One day, Lipatti received a letter from South Africa. A young pianist, a student at a Conservatoire, humbly asked for advice: how to reconcile the rights and duties of the performer in relation to a work?
Anxious to fan the flames of music wherever they might be found - he had accepted his gifts as a responsibility, as a wealth that it was his duty to spread - Lipatti replied with the gravity that marked all his actions.
Here is his reply, an admirable profession of faith that gives us a portrait of his soul.
"Our true and only religion, our only infallible point of support, is the written text. We must never be caught at fault with this text, as if we had to answer for our actions on this chapter every day, before implacable judges.
"Given this supreme tribunal that we institute of our own accord in order to protect what we consider to be 'our faith', 'our gospel', the written text, we must study it, assimilate it, confront it in several editions and finally extract the image that corresponds most faithfully to the original thought.
"Once this has been established, we must not forget that this text, in order to live by its own life, must receive our life, and like a building, we will have to add to the concrete carcass of our scrupulosity towards the text everything that a house needs to be finished, that is to say: the impulse of our heart, spontaneity, freedom, diversity of feelings, etc....
"Casella says somewhere that masterpieces should not be respected, but loved, because we only respect dead things and a masterpiece is a thing that is eternally alive.
"Most virtuosos fail to merge the two fundamental attitudes mentioned above in their interpretations; they play exactly what is written, but without any personal contribution (and in this case one leaves the concert sometimes dazzled, but never happy), or they take the work as a pretext for expressing their own fantasy and, making good use of the composer's indications, totally neglect the true meaning that he gave to his music, employing in their performance, wrongly and mistakenly, the impulse of their heart, spontaneity, diversity of feeling, etc., which in this case, far from being a source of inspiration for the performer, is a source of frustration. which in this case, far from furnishing the house advantageously, only disfigure the work irremediably, since the interpretation thus conceived has no sound basis from which to start.
"What is this starting point? It consists of a few fundamental laws of music, the most important of which are, alas, the most neglected by most performers:
- olfeggio, especially rhythmic solfeggio;
- Support on the downbeats (dwelling on and emphasising the upbeat is one of the most serious mistakes in music, since the upbeat is merely a rebound to the downbeats, which have the real support).
- Ignorance on the part of some pianists of the immense resources that can be provided by independence in the same hand between different attacks and touches, and therefore between different timbres. By achieving this independence, the interpretation suddenly takes on an unexpected dimension and the pianist's playing reflects the plasticity and diversity of an orchestral performance.
A pianist who has absolutely nothing to reproach himself for in terms of the author's ideas can take every liberty in his playing, just as a well-bred person can indulge in every kind of social comment and attitude.
"But if, unfortunately for him, the performer ignores or deliberately distorts the fundamental laws of a work, then he will not be allowed any personal contribution or any freedom, just as an uneducated person will always remain vulgar, even if he is careful not to take the slightest liberty of language or attitude.
"Music must live under our fingers, before our eyes, in our hearts and brains, with all that we, the living, can bring to it as an offering".
Dinu Lipatti