Liner notes for Opus Kura’s CD issue of the recording of Dinu Lipatti’s last recital

The ten days Dinu Lipatti spent in the studios at Radio Genève in July 1950 produced about two hours of legendary recordings that now fit onto two CDs. This intensive work was made possible by cortisone treatment, which supported Lipatti’s health and gave him a level of vitality he had not known for some time. However, the experimental injections could not be continued with the frequency that had seemingly resurrected the pianist, and the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from which he had been suffering since 1943 strengthened its grip. Lipatti gave only two more public performances: Mozart’s Concerto in C Major K.467 with Karajan at the Lucerne Festival on August 23, and a solo recital at the 3^rd Besançon International Music Festival on September 16.
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Notes for Opus Kura’s CD release of Lipatti’s recordings made in Geneva in July 1950

Dinu Lipatti made the last of his Abbey Road recordings in London on April 21, 1948. After a May 30 performance of the Bartok Third Concerto in Germany, he became so ill that he played only a handful of concerts in the subsequent 18 months. The pianist devised a ‘less tiring program’ for his recitals – Bach B-Flat Partita, Mozart A Minor Sonata, two Schubert Impromptus, and Fourteen Chopin Waltzes – yet still continued to give heroic concerto performances: his now legendary Zurich concert of February 7, 1950 featuring the Chopin E Minor Concerto led the director of the Jecklin Pianohaus to write to EMI producer Walter Legge with a suggestion that the company record Lipatti in Switzerland. EMI had already overturned such a proposal the year before, believing that Lipatti would be well enough to make the voyage to London in November 1949 to record the Bartok Third Concerto with Karajan and the Chopin Waltzes. At Easter 1950, however, Legge assured Lipatti that he would do what he could to record the pianist close to his home.
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These are the liner notes I wrote for the Opus Kura label’s release earlier this year of Dinu Lipatti’s commercial Concerto recordings. The disc was recently awarded Best Reissue of 2008 by the Taiwanese classical CD magazine ‘Muzik’.

When the great pianist Dinu Lipatti died in 1950 at the age of 33, he had never left Europe. However, his few recordings have been supplemented by broadcast performances and released worldwide, securing him a legendary status in the pantheon of pianists. These historical documents still reflect a mere fraction of his active repertoire: Lipatti performed 23 works for piano and orchestra (he practiced two of his sixteen ‘active’ concertos daily), ranging from the Bach-Busoni D Minor to Bartok’s Third. While we now have a total of nine concerted works represented on disc, in the studio Lipatti recorded only two concertos from the standard repertoire, the Grieg and Schumann, in addition to his own Concertino in Classical Style. This CD unites these three performances on one disc for the first time.
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These are the notes to the archiphon CD “Dinu Lipatti: Cornerstones, 1936-1950”, produced for the 50th anniversary of his death. We had intended to include with the Zurich concert recording the 3 radio interviews with Lipatti made the year of his death, but two of them and a composite of the third were published on another label just before we went to press. The program was changed to include a variety of his rarer recordings.

The album is available for download on iTunes here

It is difficult to believe that 50 years have passed since Dinu Lipatti’s death. Who could have imagined that a pianist who never left Europe and made just over three hours of recordings would, more than half a century later, be internationally recognized as one of the most important pianists of the century? Key elements of his biography read like a Hollywood movie and have likely added a degree of interest in his work. However, it is clearly the penetrating nature of his pianism, at once direct, sensitive, and mysterious, on which his reputation lies.
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These are the notes that I wrote for a CD of Dinu Lipatti’s solo recordings on the Japanese ‘Opus Kura’ label.

The great pianist Dinu Lipatti might have been forgotten today if he had not left a small but significant legacy of recordings. Before his death of Hodgkin’s Disease at age 33 in 1950, Lipatti recorded but a few hours of music for EMI’s sublabel Columbia. Almost 60 years later, this output has been heard internationally, supplemented by a handful of broadcast recordings, and Lipatti’s discs continue to be bestsellers. More than half of Lipatti’s solo recordings were made when he enjoyed a period of remission in July 1950, mere months before his death December 2nd. Recorded in a small radio studio in Geneva, these performances are justly acclaimed for stunningly sensitive playing and highly refined musicality, yet they suffer from compressed piano sound and overly close microphone placement. Lipatti’s sessions at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in 1947 and 1948, on the wonderful Steinway 299 used by great pianists such as Cortot, Schnabel, and Moiseiwitsch in their legendary recordings, provide the clearest insight into his pianistic aptitude. While much of his solo output consists of works that fit on a single 78 (with the notable exception of the Chopin Third Sonata included here), each work in his discography is a gem. This CD unites all of Dinu Lipatti’s issued solo recordings made in EMI’s Abbey Road studios, with a bonus track of his first commercial recording, a four-hands performance with his composition teacher Nadia Boulanger that was recorded in Paris on February 25, 1937.
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