Dinu and Madeleine Lipatt (Top) – Paul Sacher (Bottom)
Music of Dinu Lipatti tonight. His Concertino in Classical Style for Piano and Orchestra with Madeleine Lippati and the Beromünster Orchestra conducted by Paul Sacher in this radio studio recording made in Zurich on March 29, 1953.
Dinu Lipatti was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from effects related to Hodgkin’s disease at age 33.
A relentless perfectionist, Lipatti often prepared many years for major performances, such as four years for Beethoven‘s Piano Concerto No. 5 and three for Tchaikovsky‘s Piano Concerto No. 1. He left a small number of recordings, and they are well-regarded, particularly that of Alborada del gracioso from Ravel‘s Miroirs suite. In his short lifetime he was highly acclaimed by prominent musical figures of the 20th century, including Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Cortot, Nadia Boulanger, and Francis Poulenc.
In addition to his pianistic accomplishments, Lipatti was a composer, who wrote in a neoclassical style with French and Romanian influences.
Madeleine Cantacuzino, the future Madeleine Lipatti, premiered many of her husband’s works and continued to promote his legacy after his passing in 1950. She was an accomplished pianist in her own right, throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Paul Sacher studied under Felix Weingartner, among others. In 1926 he founded the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester, which specialized in both modern (twentieth-century) and pre-classical (mid-eighteenth-century) repertory. In 1928 he founded the Basel Chamber Choir. Both the orchestra and choir gave their last performance in 1987. In 1984, the Serenata Basel was formed, with no direct connection to Sacher. They later adopted the name Kammerorchester Basel. He also founded the Collegium Musicum Zürich in 1941 with Walter Schulthess and Stefi Geyer which he conducted until its disbandment in 1992.
