Pianist Maria Tipo died on Monday at the age of 93. Born in Naples on 23rd December 1931, she was widely admired for her recordings of Scarlatti, revival of keyboard music of Muzio Clementi, and recordings of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven.
Studying with Alfredo Casella and Guido Agosti, she won the Geneva International Competition at a young age, impressing jury member Arthur Rubinstein.
At the age of 25, Tipo released a celebrated recording of Scarlatti’s sonatas, called at the time “the most spectacular recording of the year” by Newsweek.
“An absolutely dazzling recording, which remains so to this day,” comments critic Alain Lompech. “Playing of great vivacity, with incredible rhythmic acuity, in the tradition of the great interpreters of Scarlatti such as Clara Haskil or Vladimir Horowitz.” It led to Tipo being nicknamed the “Neapolitan Horowitz”.
A prolific recitalist and soloist with orchestras, Tipo toured the US yearly for over a decade from 1955, performing frequently with the Amadeus Quartet and violinist Salvatore Accardo. Reducing her concert appearances towards the end of the 1960s, Tipo shifted to teaching, taking positions at conservatories in Florence, Bolzano and Geneva.
Rubinstein called her “the most exceptional talent of our era,” with Martha Argerich describing her as “sensational”. Her family commented: “In an age when being a concert pianist meant a woman had to measure herself daily with an almost exclusively male world, Maria Tipo crossed the stages of the greatest theatre leaving the mark of her unforgettable interpretations.”
“Her choices of repertoire, original and innovative (she was the first to propose in Italy, at the beginning of the ’60s, the complete performance of the Goldberg Variations) were exalted by a pianism of unmistakable and profound expressive cantability.”
Her many recordings appear on the EMI Classics, Vox and Erato labels. Among her students are Frank Lévy, Fabio Bidini and Giovanni Nesi.
