Word: richter
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...world's most fabled and, internationally, the least widely heard pianist is 44-year-old Russian Sviatoslav Richter. Most Westerners who have managed to attend one of his concerts are convinced that he is one of the greatest pianists now playing. But unlike such famed Russian contemporaries as Pianist Emil Gilels and Violinist David Oistrakh, Richter is not a Communist Party member and has never been allowed to travel to the West. Last week the West traveled to Richter. In Leningrad the touring Philadelphia Orchestra (TIME, June 9) joined him in a performance of Prokofiev's prickly, sardonic...
...orchestra had never played the work, and Richter had only one hour's rehearsal with the Philadelphia musicians before going on. But orchestra and soloist sailed through the piece with astonishing rapport, immediately sensed by the audience. "All the time," said Conductor Eugene Ormandy, "electricity was flowing back and forth." Richter gave Prokofiev's tongue-in-cheek score a kaleidoscopic range, resisted the temptation to lushness in the concerto's lyrical passages or to percussive effects in its driving climax. "He tossed it off," said the Philadelphia's awed Concertmaster Jacob Krachmalnick, "like walking through...
Unexpected Tensions. Pianist Richter's technical mastery is so complete that he makes audiences forget about technique. With his enormous hands, he can play tenths and simultaneously thirds between thumb and forefinger. His bravura passages are majestic with no hint of pounding, his pianissimos a wonder of velvety control. His flexible rhythm gives even the most familiar music unexpected tensions. As he plays, his faunlike face registers emotion like a mass of exposed nerve ends, winces in a spasm of pain when he hits one of his rare wrong notes...
...Richter is most at home with Liszt and Schubert, also plays Debussy and Ravel occasionally ("They're too beautiful to play very often"). Unlike most Soviet artists, he has a wide command of contemporary Western music, e.g., Bartok, Hindemith. All told, he has a repertory of between 25 and 30 complete recital programs, plus a slew of concertos...
...Riga and shyly presented a photo of himself, Van took it back to the hotel, felt so touched on looking at it again that he broke down and cried. After his final audition for the competition, he burst into tears when a friend repeated to him Soviet Pianist Richter's statement that "his playing excites and moves me as only very few of the greatest have been able to." Later, at a Richter recital, Van sobbed all through the first movement of the Schubert B Flat Sonata. Toward the end of his visit, he confided to a friend what...