|
|
|
LIPATTI by Kevin Shihoten The testimonials about Romanian pianist and composer Dinu Lipatti are almost innumerable. His playing was "perfection" to Alfred Cortot, and to Herbert von Karajan, "no longer the sound of the piano, but music in its purest form." The father-in-law of Vladimir Horowitz, Arturo Toscanini, called Lipatti "the greatest living pianist." Though his renown for exhibiting a phenomenal musical intuition backed by nearly flawless technique is profound, his compositions and music criticism are little known. In the midst of a seven-year struggle with Hodgkin's lymphoma, Lipatti died at age 33, leaving the musical world with both an enormous loss and an unequalled legacy through recorded and written music. Born the same year as Ella Fitzgerald and John F. Kennedy, he would have turned 90 this year. Lipatti showed tremendous ability as child and first appeared publicly in a charity concert at age five, performing a Bach prelude and many of his own pieces (Song of Spring, Sad Parting and March of the Imps, among others). Mentored early on by his godfather, Georges Enesco, the Romanian violinist and composer, he began lessons at age eight with composer Mihail Jora, who prepared him for intense studies with pianist Florica Musicescu at the Bucharest Conservatory. In addition to his talent, Musicescu (who taught Radu Lupu) was captivated by his extreme dedication and modesty. His close friend Clara Haskill later wrote, "he often gave the impression of being embarrassed by his own genius." By his mid teens, Lipatti already had been lauded heavily for his maturity and sensitivity; "Dinu Lipatti will not need to learn much more about the technique of the pianoforte," a critic wrote. But further study is what brought him to Paris in 1934, where he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas, piano with Cortot and conducting with Charles Munch. Boulanger, whom Lipatti would later call his "spiritual mother," saw in his compositions "a profound musical intelligence devoted to endless search for perfection in their realization." She also instilled in him her predilection for new and rarely performed works. Lipatti's Paris recital debut in 1935 received total praise and was followed by tours in Germany and Italy. His first large scale work, Satrarii (The Gypsies), a symphonic suite using Romanian themes and for which he received an Enesco Award and the Silver Medal of the French Republic, was also premiered the next year in Bucharest. He also finished in 1936 his Concertino in Classical Style for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, his first published work (Universal Edition). Stravinsky, to whom Lipatti showed his Toccata, could only tell him to "continue in the same direction." European audiences began recognizing Lipatti next to pianists like Horowitz, and after Lipatti's 1939 recital at Chopin-Pleyel Hall, critics couldn't decide whether to extol more his musicianship or technique; "the two are intimately linked...the first overwhelmingly precise and sure...the second full of nuances, phrasing and a communicating warmth of profound intensity and supreme quality," wrote the L'Art Musical. Lipatti also started displaying eloquence as a critic himself, expressing in a Romanian newspaper his thoughts on current musicians and the state of music in Paris. At a Horowitz recital, he sometimes heard contrived playing that could be "mechanical and deadly artificial." However, in Chopin's Nocturne Op. 15 No. 3, "a miracle occurred." Horowitz forgot that he was Horowitz and returned to being a simple musician giving us a majestic interpretation with all its poetry, and, finally he succeeded in moving us...Horowitz will be the most extraordinary pianist of the times the day he is content to accept himself as he is. With the advent of radio and recordings, he was also concerned with performance practices evolving in accordance with public opinion, which he felt was "eternally superficial, dependent on trends made fashionable by snobbery and publicity." He wrote: Today we witness a tendency towards absolute technical perfection devoid of any sensitivity or élan...We live in an era when, in order to please a public interested in the arts, those on the platform are too often the first to seek a compromise. One of the consequences is the general lack of imagination when planning orchestral concert programs in many parts of the world. Or, to put it another way, why is there such a lack of elementary courage to support those works that deserve to be performed instead of those which are certain to pack a concert hall? This is why we now have audiences who are completely uninterested in any new or little-known older works. (The 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries could offer us unexpected treasures.) The same situation arises in the case of an unknown artist: the public is only interested in a few "star" names that have become famous in America. Though Lipatti never played an American venue, New Yorkers got a chance to hear a movement from Satrarii conducted by Enesco at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1939. Following his return to Romania at the onset of war, Lipatti made several appearances throughout Europe, touring with orchestras, performing violin recitals with Enesco, and partnering up with pianist and future wife Madeleine Cantacuzino. He continued to present diverse programs, frequently including his own works. Critic Romeo Alexandrescu of Universul Literar wrote: |
 Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950). Lausanne, Switzerland; by Germaine Martin. Courtesy of the International Lipatti-Haskil Foundation. Dinu Lipatti had the qualities of a saint. The spiritual goodness of his nature, his modesty, his gentleness, his will's firm purpose, his nobility and loftiness of thought and action communicated themselves to all who met him, and to the remotest listeners in the halls where he played. His goodness and generosity evoked faith, hope and charity in those around him. - Walter Legge, Lipatti's record producer  Lipatti giving his final recital on 16 September 1950 in Parliament Hall. Besançon, France. Courtesy of EMI Classics. Oblivious, as usual, to creating any special effects to please the great public, he chose an essentially 'musicanly' program containing occasional pages which demanded very simple technique. These never diminished him as a performer but on the contrary, were a luxury that only the true artist can allow himself when he is concerned with poetry and deep feelings, and not with the showing-off of finger dexterity. In 1943, after touring Vienna, Stockholm and Helsinki, Lipatti moved to Geneva where he met often with pianist Edwin Fisher and later received a professorship at the Geneva Conservatory. In December, he began having persistent fevers and had to cancel tours in Germany and Holland. Six months later, Lipatti started X-ray treatment and temporary respite allowed him to resume some touring. He began recording for Columbia Records but, due to his deteriorating condition, could not accept engagements overseas. Against the advice of doctors, Lipatti kept performing and teaching actively, sanguine in spite of terrible side effects from radiation and a new treatment, mustard gas injections; joking over his left arm that had become so swollen his suit had to be retailored, he wrote, "it gives me such formidable sonorities in the bass that even Miss Musicescu would be satisfied!" Word of Lipatti's suffering spread and his persona so gained a mythic status; able to do less than a third of his Italian engagements in 1947, of the cities that missed him, he wrote to a friend, "[they] even tried to coerce me by insisting that a vote by ballot should be taken to decide which towns should be without a concert, but when they understood the reason they gave up." In 1949, Lipatti resigned from his post at the Geneva Conservatory. The new drug cortisone gave him unprecedented rejuvenation, enabling him to perform in Lucerne and finish more recordings, however, the ostensible recovery was short-lived and his condition worsened rapidly. Lipatti gave his final recital in Besançon, France on 16 September 1950. Too weak to play Chopin's last waltz, he offered instead Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Less than three months later, Lipatti died when an abscess in his only functioning lung burst. He spent his final moments listening to Beethoven's F Minor String Quartet emanating from a radio, his wife Madeleine by his side. |
|||
|
|||||
Lipatti