Karol Jozef Lipinski: Violin Concerto No.1 Op.14 in F sharp minor, Albrecht Laurent Breuninger

Karol Jozef Lipinski - Violin Concerto No.1, Op.14 in F sharp minor, Albrecht Laurent Breuninger (violin), Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Wojciech Rajski (conductor) 01. Allegro maestoso – 00:00 02. Adagio – 14:03 03. Adagio. Allegro vivace – 24:16 Karol Józef Lipiński (30 October 1790 – 16 December 1861) was a Polish music composer and virtuoso violinist active during the partitions of Poland. The Karol Lipiński University of Music in Wrocław, Poland is named after him. The partition of Poland caused great hardships for many people, but the Lipinski family got away rather leniently or, one might even say, advantageously. The family made its way to the capital of Galicia, as the »Austrian part« of Poland was called, and it was here that the systematic work began that at its successful end would bring Karl Jozef Lipinski acclaim as one of the two greatest European violinists. Lipinski practiced diligently away with Pierre Francois Baillot's Methode as his guide. He played in the homes of the Polish nobility (which helped him to make important contacts). He took up the violoncello and soon had no less a sovereign command of it then he had of the violin. And he began to compose. Fashionable things for dancing mostly, but in 1810, a year after his appointment as first violinist of the Lemberg Theater Orchestra, three symphonies after the classical model (E flat, B flat, and C). Two years later he rose to the post of the new music director at his place of employment. All that he lacked for a truly international career was one last push — in the form of a direct encounter with his supreme model Louis Spohr, whom he heard on 19 February 1815 in Vienna. He there-upon resigned from his post as music director in order to devote the following two years exclusively to the improvement of his playing. Then he finally went out into the wide world. On 30 October 1817 he set out from Kosice, made his way to Budapest, Vienna, Laibach, Trieste, Venice, and Milan, and then finally reached Padua. It was there that he met the sorcerer violinist in person. He had prepared for the meeting and had studied Rodolphe Kreutzer's Concerto for Two Violins with special attention (together with a lot of other material) in the hope of being able to perform it with Niccolo Paganini. And his wish came true: the two performed together for the first time on 17 April 1818 in Piacenza, and they played Kreutzer's Double Concerto. Paganini dedicated his Burlesque Variations on "La Carnaval de Venise", Op. 10 for unaccompanied violin to Lipiński. Later, in 1827, Lipiński returned the honour by dedicating his "Three Caprices for Violin" to Paganini. After he had studied the current, up-to-date repertoire and had a command of all the creations of Viotti, Kreutzer, Baillot, Rode, and (of course) Spohr, he almost automatically had to be drawn onto the grand, majestic terrain. And so it was that on 31 October 1822, a day after his thirty-second birthday, he completed the manuscript of his Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor op. 14, which, apparently after some final finetuning, was premiered on 4 February 1824. Shortly thereafter he went to Kiev, and here this new work of his own was on the program. The room could not accommodate all the people, numbering perhaps a thousand. In 1829 he went to Warsaw, and played a series of concerts with Paganini that summer that were attended by the nineteen-year-old Frédéric Chopin. However, a rivalry developed between Lipiński and Paganini which destroyed their friendship. Thereafter, whenever Paganini was asked who the greatest violinist was, he would say "I don't know who the greatest is, but Lipiński is certainly the second greatest". In 1835–36 he went on a long tour, during which he met Robert Schumann in Leipzig. Schumann was so impressed that he dedicated Carnaval, Op. 9 to him. In 1836 he visited England and played his Military Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In June 1839 he received a double appointment in Dresden, as concertmaster of the Royal Oratory and kapellmeister at the court chapel. With his Dresden duties, he ceased touring as a virtuoso, but concentrated on chamber music, with a special devotion to the string quartets of Beethoven. Here he also gave a joint recital with Liszt, performing Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. He developed a great reputation as the only serious rival to Paganini. Henryk Wieniawski dedicated his Polonaise de concert, Op.4 to Lipiński, like Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński his String Quartet No. 2, Op.40. He retired with a pension in 1861, and died in village Virliv (Ternopil region, Ukraine). He was the owner of two violins, one made in 1715 by Antonio Stradivari and another by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. Both instruments are referred to as "ex-Lipinski".