Presented by Mannes School of Music this Mannes Sounds Festival lecture-recital features Mannes alum pianist, Matei Varga, in a concert dedicated to composer/pianist Dinu Lipatti at the Centennial Anniversary of his birth.

Program
J. S. Bach (Hess) Chorale from Cantata No. 147 (Recording with Lipatti)
Dinu Lipatti Nocturne in F-Sharp minor
Domenico Scarlatti Two Keyboard Sonatas: K 380 in E major K 135 in E major
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Rondo in D major, K 485
Franz Schubert Impromptu in G-flat major, op. 90/3
Maurice Ravel Alborada del Gracioso (Recording with Lipatti)
Dinu Lipatti Sonata Romantica
George Enescu Pavane from Piano Suite No. 2 in D major
Franz Liszt Two Sonnets after Petrarch: Sonetto 47 & Sonetto 104

Dinu Lipatti
Sonatina for the left hand
Romanian Dance No. 1 for piano and orchestra (Recording with Lipatti)
Nocturne in A minor on a Moldavian theme

Frederic Chopin Heroic Polonaise in A-flat major

I wish we could celebrate Lipatti this year as a hundred-year-old man, a legendary artist with a five box-set CD collection available in the “Greatest Pianists of the Century” series, with a critical edition of his own piano sonatas and concertos and with a third printing of his collection of essays and concert reviews. Unfortunately, we will soon (too soon!) commemorate 75 years since his passing to a different universe, one which he has constantly evoked and brought to life in his meteoric journey amongst us. Dead of leukemia at the age of 33, Lipatti’s output as a performer would be barely sufficient to earn him a spot in a stuffy encyclopedia under normal circumstances; and yet, with only a few hours of recorded music and a handful of original compositions, his name became synonymous with artistic perfection, which is notoriously unachievable. He was a master of technique, a poet of the highest rank and a complete musician of unsurpassed refinement and elegance. It is my privilege to bring you some of his piano solo works, as short and yet burningly vital as his own life, along with some pieces by composers whom he revered and performed like no one else. As I study them, the question of “what would Scarlatti, or Mozart, or Schubert, or Liszt have said about this or that passage?” often becomes “how would Lipatti have played them?” And when the answer is in my earpiece, streaming from SoundCloud, it is celestial indeed. –Matei Varga