About Sviatoslav Richter

I'd really like to start a discussion about this legendary musician and pianist -(one of the best of all pianists in piano history)- Sviatoslav Richter. I would really like to listen to Proffesor Fraser's opinion regarding Richter's style and technique and the way he interpreted music works.Many say that his best period is when he grew older and his sound and the way he presented the music works was extraordinary but i really like his virtuoso recordings such as the 1958 recording on Sofia of Pictures of an Exhibition the legendary recording of Feux follets on the great pianists series (i have not heard someone performing it better than Richter) plus many many others (his repertoire was really huge and one of the largest) What is your opinion regarding his technique?Sometimes in videos i have watched ,he seems to sit really very high (he was really tall too!) and other times to sit normally. Best regards

I would like to hear what Alan thought about this pianist, too. Putting the subjective taste of musical interpretation aside (if we can....), I believe Richter had a better technique in certain elements than Horowitz. For example, I don't believe Horowitz could have played Feux follets like THAT! Unfortunately I couldn't find much documentary on Richter that is clear enough for me to study how he did certain things. Another pianist whose technique worth lookin at is Kissin. I was inspired much by his apparent super-looseness that's in his hand. He plays with large range of motion even when playing fast, that made his hand looks very fast. While I don't imitate his motion, I try to visualize that kind of looseness when playing (at least when my fingers are not touching the keys), and it helps a lot.

Richter an amazing pianist and amazing man, as Monsaingeon's film so eloquently shows. To my mind, there's a certain slight quality of idiot savant. I too like his old recordings the best. There's a Liszt sonata, Mephisto, 2ieme Valse Oubliee from the fifties that is to die for. Some of his recordings incredibly bad, for instance there's a Mozart A minor sonata that has simple NO PHRASING whatsoever, it plods along note by note. And a lot of his Schubert the same... Of course Horowitz too had his bad moments, but in him I sense more consistently a composer's mind that I like very much. Many people say Horowitz's best recording period was the sixties, but that is exactly when, in my perception, his virtuosic element obliterated the composer's sensibility - there is simply too much nervous energy there. I love the later, more speculative performances far more, and the earlier ones such as that amazing live recording of Pictures from 1949... I picked a Kissin excerpt for my film because of that amazing facility. For me, a wonderful expression of what I call skeletality...