The Besancon International Music festival paid a moving tribute to the great pianist Dinu Lipatti for the 60th anniversary of the pianist’s last public performance. On September 16th 1950 Dinu Lipatti gave what would be his last recital at the Salle du Parlement in Besancon. Sixty years later, French writer Andre Tubeuf was in the same hall, giving a moving tribute to the pianist and his art. Tubeuf had heard the news of Lipatti’s death on December 3, 1950, which was immediately followed by a broadcast of this Besancon recital – he spoke of how unusual it was to hear the pianist as if he was alive immediately after his death was announced. Shortly after Tubeuf’s lecture, Paul Badura-Skoda gave a memorial recital at the Kursaal in Besancon. The first half of the program was the same as the one Lipatti had played 60 years earlier, and the pressure may have been too much for the 83-year-old Badura-Skoda. He was not technically at ease and a bit rigid. The second half was devoted to Chopin – not the fourteen Waltzes as Lipatti’s had been, but a selection of Waltzes, Mazurkas, and Nocturnes – and here he was much more free and his playing was more nuanced.
On the morning of Sunday September 19th, there was a screening of the first feature-length documentary about Lipatti. French producer Philippe Roger had first come across a photograph by Michel Meusy taken during the recital a few years back and tracked down the photographer, and then decided to make this film in 2004. Although there is no film footage of Lipatti himself, there are 8 photographs taken by Mister Meusy during the recital, and 11 taken during a rehearsal that morning. The film also features dozens of previously unpublished photographs of the pianist interspersed with testimonials by his student Jacques Chapuis, by Lipatti’s biographer Grigore Bargauanu, and by several people who attended the recital. At the screening itself, Barguanu was present, as was the 102-year-old photographer of the recital, Michel Meusy, and several people who attended Lipatti’s performance. Additionally, Jacques Leiser, who was responsible for the release of this recording at EMI back in 1957, drove to the screening from Montreux, Switzerland. After the movie, producer Philippe Roger and I led a discussion with audience members about the film, and some witnesses of the recital shared their experiences.
The moving event showed that despite Lipatti’s having died 60 years ago, he lives on very strongly in the memory of those who heard him, and in image and sound thanks to the photographs and recordings that we are privileged to have.
The documentary has been released in French on a limited run of 200, and next year will be released in a deluxe edition, with multi-lingual translations with bonus materials.
The three days of events in Besancon were a magnificent tribute to an artist who continues to shine in the lives of music lovers long after his pre-mature death.
