Search - Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, Maurice Ravel :: Dinu Lipatti plays Chopin, Enescu, Ravel, Liszt & Brahms

The Pianist's Pianist

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 07/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dinu Lipatti was perhaps the greatest pianist of the modern age. Such hyperbole is usually suspect in a review, and no doubt many will argue with it, but I find the recorded evidence to support the claim. Rubenstein may have been brasher, Horowitz splashier, Serkin more intellectual, Giesking more delicate, but Lipatti combines more of the virtues of a great pianist into a complete whole than any other giant of the century.This recording is a case in point. Playing the music of composers as diverse as Chopin, Lizst, Ravel and Enescu, Lipatti shows many sides of his musical personality. The Chopin Sonata is by far the best recording of this work I have ever heard. The Sonata is phenomenally difficult, and yet, listening to Lipatti's version you are not aware of the difficulty. Lipatti tosses off the most fiendish run as if it were Chopsticks...and you are left to marvel at the sheer beauty of Chopin's creation. The third movement especially is breathtaking. This is an extremely difficult movement to pull off well. It hangs together by a line that tends to be hidden in the music, but Lipatti finds this line. The performance has a spirit and poetry that I've never heard equalled. The other major work on this disc is the Enescu 3rd Piano Sonata. Enescu has recently undergone something of a renaissance, with more of his non-Romanian Rhapsody No. 2 works appearing on disc and in concert. But Lipatti was an early champion of his godfather's music. The Third Sonata is a delicate, almost neo-Baroque work, with a heavy debt to Debussy. Lipatti makes it sing lyrically, even in it's most virtuoso passages. His filigree is delicate and his sense for the inner poetry behind the music is unequalled. The "filler" on this disc includes a lovely version of the Liszt Sonnet #104 of Petrarch, a duet reading of Brahms' Waltzes with Nadia Boulanger on second piano, and a stunning recording of the Ravel Alborada de gracioso. In all these works, Lipatti's touch is meltingly delicate, his virtuosity unmatched...and yet the spirit of the work is paramount. I cannot say enough about this wonderful pianist or this stunning record except, go get it now!."

Go buy it

Matthew D Kerr | Princeton, NJ United States | 04/19/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is far and away the best performance of the Chopin (one of my favorite pieces) I've heard, quite possibly one of the best interpretations of anything... There's a fine line between not interpreting music and distorting it, and most classical and romantic artists, respectively, fall into one of these two categories. A handful of the old "classical" pianists, especially Gilels and Lipatti, managed to tread this line with a sublimely restrained kind of interpretation which still somehow does more for the rhetorical sense of the music. Though he is technically more subtle, the potency with which he delivers the music reminds me of Furtwangler. I'm not the biggest fan of the Brahms waltzes but all the other stuff on the disk is fantastic."

Ohhhld recording but excellent

peederj | San Francisco, CA USA | 09/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These recordings date from 1937-47, Lipatti died in 1950. So they are of that era: somewhat boxy, muddy, and periodically oversaturated mono.



So if you were expecting modern quality you will be somewhat disappointed, but you can still hear everything quite well, and certainly evaluate the performances. Just imagine you're listening on one of those ancient phonographs with the big horn connected to the needle, and you will be thrilled.



As for the performances, I think everyone else has done a good job of describing them...they are sensational, and it is a pity this man didn't live long enough to have an adequate record of his genius. What remains is certainly worth appreciating."