Dinu Lipatti Quotes (1917-1950)

“Nearly five years have passed since I had the opportunity to admire this magician of the keyboard. My impatience to hear him again was shared by the public, who actually assaulted the doors of the great Salle Pleyel in order to attend the Horowitz recital. I expected to hear the 'demonic' virtuoso who amazed the world at his debut. Instead I found him transformed-but not for the better. He still remains the same extraordinary pianist, but I had the impression-and I hope I am not the only one-that Horowitz is trying a tout prix to 'purify' his interpretations, to strip them of anything approaching artificiality. Yet, he accomplished this in such a way as to produce the contrary effect: his playing becomes mechanical and deadly artificial!”

“During his recital last night I experienced so many contradictory emotions that it is difficult to define them. In the first instance, a profound joy when I realized that this artist had not altered (and I believe he never will). Nothing in his playing or attitude betrays his [nearly] eighty years loaded with success and achievement. At the same time I felt a great sadness. How is it possible that Emil Sauer must play in the small Salle Erard, despite his glorious past, when a Brailowsky or Uninsky can pack the Salle Pleyel? It must be due to public opinion, which remains eternally superficial, dependent on trends made fashionable by snobbery and publicity. In the case of Sauer, there may be another explanation - it is as strange as it is sad to reflect that the present generation has never heard of him, while his own generation has faded away. No matter how paradoxical it may seem this is the truth. Emil Sauer, the international virtuoso and pupil of Franz Liszt, is being forced, at the end of a brilliant career, to attempt to make a 'name' for himself. Such, at least, is the situation in France!”

“The Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, just thirty-three when he died, made his precious few recordings while suffering from leukaemia and searching with increasing desperation for emergent cures. Despite his condition, there is nothing of the sickbed about his performances. A student of the iconoclastic Alfred Cortot, who did much to advance his career by word of recommendation, Lipatti’s crisp, witty articulation overturns the image of Chopin himself as a morbid melancholic, not long for this world. … Lipatti’s energy and optimism made even the gloomier waltzes in minor keys sparkle and sway. The run of B minor, E minor and A minor in the middle of the series amounts in his hands to a kaleidoscope of subtly shifting moods within a Chekovian stage set, dramatic and irresoluble. Lipatti went on after the recording to play a concerto in Lucerne and a solo recital in Besancon, but the respite was short lived and he was gone by Christmas. The few discs he left behind-Mozart and Schumann concertos with Karajan; a recital of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin; and the Chopin waltzes and nocturnes-reveal a pianist of expressive genius who nonetheless allowed the music to speak for itself. Although Rubinstein and Horowitz were more celebrated in Chopin, Lipatti was the pianists’ Chopin pianist.”

“In this performance, this partita is really prodigious. Bach's beauty and charm; a magnificent piano tone and a magnificent pianist!”

“The kind of playing that encourages me is playing that lets me in, so to speak: the pianist, by the intimacy of his or her playing, makes me feel that I would want to play that way too. The work of Dinu Lipatti, who turned out burningly pure performances of Mozart and Chopin, exudes that sense, as does the work of a relatively obscure school of British pianists—Myra Hess, Clifford Curzon, the great Solomon, and the equally fine Benno Moiseiwitsch. Today Daniel Barenbboim, Radu Lupu, and Perahia carry on in that vein.”

“Dinu Lipatti from Rumania worked with Cortot in Paris. His death in 1950 at the age of 33 took away a pianist who would have been one of the major figures of the century. He had everything—technique, style, a beautiful sound, sensitivity, musicianship, elegance.”