Dinu Lipatti

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dinu Lipatti

Dinu Lipatti (born March 19, 1917 in Bucharest , † December 2, 1950 in Geneva , Switzerland ) was a Romanian pianist and composer .

Life

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Lipatti was born into a wealthy Bucharest family of musicians. His godfather was the Romanian composer, violinist and pianist George Enescu . At the age of 16 Lipatti took part in the International Piano Competition in Vienna. When the jury only conceded him the second prize, the pianist left Alfred Cortot under protest judging panel . The Pole Boleslaw Kon won the first prize. Cortot became Lipatti's teacher a little later.

In 1934 Dinu Lipatti went to the École Normale de Musique de Paris , where he studied composition with Paul Dukas , Nadia Boulanger and Igor Stravinski , piano with Alfred Cortot and Yvonne Lefébure and orchestral conducting with Charles Münch . He also took lessons from Artur Schnabel .

After a tour of Scandinavia, he settled in Switzerland in 1943. From 1944 he was professor for the piano master class at the Geneva Conservatory . For his work he received a fee of 150 francs, "une somme dérisoire" (a ridiculous sum), as he said. In addition, he was not allowed to give private lessons. The pianist Edwin Fischer came into contact with Walter Legge , who signed Lipatti for classical recordings.

Lipatti had a musical friendship with his compatriot, the pianist Clara Haskil , with whom he performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in E flat major KV 365 .

Lipatti had been married to the pianist Madeleine Dannhauer (1908–1983) since December 1, 1948.

Lipatti suffered from Hodgkin's lymphoma . The first signs of this appeared in 1943; It was diagnosed in 1947, but at that time it could not be adequately treated beyond radiation treatment . At his last performance on September 16, 1950 in Besançon , he had to break off the performance of the Chopin waltz, weakened by his illness; With Myra Hess ' piano arrangement of the Bach chorale Jesus remains my joy , he said goodbye to his audience. Lipatti died in Geneva on December 2, 1950 at the age of 33. His grave is in the Chêne-Bourg cemetery .

Recordings

Lipatti's first record was made in 1937: together with Nadia Boulanger, he recorded a selection of the Waltzes op. 39 for piano four hands by Johannes Brahms . The first solo recordings for EMI took place in London in 1947. On 9 and 10 April 1948 in the Royal Albert Hall , the Schumann Piano Concerto recorded by the Philharmonia Orchestra. The director was the young Herbert von Karajan , who admired Lipatti's “divine” piano playing.

Lipatti's few recordings were repeatedly re-released (“Unvergglich, Unforgettable”, EMI). These include his recordings of Chopin's Barcarolle and Sonata in B minor and of Mozart's Sonata in A minor , as well as Robert Schumann's aforementioned piano concerto . These recordings were included in the Piano Kaiser Collection . Only after the death of the conductor Paul Sacher was the recording of Béla Bartók's 3rd piano concerto presented on CD. During his lifetime he only released the 2nd movement (Andante religioso) for publication.

reception

Lipatti is still celebrated and admired in a unity that can be described as singular with regard to artists. The quote from his producer and sponsor Walter Legge , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's husband , has come down to us: "God lent the world His chosen instrument, which we called Dinu Lipatti for a far too short period of time."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Audio: Lipatti plays Jesus stay my joy (1947)
  2. ↑ Joachim Kaiser: 14 great pianists on 20 CDs - selected and commented by Joachim Kaiser , pianist no. 11, Süddeutsche Zeitung (“newspaper shop”)

literature

  • Homage to Dinu Lipatti . Labor & Fides, Geneva 1952 (contains mostly homages from well-known musicians in French, German and English)
  • Dragos Tanasescu, Grigore Bargauanu: Lipatti . Kahn & Averill, London 1988, ISBN 0-912483-18-0 .
  • Monika Jäger: Dinu Lipatti's compositional work as part of European modernism. Aspects of a Franco-Romanian style synthesis. epOs-Music , Osnabrück 2010, ISBN 978-3-940255-12-9 . (Osnabrück contributions to music and music education)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lipatti, Dinu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Bucharest
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 1950
Place of death Geneva , Switzerland