Dinu Lipatti plays Bach-Hess Chorale “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring“, rarer 1947 version

While Lipatti is famous for his performance of the Bach-Hess Chorale “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring“, the version widely released on CD is his 1950 recording from Geneva, which was recorded in a small radio studio with a boxy acoustic. This rarer recording from September 24, 1947 was the 6th of 7 attempts that year, and was never released on LP, appearing on CD for the first time in 1999 on the APR label, and now available on the Japanese label Opus Kura. Recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios on the same Steinway #299 as Lipatti’s other solo recordings from London, this recording has a broader acoustic and one can hear a wider tonal range, a more reverberant bass. There is a significant interpretative difference in the coda, where Lipatti highlights a treble voice from 2:56 to 3:04.