Sviatoslav Richter Schubert

This is a profound, moving, beautifully structured performance. Richter plays with passionate intensity and serene sensitivity. He creates an exquisite balance between the pathos and the longing geniality within the sonatas. I doubt I will ever want another recording of these sonatas. Richter's rendition brilliant. It's as though Schubert wrote these with Richter in mind!

There are times when you honestly believe that there is no need to buy another pianist except Richter, nowhere more so than in Schubert. This live Feb. 24, 1979 concert from Tokyo finds him in supreme form. His playing is highly personal, as always, and not everyone will like the ruogh, crashing fortissimos in the opening movement of D. 784. That quibble aside–and the somewhat thin, hard piano sound, which is no pleasure–every bar draws rapt attention. I can only express my delight in finding two of Richter's best live performances, since the ebullient D. 664 is just as fine as the haunted D. 784.

Good News - the legal dispute over the ownership of Sviatoslav Richter's Eurodisc recordings has finally been resolved, and Sony is releasing them in a nice 14 CD box.Recorded in Salzburg, Vienna and Munich between 1970 and 1983.A joint production of the small German label Eurodisc (Ariola) and the Soviet giant Melodiya.These are among the last of Richter's studio recordings - after this, most of his commercial recordings were recorded in concert.

Sony Classcial celebrates the art of Sviatoslav Richter (1995-1997) – one of the 20th century’s greatest pianists – with the first-ever release of his complete Columbia Masterworks and RCA Victor live and studio recordings in an 18 CD original jacket edition, underneath Richter’s legendary five October 1960 Carnegie Hall recitals.

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. An owner of composing, conducting, artistic, directing and acting gifts, a connoisseur of literature, arts and philosophy, with a will of iron he made all his gifts serve the art of pianism.

Sviatoslav Richter is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, renowned for his virtuoso technique and the depth of his interpretations. He was born in Zhitomir, Russia, in 1915 but grew up in Odessa. Unusually, he was largely self-taught, although his organist father provided him with a basic education in music. He started to work at the Odessa Conservatory where he accompanied the opera rehearsals. He gave his first recital in 1934 at the engineer club of Odessa but did not formally study piano until three years later, when he enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory.

Richter was always a fan of Schubert's Piano music. He recorded over half of the Sonatas, the Wanderer Fantasie, some of the Impromptus and the Trout Piano Quintet to name a few works. Early in his career he would tear through impromptus, and play the Wander Fantasie with force and power. Fast forward much later at this point when these Sonatas were performed, and Richter was still playing some of the most difficult works in piano repertoire, such as Prokofiev Sonatas, Chopin Etudes and Liszt. In the case of these of composers its hard not to be inclined to be enjoy his earlier recordings more, but that is not the case here with Schubert.

The Teldec recordings of the legendary pianist who rarely went into the recording studio so most of his recordings are live at concerts.