Karol Lipiński
Karol Józef Lipiński (
October 30,
1790 –
December 16,
1861) was a
Polish virtuoso
violinist and
composer.
He was born in
Radzyń. In 1810 he became the first violin and two years later the conductor of the opera orchestra at
Lwów (now
Lviv,
Ukraine). In 1817 he went to Italy in the hope of hearing
Niccolò Paganini. The two met in
Milan, met daily to play,and even performed two concerts together in April 1818, which added immensely to Lipinski's reputation. Paganini dedicated his Op. 10 to Lipinski.
In 1818 on his return to Germany he stopped in
Trieste to receive instructions from Dr Mazzurana, a very elderly former pupil of
Giuseppe Tartini; Mazzurana was ninety years old, and could no longer play himself, but gave his criticism of Lipinski's performance of one of Tartini's sonatas. In 1820 he travelled to
Berlin where he met
Louis Spohr, and to Russia. In 1829 he again met Paganini in Warsaw, and they played a series of concerts that summer that were attended by nineteen-year-old
Frédéric Chopin; but a rivalry developed which destroyed their friendship. In 1835-36 he went on a long tour, during which in
Leipzig he met
Robert Schumann. Schumann was so impressed that, as well as describing Lipinski as the greatest violinist of his age, 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 Lipinski received a double appointment in
Dresden, as concertmaster of the Royal Oratory and capellmeister at the court chapel.
[A letter to his wife of 2 July 1839 (Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek).] 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.
Wieniawski dedicated to him his
Polonaise Brillant in D. H He retired with a pension in 1861, and died in Lwów.
He was the owner of a
Stradivarius violin that became known as the
Lipinski Stradivarius.
His compositions, long forgotten and now beginning to be recorded, included four violin concertos
[A fifth is lost.], as well as studies, polonaises, rondos, variations, capriccios. He wrote three symphonies. His adaptation, with some of his own original music interpolated, of
Ferdinand Kauer's
Donauweibchen was played every season at Lwow for nearly thirty years from 1814, but the music is now lost.
The Karol Lipinski University of Music in
Wrocław, Poland was named after him.
