Dinu Lipatti’s Segues

I’ve caught myself totally in love with Dinu Lipatti’s recordings (especially his Bach transcriptions). They have a noble quality that I don’t recognize in modern recordings today. Anyways, I noticed something cool in Lipatti’s final recital. His recital order was:

1. Bach Partita no. 1 in B-flat Major
2. Mozart Sonata in a minor
3. Schubert Impromptu no. 3 in G-flat Major
4. 14 Chopin Waltzes

If you listen to a recording of the Mozart Sonata and the Schubert Impromptu, you’ll hear him perform a cadenza-like prelude before each piece. I thought it was some type of ‘harmonic preparation’ like Horowitz has done in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F__WbYkNtxM

However, I realized after my 20th (or 30th?) time of listening to these recordings that the preludes were meant to segue from the previous key. So the prelude to the Mozart Sonata brings us from the B-flat to the a minor. Then, the prelude to the Schubert Impromptu brings us from the a minor to the G-flat major.

These small harmonic progressions aren’t incredible works of genius in themselves, but their little musical gems that adds a personal touch to the recital. It adds something special to the moment shared between the performer and the audience, and it would be cool to see more recitalists do this.

Here are the links to the two pieces with the preludes at the beginning.

To find more information about Dinu Lipatti’s last recital, you can read about it here: http://www.dinulipatti.com/2011/03/dinu-lipattis-last-recital/ Dinu Lipatti was so sick at the time of this recital (he died at 31), that he swapped the last Chopin Waltz in his program for Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring due to fatigue.

If you haven’t listened to Dinu Lipatti’s recordings before, I recommend his recording of the Bach Siciliano. It is my favorite of his discography.