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Re: Must have Dinu Lipatti recordings?

Frank, 'Carnaval' might be the orchestration by Ravel of four movements from the piano suite. If so, may I direct you to a review I recently did on sa-cd.net. Here, 'Carnaval' is hitched with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The SACD label is Talent.

Mr Evans : I was only referring to the Bacarolle and the B minor sonata. Friedman and Hofman recorded only a sliver of the Chopin repertoire. For me, Cortot and Rubinstein are the greatest of those who have recorded the bulk of the repertoire. Bryce Morrison, chief piano reviewer of the 'Gramophone', believes Lipatti's Bacarolle is the greatest. Horowitz's recordings of the work are great on detail, but do not give the 'arch' structure of the work as inimitably as Lipatti, with the climax unerringly placed without any thumping.

The criteria for sublimity for me in the B minor sonata is 1, thematic integration within each movement, and rubato with tempo shifts reflecting the modulations rather than going against them, allied, 2, to the counterpointing of certain melodic fragments and harmonic shifts across the four movements to emphasise the unity of the concept.

I have no doubt that pianist A does movement B well, and pianist C does movement D memorably. But Chopin composed the greatest romantic sonata apart from the Liszt B minor, which is not the same concept as a picturesque suite of four movements. Through whatever alchemy, Rubinstein and Lipatti give the impression of inevitable and irresistible organic and spiritual development over a span of four movements. Actually, so did Emil Gilels, but his tempi sound somewhat heavy, and dare I say it, too late Beethovenian for Chopin.


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  • Re: Must have Dinu Lipatti recordings? - Ramesh 21:54:03 12/13/06 (0)


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