Masterpieces, by Igor Lipinski

Masterpieces

by Igor Lipinski

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Full Digital Discography

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of in tears, Liszt, Masterpieces, Ravel EP, and Alchemy. , and , .

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1.	Jean Sibelius: "Elegiaco" 01:19	info	buy track
2.	J.S. Bach: "Adagio" from Marcello Concerto 03:44	info	buy track
3.	Leoš Janáček: "Our Evenings" 03:06	info	buy track
4.	Robert Schumann: "Träumerei" 02:52	info	buy track
5.	Sergei Rachmaninoff: "Prelude in G-sharp Minor" 02:39	info	buy track
6.	Alexander Scriabin: "Prelude for the Left Hand" 02:37	info	buy track
7.	Frédéric Chopin: "Cello Etude" 04:59	info	buy track
8.	Gluck-Sgambati: "Melodie" from Orfeo ed Euridice 03:16	info	buy track
9.	Erik Satie: "Gnossienne No. 1" 03:13	info	buy track
10.	Claude Debussy: "La fille aux cheveux de lin" 02:42	info	buy track
11.	Edvard Grieg: "Arietta" 01:23	info	buy track
12.	Alfred Grünfeld: "Soirée de Vienne" 06:14	info	buy track

about

Download program notes artwork at: igorlipinski.com/repertoire/masterpieces

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What do you hear when you look at a work of art?

Masterpieces is an imaginary gallery of paintings and music that reveals something new about each work every time you listen to it.

My creative process of matching music with art was twofold. With concert life put on hold, I spent my summertime at home by the piano, sight-reading, learning, and discovering music while I learned about new artists and paintings every day on Google Arts & Culture where I "visited" museums and art galleries from around the world.

Over time, connections have started to emerge. When I learned that Sergei Rachmaninoff used a theme of Dies Irae, a Gregorian Chant, in his Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, I immediately thought of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting The Monk by the Sea. When I saw John Singer Sargent’s painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose for the first time, I thought of Robert Schumann’s “Scenes from Childhood”.

Jean-François Millet’s nocturnal Starry Night brought to mind “Our Evenings”, the opening piece from Leoš Janáček’s dark and hauntingly beautiful On An Overgrown Path. At times I focused on finding music that animates the scene of the painting like in the example of Jean Sibelius’ waltz “Elegiaco” illustrating so aptly a dance scene in Edgar Degas’ Orchestra Musicians. Other times, I focused on the feeling and the intensity of emotions portrayed by the characters in the painting, imagining George Hendrik Breitner’s Girl in a White Kimono listening to the opening bars of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Marcello Concerto.

Of course, the idea of pairing music with art isn’t necessarily new: paintings have inspired numerous piano compositions, from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in B Minor inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting The Homecoming to Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” inspired by drawings and sketches of Viktor Hartmann. But my efforts here are not limited to the genesis of the composition or its historical context. I have used these images to reveal something about a piece of music you wouldn’t ordinarily think of. To challenge you to look at the music from a different perspective. Adding soundtrack to a painting is of course a dangerous proposition. After all, superimposing one work of art on the other may change its meaning. But my ideal is more subtle and more poetic, rejoicing in the tension between the two seemingly distant forms of art.

As John Berger in his 1972 documentary Ways of Seeing says, “the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.”

Igor Lipinski

credits

released May 13, 2021

Originally recorded at my home studio in December 2020, I have recorded this incredible set of pieces again in May 2021 at the University of Oklahoma's Morris R. Pitman Recital Hall and released it in high-resolution audio (88.2kHz/24bit) on Bandcamp.

Pianist & recording engineer: Igor Lipinski
Recording dates: May 6-12, 2021
Venue: Morris R. Pitman Recital Hall at the University of Oklahoma
Piano: Steinway Concert Grand Model D #611594
Album cover artwork: Jean-François Millet "Starry Night" (1850-65), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Record label: Vanishing Records

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Igor Lipinski Norman, Oklahoma

discography

in tears

May 2022
Liszt

May 2021
Masterpieces

May 2021
Ravel EP

May 2021
Alchemy

May 2020

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