It is a little known fact that Dinu Lipatti was a skilled and enthusiastic chamber music performer. In his teens at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, he had a trio with his fellow students Ginette Neveu and Antonio Janigro. He would tour Switzerland in 1947 with Janigro but it doesn’t seem as though he played with Neveu again, a real loss for posterity, especially since both of them were EMI recording artists. While he recorded his godfather Georges Enescu’s second and third Violin Sonatas with the composer performing, he didn’t officially record any chamber music from the mainstream repertoire. However, he did record six works with Antonio Janigro as a test for Walter Legge in May 1947, but these were never released in his lifetime and only a few shorter works were found and issued in 1994 (this will be the subject of another post).
Below are all of the chamber music works that Dinu Lipatti is known to have played in public, and his private repertoire was doubtless larger: violinist Lola Bobescu spoke of them having played a Mendelssohn Trio together.
Bach
Sonata No.3 in E Major for Violin and Piano, BWV 1016
Sonata No.2 in D Major for Cello and Piano, BWV 1025
Beethoven
Sonata No.6 in A Major for Violin and Piano, Op.30 No.1
Sonata No.7 in C Minor for Violin and Piano, Op.30 No.2
Sonata No.10 in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op.96
Sonata No.3 in A Major for Cello and piano, Op.69
Trio No.4 in B Major, Op.8
Brahms
Liebeslieder Walzer Op.52 for Two Pianos and Singers
Sonata No.1 in E Minor for Cello and Piano, Op.38
Trio No.1 in B Major, Op.8
Chopin
Nocturne in C Sharp Minor for Cello and Piano, Op. Posth.
Enescu
Sonata No.2 in F Minor for Violin and Piano, Op.6
Sonata No.3 in A Minor for Violin and Piano, Op.25
Impressions d’enfance (Suite for Violin and Piano), Op.28
Fauré
Sonata No.1 in A Major for Violin and Piano, Op.13
Sonata No.2 in E Minor for Violin and Piano, Op.108
‘Après un rêve’ for Cello and Piano (after Melodie Op.7 No.1)
Franck
Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano
Lipatti
Sonatina for Violin and Piano
Fantaisie cosmopolite for Violin, Cello, and Piano
Mozart
Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, K.379
Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano, K.526?
Ravel
‘Pièce en forme de Habanera’ for Cello and Piano
Rimsky-Korsakov
‘The Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Cello and Piano
Schubert
Trio No.1 in B-Flat Major, D.898
