Richter Than Sin

"Astounding" doesn't even come close to describing these '60s recordings of Bach's organ works played by Karl Richter on the Jaegerborg-Kirche organ in Copenhagen. Richter's technique is more than astounding; it is stunning in its virtuosity. While there are a handful of organists that equal Richter, there are none who surpass him. From his incredibly independent hands to his unbelievably dexterous pedals, Richter is a marvel.

The evolving musical climate of the 1950s occasioned a profound shift of culture and attitude in the performance of Bach’s great choral works. By the close of the decade, it was one of Bach’s own successors in the post of Kantor at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, Karl Richter (who’d become organist there at age 23 in 1947), who’d become torch-bearer for a new generation of Bach interpreters. Richter’s recordings with the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra (ensembles he founded in 1951 and with which his name has become synonymous) heeded an unbroken Leipzig tradition that could be traced back to the time of Bach himself.

These Beethoven performances were recorded in 1960 during Sviatoslav Richter’s first tour of the United States, and they sound marginally fuller and more vivid here than in RCA’s deleted Papillon series transfers. The C major concerto has a lot to recommend it. Richter’s Olympian command and control of the keyboard, tonal solidity, and emotional reserve remind me of the Michelangeli/Giulini and Pollini/Jochum versions from nearly two decades later. Charles Munch’s robust and powerfully projected accompaniment proves how underrated this conductor was (and still is) in the central German repertoire, although Szell’s sharper accents and astringent textures better suit the music’s witty subtext.

One of the most beautiful and definitive tracks in Max Richter's ever-growing body of work is "On the Nature of Daylight" from The Blue Notebooks, the album that brought him to the attention of many critics and fans. Since that breakthrough, he's developed a niche as a composer ready and willing to revamp the classics, as he did with Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, as well as a sensitive and versatile composer of scores for films ranging from looks at the not-so-tame secret lives of domesticated animals (Die Fremde) to dystopian sci-fi (Perfect Sense). Richter's music for Disconnect is an intersection of those career paths: the score uses "Daylight" as its emotional and musical focus, surrounding it with pieces that echo and complement it…

Sviatoslav Richter was not “one of” but the most prominent musician of the 20th century. His life was a charter of immunity for the divine criteria in art. For the 100th anniversary of Sviatoslav Richter, Firma Melodiya presents its arguably biggest project in its semicentennial history. The name of Sviatoslav Richter is inscribed in gold in the history of music. He was not just “more than a pianist,” he was even more than a musician. The set includes recordings of many of Richter’s ensemble performances with the likes of David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yuri Bashmet, Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman, the Borodin Quartet, the USSR Bolshoi Theatre String Quartet, the singer Nina Dorliak and others. The piano concertos played by Richter are conducted by some of the best Soviet conductors such as Kirill Kondrashin, Evgeny Svetlanov and Rudolf Barshai.

In my opinion, Sviatoslav Richter played these two Russian monuments better than anyone else on record. However, he played them even better in concert than he did in these excellent studio recordings. The ultimate Richter Pictures (the 1958 Sofia version on Philips) keeps bouncing in and out of print, but it's currently available and it's the great Pictures performance of all time. However you hear Richter play these two pieces, though, do hear him. He will probably convince you, at least while you're listening, that the Tchaikovsky is a much better piece than most musicologists seem to believe.

This live Appassionata, from a Moscow recital of 1959, is one of the most thrilling piano performances ever recorded. Sviatoslav Richter fills every moment of the first movement with intense drama, creates the illusion of total repose in the central variations, and then takes off in the finale with an exhibition of musical virtuosity and ever-increasing tension that becomes almost unbearably intense (and unbelievably fast and accurate). The studio Pathétique is quite fine, and the Fantasy (sung in Russian!) well performed by all but still rather quaint in its effect. But don't miss that Appassionata!

Karl Richter's Bach performances, although they represented a departure from the over-romanticized treatments of Baroque music that had prevailed up to his time, were not the kind of trailblazing return-to-authenticity projects of Trevor Pinnock, Christopher Hogwood, and others, whose early-music-performance practices continue to be the standard today.

Sometimes art is so simple and relaxed it seems to come from a place of utter mastery and command. This superb Sviatoslav Richter recording is like this. The presentation is easeful; there’s nothing forced. Richter just plays the music. These sonatas are reasonably easy for a pianist of his caliber, so the technical polish is perfect, which he makes sound effortlessly achieved. And Richter’s love for these Josef Haydn sonatas shows clearly. It results in a disc that is easily the best set of Haydn piano music in my collection.