Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Teofilovitch Richter (in; in) born with Jitomir (Ukraine) the March 20th 1915 and died with Moscow the 1997, is a Russian Pianiste.

Biography

Richter began the study of the piano as an autodidact and with his father, organist and pianist of German origin, before entering to the Conservatoire of Moscow to study with the professor Heinrich Neuhaus. It will be freed from the Stalinist constraints of Soviet education by carrying out a marginal musical training.

Starting from the 25 years age, it will choose in the repertory works which it will play all its life during. It will never deviate from this spirit and this requirement, which enabled him to approach a number impressing of partitions (836 works).

Friend of Prokofiev, it creates the sonatas for piano 6,7 and 9 whose last is dedicated to him.

The power of its interpretations lies in the energy which it can put at it and in its almost mystical respect of the type-setters that it interprets. Its repertory touches with the whole of the literature for piano, but it is shown particularly remarkable in its interpretations of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chopin and Beethoven and paradoxically of Schubert, emphasizing at this last an unsoundable depth (in the first two movements of the D.960 sonata for example). He preferred Haydn with Mozart of which he never said really completely not to have included/understood the music.

Retained a long time in Soviet Union by the communist capacity, it was the last of the large Russian artists of its time to being authorized to occur abroad. Its more enthusiastic defender was Emil Gilels, another pupil of Neuhaus, which after a triumph in the United States declared with the journalists " Only wait to hear Richter! " . It will be authorized to occur in the West only in May 1960 in Helsinki. He will know then the celebrity in the West after a triumphal round with the the United States at the end of 1960, but quickly he functioned apart from the system by giving concerts where that inspired it. Its lifestyle refused any mediatization.

Some went so far as to say that the piano was dominated by three characters: Beethoven, Liszt and Richter…

A film was carried out on the pianist by Bruno Monsaingeon: Richter the unsubmissive person . Relatively secret artist, Richter however published notebooks and memories, encouraged by the realizer Bruno Monsaingeon: Richter - Writings, conversations .

Selection discographic

Sergueï Prokofiev - Sonatas for piano n° 2,6,9 , CD, Praga, 2004
Johann Sebastian Bach - the quite moderate Keyboard , 4 CD, Rca Gold Seal, 1992
Ludwig van Beethoven - 33 Variations on a waltz of Anton Diabelli COp 120 , Philips, 1992
Concertos for piano n°2 of Rachmaninov and n°5 of Prokofiev , Deutsche Grammophon, 1990

Catalog of films

Mstislav Rostropovitch and Sviatoslav Richter in Beethoven - Integral of the sonatas for violoncello and piano , DVD, EMI, 2002
Ritcher the unsubmissive person , DVD, Warner Vision France, 2002

Random links: