Customer Reviews

Dinu Lipatti: Besancon Recital

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Everyone who knows what they are talking about agrees: Dinu Lipatti was heaven sent. Cortot thought so, so did Walter Legge and countless others. This recording is nothing short of the last and greatest divine revelation Lipatti gave us. The Schubert G Flat Major impromptu is one of the most amazing performances around. If you are a pianist, you must listen to Lipatti to understand what piano playing means.

I remember the first time I heard this recording 40 years ago, like it was yesterday.

I fear that words can only trivialize what occured at this recital.

Of the thousands of piano recordings I've heard in my life, this remains one of the most extraordinary performances I have ever heard.

This CD typifies the extraordinary talent of the late, great Dinu Lipatti. The recording is old, so not of the highest fidelity. But one can still hear the amazing ability of this short-lived pianist.

This was Lipatti's final recital, performed 16 September 1950 in Besançon, France, against the advice of Lipatti's doctors. Lipatti died ten weeks later of Hodgkins Disease on 2 December 1950 at age 33. He knew this was his last opportunity to perform publicly. Though he barely had the strength to walk to the piano onstage, once he began playing it was as if the heavens bestowed their glories on him, as he played with a magnificent, subdued strength. He omitted Chopin's Waltz #2 because he knew he lacked the strength to perform it that evening. Instead, he added an encore of Dame Myra Hess's transcription of J.S. Bach's Chorale, "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" from Cantata "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147", which sadly is not on this recording because the recording engineer turned off the recording tape before the encore. (You can hear a Lipatti recording of that piece on Great Recordings Of The Century - Dinu Lipatti)

I heard this on LP many years ago, and am disappointed that the remastered CD does not have the depth and sonority of the LP. Still this is an historic recording, a fitting tribute to the master, and a remarkable recital for the ages.

One of the most classic recitals in music history, played by a GOD.