‘You play Bach your way, and I’ll play it his way.’ That remark by the Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska is often described as an ‘infamous put-down’, but it was really just a playful quip directed at Pablo Casals after they disagreed about trills. Anyway, the line has been running through my head all week because I’ve been listening to a recording of the Goldberg Variations – Wandowska’s signature piece – by a pianist who was quite determined to play them her way, not Bach’s.

Maria Tipo was born in 1931 and died last year – the same dates as Alfred Brendel, though it’s hard to think of two pianists with less in common. In her heyday she was promoted as ‘the Neapolitan Horowitz’. That wasn’t quite so wide of the mark, since both artists were celebrated for their quicksilver virtuosity, but the truth is that nobody in recorded history sounded like Tipo. And if that strikes you as a back-handed compliment, well, she had only herself to blame.

Nobody in recorded history sounded like Maria Tipo

In January 1955 the New York Times critic Harold Schonberg reported that a ‘blonde, sultry-looking 24-year-old Italian pianist’ had startled a Town Hall audience with the clarity and vivacity of her........

© The Spectator