery of Chêne-Bourg next to his wife Madeleine, a noted piano teacher.
Repertoire
Lipatti's piano playing was, and is, widely appreciated for the absolute purity of his interpretations, at the service of which he used a masterful pianistic technique. Lipatti is particularly noted for his interpretations of Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach , but he also made recordings of Maurice Ravel|Ravel 's Miroirs|Alborada del Gracioso , Franz Liszt|Liszt , George Enescu|Enescu , and the Piano Concerto (Schumann)|Schumann and Piano Concerto (Grieg)|Grieg piano concertos. His recording of Chopin's Waltzes (Chopin)|Waltzes has remained in print since its release and has long been a favorite of many classical music-lovers.
Lipatti never recorded any music of Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven . It is a common misconception, however, that Lipatti did not perform Beethoven's music until late in his career. The Piano Sonata No. 21 (Beethoven)| Waldstein Sonata had been a feature of Lipatti's repertoire since 1935. He also performed the Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)| Emperor Concerto in Bucharest twice during the 1940-41 season, and even stood ready to record it for EMI in 1949. An internal memo from Lipatti's recording producer Walter Legge , dated 23 February 1948, states that "Lipatti had his heart set on doing a Beethoven Concerto in 1949" and nominates the Emperor Concerto, given that Lipatti had already performed it.
A recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Chopin)|Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor , originally released under Lipatti's name, and said to have been a recording of a live performance in Switzerland in May 1948, proved not to be his contribution at all. In 1981, it emerged that the soloist on this recording was in fact a Poland|Polish pianist (and a fellow Alfred Cortot|Cortot pupil), Halina Czerny-Stefanska , the joint winner of the 4th International Chopin Piano Competition , playing with the Czech Philharmonic|Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav Smetácek . However, later on, an authentic recording by Lipatti of the Chopin Concerto was found. http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp? ReviewNum=4801 Classics Today.com - Your Online Guide to Classical Music
Pulitzer Prize -winning music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Lipatti's 1947-48 Frédéric Chopin|Chopin concert recordings: " this is piano-playing of a stature that few artists of his generation could have come near approaching ".
Legacy
Dinu Lipatti's legacy to new generations of musicians consists of numerous recordings of his concerts worldwide; the power, beauty and sincerity of his recordings continue to inspire and uplift pianists and music lovers.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to classical music interpretation and composition he was posthumously elected in 1997 as a member of the Romanian Academy .
Compositions
In addition to his pianistic accomplishments, Lipatti was a composer, who wrote in a Neoclassicism (music)|neoclassical style with French and Romanian influences. His works include:
Concertino in Classical Style, Op. 3, piano and chamber orchestra (1936)
Sinfonia Concertante pour deux piano's et orchestre (1938)
Piano Sonatina for the left hand (1941)
Rumanian Dances for piano and orchestra (1943)
Les Tziganes , symphonic suite
Sonatina for violin and piano
Notable recordings
1937 - Johannes Brahms|Brahms , Sixteen Waltzes for piano, four hands|Waltzes, Op. 39 , with Nadia Boulanger
1943 - Lipatti, Concertino in Classical Style, with Berlin Chamber Orchestra under Hans von Benda
1943 - Lipatti, Sonatina for piano left hand
1943 - George Enescu , Violin Sonata No 2 in F minor, Op,. 6 (George Enescu, violin)
1943 - Enescu - Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25 "In Romanian Popular Manner" (Enescu, violin)
1943 - Enescu - Suite No. 2 in D, Op, 10: Bouree
1947 - 2 Scarlatti sonatas; Liszt Sonetto del Petrarca no. 104
1947 - Edvard Grieg|Grieg , Piano Concerto (Grieg)|Piano Concerto in A minor , with Alceo Galliera and the Philharmonia
1948 - Robert Schumann|Schumann , Piano Concerto (Schumann)|Piano Concerto in A minor , with Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia
1947/1948 - Frédéric Chopin , Piano Sonata No. 3 (Chopin)|Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 ; Barcarole (Chopin)|Barcarole in F-sharp minor, Op. 60 ; Nocturnes, Op. 27 (Chopin)|Nocturne No. 8 in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2
http://www.classicalnotes.net/reviews/lipatti.html "Dinu Lipatti - The Last Recital"
http://www.markainley.com/music/classical/lipatti/prince_of_pianists.html "Dinu Lipatti - Prince of Pianists"
http://www.markainley.com/music/classical/lipatti/chopin_scandal.html The Chopin Concerto Scandal
References
Persondata|NAME= Lipatti, Dinu |ALTERNATIVE NAMES= |SHORT DESCRIPTION= piano|Pianist , Composer |DATE OF BIRTH=19 March 1917 |PLACE OF BIRTH= Bucharest , Romania |DATE OF DEATH= 2 December 1950 |PLACE OF DEATH= Geneva , Switzerland DEFAULTSORT:Lipatti, Dinu Category:1917 births Category:1950 deaths Category:Deaths from leukemia Category:Deaths from lymphoma Category:Members of the Romanian Academy elected post-mortem Category:People from Bucharest Category:Romanian classical pianists Category:Romanian composers Category:Romanian defectors Category:Gheorghe Lazar National College (Bucharest) alumni Category:Cancer deaths in Switzerland Category:École Normale de Musique de Paris alumni Category:Child classical musicians
