Dinu Lipatti

Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), Romanian pianist and composer, born Constantin Lipatti in Bucharest. He gave his first concert at the age of four and also started to compose as a child. He was granted special permission to study at the Bucharest Conservatory as a composition pupil. When he received only second prize at the Vienna piano competition in 1934, Alfred Cortot resigned as a jury member; in the same year Lipatti went to the École Normale de Musique in Paris to study piano with Cortot and composition with Nadia Boulanger. In 1939 he returned to live in Romania and gave concerts with the conductors Georges Enesco and Willem Mengelberg. During World War II, in 1943, he escaped from German-occupied Romania and made his way to Geneva in neutral Switzerland. He did not make his debut in London until 1947.

Lipatti achieved worldwide fame for his performances of Bach and Chopin. He also made a name for himself as a music educationalist: from 1944 until his early death from cancer, he held the chair at the Geneva Conservatoire. As a composer Lipatti left behind some 16 works, including a Piano Sonata (1932) and a Piano Sonatina for the left hand (1941), a Symphonie Concertante for two pianos and orchestra (1938), 3 Romanian Dances for piano and orchestra (1945), and Aubade for wind quintet (1949).