Jawad’s Classical Archives – Set 01, CD 004

Lipatti plays Chopin’s 14 Waltzes, Barcarolle, etc.

My Opinion

The tragic death of the great Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti at the astonishingly young age of 33 robbed the world of a supremely gifted artist. About him, Harold Schonberg, the famous music critic, wrote in 1953: “Lipatti, a master of the keyboard, would have developed into one of the supreme artists of this era. He was a pianist of the Rachmaninoff order, blessed with an enormous technique and a strong rhythmic sense”. There is hardly any exaggeration in this overly laudatory opinion, and that speaks volumes of the high esteem in which Lipatti was – and still is – held in the classical music community.

The present recording of Chopin’s waltzes and other pieces was made between 1947 and 1950. The artistic quality of these pieces is in my opinion unequaled – and I have listened to many other great Chopin interpretations, from earlier accounts by Alfred Cortot and Artur Rubinstein, to more modern contributions by Murray Perahia and Vladimir Ashkenazy. What makes Lipatti’s account of the waltzes even more special is the fact that they were performed at a time when he was struggling with the leukemia that will eventually claim his life. And what can I possibly say about the glowing Barcarolle, the wonderful Nocturne, or the atmospheric Mazurka? In summary, I do not think there are not enough stars to rate this recording. Please do yourself a favor: just grab this disk and rush to your CD player. You won’t be disappointed.

Reviews

“Still regarded by many as the greatest set of Chopin waltzes ever recorded, Dinu Lipatti’s performances continue to astonish. He strokes the keyboard with such delicacy, finesse, and, where required, unobtrusive strength that the music simply seems to play itself. All of Chopin’s music is, of course, exceptionally well written for the keyboard, but the sense of rhythmic lift, the inevitability–these are the hallmarks of a great artist. It’s terrible to think that when he made this stunning recording, Lipatti was already in pain and dying of leukemia; there’s certainly no hint of it in his playing. EMI’s transfer has been accomplished with considerable skill, and we can only be grateful that Lipatti was with us long enough to finish this affecting tribute to all that’s most beautiful in life.” – David Hurwitz.

“By general acclamation, this is the finest recording of the Chopin Waltzes ever made. The Barcarolle has garnered similar plaudits. Dinu Lipatti had a brief, incandescent career cut short by disease. He brought to Chopin a searching intellect allied with an infallible sense of rhythm and a technique utterly at the service of his musical ideals.
One could continue to throw adjectives at Lipatti’s playing without ever capturing the feeling of “rightness” that permeates it. His audiences were moved by something they felt as spiritual. Perhaps the ultimate compliment would be that he makes Chopin live again–we see the composer exalted through the transparent medium of Lipatti’s re-creation.
The vintage 1950 mono sound is quite good. The producer for these sessions was the immortal Walter Legge, whose own high opinion of Lipatti is summed up thus, “God lent the world His chosen instrument, whom we called Dinu Lipatti, for too brief a space.” – ArkivMusic.com

“As an erstwhile pupil of Cortot, it was perhaps not surprising that Lipatti always kept a special place in his heart for Chopin. This selection was first reissued on CD two and a half years ago. And thanks, primarily, to the 14 Waltzes, played in a non-chronological sequence of his own choosing, I doubt if the disc will ever find itself long absent from the catalogue. Like the solitary Mazurka, they were recorded in Geneva during his remarkable renewal of strength in the summer of 1950. The Nocturne and Barcarolle date back to visits to EMI’s Abbey Road studio in 1947 and 1948 respectively.
Just once or twice in the Waltzes I questioned his sharp tempo changes for mood contrast within one and the same piece—as for instance in No. 9 in A flat, Op. 69 No. 1. But for the most part his mercurial lightness, fleetness and charm are pure delight. The Nocturne in D flat has long been hailed as one of the finest available in its passage ”from intimacy to drama, from tenderness to reverie”, as his biographers Tanasescu and Bargauanu once put it. And even though we know he himself (one of the greatest perfectionists ever) was not completely happy about the Barcarolle, for the rest of us this glowing performance has a strength of direction and shapeliness all its own. In fuller contexts there is just a trace of plumminess in the recorded sound. But no one need worry about that in the face of such artistry.” – Gramophone Magazine.