Sviatoslav Richter (1915–1997):
Early Recordings. Vol.1 (1948–1956): Schubert • Chopin • Schumann
Sviatoslav Richter was born in Zhitomir in the USSR,
now the Ukraine, in 1915. His father was a German
pianist and composer who had studied in Vienna and
then taught at the Odessa Conservatory where Richter’s
mother was his pupil. Sviatoslav began piano lessons at
the age of seven and with a natural musical curiosity he
received great pleasure in sight-reading any music he
could find including operatic scores. This was the way
he learnt music rather than studying with a famous
teacher. In 1930 from the age of fifteen to seventeen he
earned his living as accompanist at the House of Sailors
in Odessa, then became accompanist to the Academic
Opera and Ballet Theatre the following year.
Richter’s formal training began at the age of 22
when he entered the Moscow Conservatory studying
with Heinrich Neuhaus from 1937 to 1944. At his adult
début in 1940 he played works by Prokofiev including
the first performance of the Piano Sonata No. 6, Op. 82.
He became friends with Prokofiev and gave the
première of the Piano Sonata No. 7, Op. 83, in 1943
whilst the composer dedicated his Piano Sonata No. 9,
Op. 103, to Richter.
In 1945 Richter won joint first prize at the All-Union Piano Competition in Moscow and soon earned a
reputation in the USSR in the years after the war and
was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949. His first
appearance outside the Soviet Union was at the Prague
Spring Festival in 1956, and the following year he
played in China. It was not until 1960, however, that he
travelled to the West, causing a sensation with his
playing. In October of that year he gave no less than five
recitals at Carnegie Hall within twelve days. From then
on he had a prestigious career throughout the world and
died in Moscow in 1997.
During the 1940s Richter played Schubert’s
Wanderer Fantasy, which he had first played in 1938,
and a few of the Sonatas. ‘The first Schubert work I
played was the Wanderer Fantasy when I was still a
student, and then later the Sonata in D major, D. 850. I
had once heard it from a woman student, terribly long
and tedious, so that it was unendurable. I then said to
myself, “But it cannot be possible for Schubert to be
that tedious”, and I decided to play the sonata myself….
Later I took up the Fantasy Sonata in G major; it is the
one I love most, more even than the D major…. I think
altogether I have ten Schubert Sonatas in my
repertoire.’ In the short pieces heard here recorded in
the early 1950s Richter’s fluency of execution is
admirably displayed in the Impromptu in E flat whilst
the A flat Impromptu is played on a grand scale with a
wide range of dynamics and beautifully balanced
chords.
Richter played a good deal of Schumann during his
career. During the 1940s he played the Piano Concerto
and a handful of short pieces. In 1948 he played the
Fantasie, Op. 17, and Papillons, Op. 2, and at one of his
early recording sessions in the same year he recorded
five of the eight movements comprising the work
Fantasiestücke, Op. 12. He recorded these same five
movements again in 1956 and added No. 7. On this
compact disc is the first release, since the original
78rpm issue, of the earlier 1948 recording. The slower
movements show Richter’s seamless legato, while the
young pianist’s impetuosity is to the fore in
Aufschwung.
Throughout the 1950s Richter added more of
Schumann’s larger works to his repertoire. In 1950 he
played the Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26,
Introduction and Allegro, Op. 92 and, on 29th May in
Prague, Richter performed one of Schumann’s rarely
played works, the Humoreske, Op. 20. Richter liked to
play works that most of his audience would have never
heard such as the Four Fugues, Op. 72, and the March,
Op. 76, No. 2. In 1954 he added the Waldscenen, Op.
82, and the Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22, to
his repertoire and continued to play the Toccata, Op. 7.
Although few pianists play Schumann’s Humoreske the
work was also recorded by the great Russian pianist
Samuil Feinberg (1890–1962). Richter spoke of his
working methods, referring specifically to the
Humoreske. ‘I never play a piece in its entirety until
I’ve learned each page separately. But I often leave
things to the very last minute—which isn’t a good thing,
but that’s how it is: if I didn’t have the pressure of a
forthcoming concert, I’d never force myself to do any
work. As a result, it’s not unknown for me to play
through a whole piece for the first time on stage. That
was the case with Schumann’s Humoreske. I’d included
it in the programme of one of my recitals, but ran out of
time. I’d started to practise it only a week before the
concert. On a purely technical level, it bristles with all
manner of technical difficulties—all, that is, except for
the finale, and so I set this to one side. Having spent the
week studying the rest of the score, I couldn’t make a
start on the final movement until the night before the
concert. I knew it would be less difficult to manage. I
must say the concert wasn’t too bad.’
During the 1940s Richter only played a handful of
Chopin’s shorter works together with the odd ballade
and scherzo. In 1950 he gave an all-Chopin recital then
played nothing by Chopin until the mid 1950s when he
only played the Scherzo No. 4. He was happy to play the
works of Chopin that he liked and did not feel that
complete works had to be performed. In Japan at the
end of his career he played thirteen of the 24 Preludes.
Of the Chopin Etudes he said, ‘I do not consider it
absolutely essential to have played all the Chopin
studies. In fact, I am against this playing of everything,
every sonata, every study etc. For me, the exception is
the Well-Tempered Clavier.’ In the recording of the
Etude, Op. 25, No. 5, Richter follows Chopin’s marking
of vivace playing the first section in a lively and
scintillating fashion contrasting this with the haunting
melody of the central E major section.
© 2009 Jonathan Summers
Producer’s Note
Richter recorded only five of the eight pieces from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 in 1948. These recordings
have never been re-issued on LP or CD. He re-recorded these five pieces in 1956 and added No. 7. Traumes
Wirren. Since this recording is widely available, I decided to use the earlier recording for this reissue.
Ward Marston
