Sviatoslav Richter

Richter's father, Teofil, c. 1900

Richter was born in Zhytomyr, Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire (modern-day Ukraine), a native town of his parents. His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872–1941), was a pianist, organist and composer born to German expatriates; from 1893 to 1900 he studied in the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. His mother, Anna Pavlovna Richter (née Moskaleva; 1893–1963), came from a noble Russian landowning family, and at one point she studied under her future husband.[5][6] In 1918, when Richter's parents were in Odessa, the Civil War separated them from their son, and Richter moved in with his aunt Tamara. He lived with her from 1918 to 1921, and it was then that his interest in art first manifested itself: he first became interested in painting, which his aunt taught him.

In 1921 the family was reunited, and the Richters moved to Odessa, where Teofil taught at the Odessa Conservatory and, briefly, worked as organist of a Lutheran church. In the early 1920s Richter became interested in music (as well as other art forms such as cinema, literature, and theatre) and started studying piano. Unusually, he was largely self-taught. His father gave him only a basic education in music, as did one of his father's pupils, a Czech harpist.[7]

Even at an early age, Richter was an excellent sight-reader and regularly practised with local opera and ballet companies. He developed a lifelong passion for opera, vocal and chamber music that found its full expression in the festivals he established in La Grange de Meslay, France, and in Moscow, at the Pushkin Museum. At age 15, he started to work at the Odessa Opera, where he accompanied the rehearsals.[8]

Richter, c. 1935

On March 19, 1934, Richter gave his first recital, at the Engineers' Club of Odessa; but he did not formally start studying piano until three years later, when he decided to seek out Heinrich Neuhaus, a famous pianist and piano teacher, at the Moscow Conservatory. During Richter's audition for Neuhaus (at which he performed Chopin's Ballade No. 4), Neuhaus apparently whispered to a fellow student, "This man's a genius". Although Neuhaus taught many great pianists, including Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, it is said that he considered Richter to be "the genius pupil, for whom he had been waiting all his life," while acknowledging that he taught Richter "almost nothing."

Early in his career, Richter also tried his hand at composing, and it even appears that he played some of his compositions during his audition for Neuhaus. He gave up composition shortly after moving to Moscow. Years later, Richter explained this decision as follows: "Perhaps the best way I can put it is that I see no point in adding to all the bad music in the world".[9]

By the beginning of World War II, Richter's parents' marriage had failed and his mother had fallen in love with another man. Because Richter's father was a German, he was under suspicion by the authorities and a plan was made for the family to flee the country. Due to her romantic involvement, his mother did not want to leave and so they remained in Odessa. In August 1941, his father was arrested and later found guilty of espionage, being sentenced to death on October 6, 1941. Richter didn't speak to his mother again until shortly before her death nearly 20 years later in connection with his first US tour.

In 1943, Richter met Nina Dorliak (1908–1998), an operatic soprano. He noticed Dorliak during the memorial service for Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, caught up with her at the street and suggested to accompany her in recital. They were married in 1945 and remained companions until Richter's death; they had no children.[10][11] Dorliak accompanied Richter both in his complex private life and career. She supported him in his final illness, and died herself less than a year later, on May 17, 1998.

It was rumored that Richter was homosexual and that having a female companion provided a social front for his true sexual orientation, because homosexuality was widely taboo at that time and could result in legal repercussions.[12][13] Richter was an intensely private person and was usually quiet and withdrawn, and refused to give interviews. He never publicly discussed his personal life until the last year of his life when filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon convinced him to be interviewed for a documentary.

In 1949 Richter won the Stalin Prize, which led to extensive concert tours in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. He gave his first concerts outside the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia in 1950.[14] In 1952, Richter was invited to play Franz Liszt in a film based on the life of Mikhail Glinka, called The Composer Glinka (remake of the 1946 film Glinka). The title role was played by Boris Smirnov.

On February 18, 1952, Richter made his sole appearance as a conductor in the world premiere of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor, with Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist.[15]

In April 1958, Richter was on the jury of the first Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Watching Van Cliburn's performance of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2, Richter wept with joy. He awarded Cliburn a 25—a perfect score.

In 1960, even though he had a reputation for being "indifferent" to politics, Richter defied the authorities when he performed at Boris Pasternak's funeral.[16]

Having received the Stalin and Lenin prizes and become People's Artist of the RSFSR, he gave his first tour concerts in the US in 1960, and in England and France in 1961.[17]

In 1948, Richter and Dorliak gave recitals in Bucharest, Romania, then in 1950 performed in Prague and Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. In 1954, Richter gave recitals in Budapest, Hungary. In 1956, he again toured Czechoslovakia, then in 1957, he toured China, then again performed in Prague, Sofia, and Warsaw. In 1958, Richter recorded Prokofiev's 5th Piano Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Witold Rowicki – the recording which made Richter known and desired in America. In 1959, Richter made another successful recording of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon label. Thus the West first became aware of Richter through recordings made in the 1950s. One of Richter's first advocates in the West was Emil Gilels, who stated during his first tour of the United States that the critics (who were giving Gilels rave reviews) should "wait until you hear Richter."[18]

Richter's first concerts in the West took place in May 1960, when he was allowed to play in Finland, and on October 15, 1960, in Chicago, where he played Brahms's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Erich Leinsdorf, creating a sensation. In a review, noted Chicago Tribune music critic Claudia Cassidy, who was known for her unkind reviews of established artists, recalled Richter first walking on stage hesitantly, looking vulnerable (as if about to be "devoured"), but then sitting at the piano and dispatching "the performance of a lifetime".[19] Richter's 1960 tour of the United States culminated in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall.[20]

Richter disliked performing in the United States.[21] Following a 1970 incident at Carnegie Hall in New York City, when Richter's performance alongside David Oistrakh was disrupted by anti-Soviet protests, Richter vowed never to return.[18] Rumors of a planned return to Carnegie Hall surfaced in the last years of Richter's life, although it is not clear whether there was any truth behind them.[22]

In 1961, Richter played for the first time in London. His first recital, pairing works of Haydn and Prokofiev, was received with hostility by British critics. Notably, Neville Cardus concluded that Richter's playing was "provincial", and wondered why Richter had been invited to play in London, given that London had plenty of "second class" pianists of its own. Following a July 18, 1961, concert, where Richter performed both of Liszt's piano concertos, the critics reversed course.[23]

In 1963, after searching in the Loire Valley, France, for a venue suitable for a music festival, Richter discovered La Grange de Meslay, several kilometres north of Tours. The festival was established by Richter and became an annual event.

In 1970, Richter visited Japan for the first time, traveling across Siberia by railway and ship as he disliked flying. He played Beethoven, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Bartók and Rachmaninoff, as well as works by Mozart and Beethoven with Japanese orchestras. He visited Japan eight times.

While he very much enjoyed performing for an audience, Richter hated planning concerts years in advance, and in later life took to playing at very short notice in small, most often darkened halls, with only a small lamp lighting the score. Richter said that this setting helped the audience focus on the music being performed, rather than on extraneous and irrelevant matters such as the performer's grimaces and gestures.[24]

The Italian critic Piero Rattalino has asserted that the only pianists comparable to Richter in the history of piano performance were Franz Liszt and Ferruccio Busoni.[53]

Glenn Gould called Richter "one of the most powerful communicators the world of music has produced in our time".[54]

Nathan Milstein described Richter in his memoir "From Russia to the West" as the following: "Richter was certainly a marvelous pianist but not as impeccable as he was reputed to be. His music making was too dry for me. In Richter's interpretation of Ravel's Jeux d'eau, instead of flowing water you hear frozen icicles."[55]

Van Cliburn attended a Richter recital in 1958 in the Soviet Union. He reportedly wept during the recital and, upon returning to the United States, described Richter's playing as "the most powerful piano playing I have ever heard".[56]

Arthur Rubinstein described his first exposure to Richter as follows: "It really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Then at some point I noticed my eyes growing moist: tears began rolling down my cheeks."[54]

Heinrich Neuhaus described Richter as follows: "His singular ability to grasp the whole and at the same time miss none of the smallest details of a composition suggests a comparison with an eagle who from his great height can see as far as the horizon and yet single out the tiniest detail of the landscape."[57]

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote of Richter: "Richter is an extraordinary phenomenon. The enormity of his talent staggers and enraptures. All the phenomena of musical art are accessible to him."[58]

Vladimir Sofronitsky proclaimed that Richter was a "genius", prompting Richter to respond that Sofronitsky was a "god".[59]

Vladimir Horowitz said: "Of the Russian pianists, I like only one, Richter."[60]

Pierre Boulez wrote of Richter: "His personality was greater than the possibilities offered to him by the piano, broader than the very concept of complete mastery of the instrument."[61]

Marlene Dietrich, who was Richter's friend, wrote in her autobiography, Marlene: "One evening the audience sat around him on the stage. While he was playing a piece, a woman directly behind him collapsed and died on the spot. She was carried out of the hall. I was deeply impressed by this incident and thought to myself: “What an enviable fate, to die while Richter is playing! What a strong feeling for the music this woman must have had when she breathed out her life!” But Richter did not share this opinion, he was shaken".

Gramophone critic Bryce Morrison described Richter as follows: "Idiosyncratic, plain-speaking, heroic, reserved, lyrical, virtuosic and perhaps above all, profoundly enigmatic, Sviatoslav Richter remains one of the greatest recreative artists of all time."[62]

On listening to Bach: "It does no harm to listen to Bach from time to time, even if only from a hygienic standpoint."[63]

On Scriabin: "Scriabin isn't the sort of composer whom you'd regard as your daily bread, but is a heavy liqueur on which you can get drunk periodically, a poetical drug, a crystal that's easily broken."[64]

On picking small venues for performance: "Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop in a pretty place where there is a good church; unload the piano and tell the residents; give a concert; offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend; leave again."[65]

On his plan to perform without a fee: "Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that's the answer."[66]

On Neuhaus: "I learned a lot from him, even though he kept saying that there was nothing he could teach me. Music is written to be played and listened to and has always seemed to me to be able to manage without words... This was exactly the case with Heinrich Neuhaus. In his presence I was almost always reduced to total silence. This was an extremely good thing, as it meant that we concentrated exclusively on the music. Above all, he taught me the meaning of silence and the meaning of singing. He said I was incredibly obstinate and did only what I wanted to. It's true that I've only ever played what I wanted. And so he left me to do as I liked."[67]

On playing: "...I don't play for the audience, I play for myself, and if I derive any satisfaction from it, then the audience, too, is content."[68]

After playing some Haydn for a television programme whilst touring in the US, Richter said, after much coaxing by the interviewer and embarrassment on his own part, that Haydn was 'better than Mozart'.