Orlando Murrin on Dinu Lipatti

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

For many piano music lovers, Dinu Lipatti [1917-1950], the Romanian concert pianist, stands head and shoulders above others. Dinu lived during a time of great turbulence, leaving his native Romania for Switzerland at the outbreak of the Second World War. He left behind a wealthy family but they subsequently lost everything under communism. Food writer and former chef, Orlando Murrin explains his love for Lipatti's music and his fascination with his life. It has led him to spending time trying to save Lipatti's family home from demolition in Bucharest. He joins Matthew Parris and the London based Romanian concert pianist Alexandra Dariescu to champion the life and work of one of classical music's greatest 20th century talents. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear.
0:05.2	A career cut short at just 33 by Hodgkin's Disease, his death described by the New York Times as one of the artistic calamities of the 20th century.
0:16.2	Today we're discussing the life of the Romanian pianist Constantine, Dinu, Lippati, as we approach the centenary of his birth, which will be in 2017.
0:27.0	He's been chosen not by another musician. I always like it when a guest looks outside their own professional world, but by the food writer, journalist and chef hotelier Orlando Marin.
0:39.0	Lippati was described as having a of the and his recorded work in the words of his producer Walter Leg was
0:48.0	small in output but of the purest gold.
0:51.0	Here he is playing a piece well known to Radio 4 listeners. Oh, Dino Lopati, Pate, playing here Chopin's minute waltz.
1:31.2	Orlando, are you a secret musician yourself? I'm not actually very secret about it. It's my main love and hobby and I've fell in love with the Lippati legend as a school boy.
1:45.0	I went to a boarding school and on a Sunday it was a very dull day we used to have clubs and societies in the evening
1:50.8	and we had one called Gramophone Society and we would ask childish
1:55.1	questions like what's the hardest piano piece in the world or who's the
1:59.8	greatest pianist and probably just to shut us up our piano expert said to us it's
2:06.3	de Nulipati a Romanian pianist who died tragically young but left us some
2:12.0	fabulous recordings and he's the greatest.
2:15.6	Was that little piece the minute whilst that we just listened to, a particularly difficult
2:20.9	piece to play? It sounded it.
2:22.1	It's extremely tricky but he plays it in this
2:26.1	Effortless manner and that's a characteristic of his playing is it just his
2:31.2	Musician ship that inspires you and that you so admire or have you found his life in interesting and inspiring too?
2:38.6	About six or seven months ago I decided that I'd set myself the challenge of writing a
2:45.7	centenary article in appreciation of Dinu Lippati he's been with me right through my
2:51.1	life I've loved his playing. For me his performances
	...

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