CHOPIN

 

The Complete Recordings By Dinu Lipatti

 

14 Valses, Barcarolle, Nocturne Op.27 No.2, Mazurka Op.50 No.2

Sonata No.3, Études Op.10 No.5 & Op.25 No.5 and Concerto No.1*

(Recorded 1947, 1948 & 1950)

 

Dinu Lipatti (piano)

*Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/ Otto Ackermann

 

One of the greatest and certainly the most inimitable of 20th-century pianists, the Romanian Dinu Lipatti was born in 1917 in Bucharest, where he studied at the conservatory. Subsequently he moved to Paris, where his teachers included Alfred Cortot, Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. Though he developed extraordinary talents as teacher, critic and composer, it is above all as a superb pianist that he is now remembered. Tragically, his life and career were cut short by leukaemia and he died in 1950 at the age of 33.

 

Fortunately for succeeding generations, Lipatti’s artistry was recognised by EMI’s legendary producer Walter Legge, who was able to record Lipatti in much of his major repertoire during the last few years of the pianist’s life. These recordings have never been out of the EMI catalogue and are currently available, appropriately, in EMI’s series Great Recordings of the Century and Great Artists of the Century.

 

This new compilation features all Lipatti’s studio recordings of music by Chopin, a composer central to his repertoire. The major works are the 14 Waltzes (‘a storehouse of delights, playing instinct with grace and poetry’ according to the Gramophone) and the B minor Sonata (‘one of the glories of the gramophone and an irreplaceable treasure’). In addition, this 2CD set also includes a live performance of Chopin’s First Concerto recorded in Zurich in early 1950.

 

EMI Historical 2cds 5868262