Dinu Lipatti

Dinu Lipatti stands as one of the most revered pianists of the twentieth century. Alfred Cortot described his performances as “perfection,” and Clara Haskil addressed him directly in a letter: “How I envy your talent. The devil take it. Why must you have so much talent and I so little? Is this justice on earth?” The question of fairness arises when such extraordinary ability was granted so brief a span.

Both of Lipatti’s parents pursued music professionally; his father, a violinist trained by Sarasate and Flesch, and his mother, a pianist, together with his godfather Georges Enescu, cultivated his gifts from an early age. Between 1928 and 1932 he studied at the Bucharest Conservatory under Florica Musicescu. In 1934, at the Vienna International Piano Competition, he received second prize; Alfred Cortot, serving on the jury, believed the top award should have gone to Lipatti, resigned in protest, and arranged for the young pianist to move to Paris for lessons with himself and Yvonne Lefébure. Lipatti simultaneously pursued conducting under Charles Münch and composition with Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas.

Appearances in the French capital during the final years of the 1930s established his stature as an interpreter. Colleagues noted his exceptional discipline: he would spend years mastering a concerto before presenting it publicly. Audiences sensed that he approached each score either with a composer’s analytical insight or with an innate grasp of the composer’s intentions, whether the music was by Bach, Schubert, or Ravel. In 1939 he went back to Bucharest, where he spent the war years teaching, composing, and producing criticism.

Shortly before the war’s conclusion he learned he was suffering from a rare form of leukemia. By 1946 new medications had eased his condition sufficiently for him to record for Columbia in his Geneva residence. In 1949 he joined the faculty of the Geneva Conservatory and, in London, recorded the Schumann Piano Concerto with Herbert von Karajan. The following year he was forced to abandon planned tours of Australia and the Americas while sharply reducing his European schedule. Three months before his death at thirty-three, he gave a final recital in Besançon that was captured for posterity, his interpretive command remaining unmatched even in the face of illness.