I discovered Richter when I listened to Mussorgsky's Pictures of an Exhibition on an old LP. But I really understood Richter's boldness and genius when a friend of mine lended me a CD with Schubert's last piano sonata (D960).

Just listen to the way the first bars, containing the unforgettable opening theme, are usually played by most of the best pianists:

- Brendel: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TKy0Lyl4g-s

- Uchida: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7cc2FD06FM

- Kovacevich: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MAZ8PA5_gVA

And now listen to Richter's version:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbJtHzaFpBQ

This very slow tempo is extremely difficult from the point of view of the pianist, because it requires great control of dynamics and precision. However, it allows the listener to understand all the intricacies of the harmony and of the texture. I do not usually listen Richter's version because it requires deep concentration, but I can say I never really understood this piece until I heard Richter.

Happy birthday, Maestro!

I'll be honest, as an untrained listener of Classical music, I am having a hard time appreciating Richter's version from the rest except for the Tempo. I think your explanation makes sense that slower tempo allows the user to understand the intricacies of the piece.

How would it sound if other artists also played at a slower tempo? Can they even play at a lower tempo or that's Richter's specialty? Are there any other aspects of Richter's version besides the tempo I should be observing? I am not trying to play a devil's advocate, I am extremely curious as why I can't appreciate it as much as others.

It's not just a matter of slow/fast, because when you pick a tempo, this allows adopting solutions that would be awkward at a different speed. (Using a programmer's analogy, picking a tempo is like entering different branches of a very deep tree).

To understand this, consider bars 185ff in the development section. Here, after a long passage where another theme dominated the scene, the main theme returns two times: first in d minor, then in B-flat major. How do the pianists play this passage?

- Kovacevich (https://youtu.be/MAZ8PA5_gVA?t=744) play the d-minor and the B-flat phrases quite in the same way.

- Brendel (https://youtu.be/TKy0Lyl4g-s?t=443) and Richter (https://youtu.be/ZbJtHzaFpBQ?t=983) play the second one much softer than the first, as if the B-flat phrase were a distant echo, or a timid answer, of the d-minor one.

- Uchida (https://youtu.be/l7cc2FD06FM?t=812) plays both occurrences very softly as if the composer wanted to remind the listener of the long-forgotten theme.

What I am trying to show here is that, apart from speed, there are many other subtle ways a pianist expresses what the composer meant. This kind of nuances can be very hard to spot, but adopting Richter's tempo makes easier to appreciate them.

I noticed that Richter also slows down the tempo very slightly when playing the B-flat phrase. Playing it much softer and slightly more slowly really accentuates the sense of nostalgia and longing I find in this movement.

I can't find the words to describe how that version made me feel. Like always on the edge of taking a breath? The tempo change is weirdly affecting. I certainly like it less, but it is very very clever.

Thank you for sharing :)

I couldn’t agree more. Closely listening to his performance while attempting to learn that piece myself was transformative. The depth of feeling and the goosebumps it leaves the listener with. Transcendent.

His Sofia recital is undisputedly the best Pictures recording among my classical cohort. Brendel receives no love whatsoever.

A colleague came to Richter after a concert and asked him: "How could you play that passage, I practiced it for 100 times with no luck". Richter: "I practiced it 1000 times".

The quote about large hands being a disadvantage for playing Mozart or Chopin sounds ridiculous. Large hands (large span) are an advantage almost always.

Here's an example of Zimerman absolutely nailing a Chopin grande polonaise. Large hands are always helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMsYYhYl6Dg

If you’re right then piano keyboards are misdesigned for humans. Plausible in my experience.

However, by all reports Chopin's hands were special, and an anatomical key to his success. In At the Piano with Chopin, composer Stephen Heller is cited as extolling how Chopin's slim hands would "suddenly expand and cover a third of the keyboard. It was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent about to swallow a rabbit whole." A student, Adolf Gutmann, also reportedly said Chopin's "whole body was extraordinarily flexible."

Regardless of the size of the keyboard, bigger hands will always cover more keys.

Well, you probably don’t want to make the keys much narrower, since it’s pretty important to be able to hit one specific key with one specific finger.

There are pianos with slimmer keys that may be more suitable for those with small hands (e.g. women). It’s just hard to change a legacy design and push it to the masses. Of course if you’re at the top of the game you can get custom keyboards easily but it’s hard (and expensive) to justify for customisation if you’re just learning the keyboard

Ah so nice to see this here, one of my favorite pianists.

This Ravel piece https://youtu.be/PuFwt66Vr6U

His Rachmaninov pieces are absolutely divine.

https://youtu.be/uT_ZhhQeudY

And Debussy https://youtu.be/SoqSqW0YW7A

My best friend is older mathematician is his late 70's. His best friend,Вадим Могильницкий, who unfortunately passed away, was an avid collectors of Richter's audio recordings and Richter's biographer. He published two books: "Святослав Рихтер" (S. Richter) and "Рихтер - Ансамблист" (Richer - Ansamblyst). They were never translated to English.

If you're a Richter fan, I strongly recommend his notebooks [1], which are well edited and give many insights into him and into his perceptions of the artists of that era. The second half of the book consists of a chronological listing of concerts he played in and records he listened to and his evaluations of both.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sviatoslav-Richter-Conversations-Brun...

For anyone interested in learning more about Richter, there is a particularly good documentary called "Richter, the enigma" from 1998.

In this YT video of him playing Chopin's Etudes, someone forgot to turn on the lights and he in not able to see the score, but he plays on regardless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=gONhZu5ad4s

I’m far from a professional musician, but I find it difficult to believe that the written music for a solo pianist serves any purpose other than perhaps a bit of confidence in an emergency if memory fails. Surely there’s no way you can actually read complex passages anywhere near fast enough to actually rely on them for a live performance.

His sense of absolute pitch shifted in later age, leaving him constantly unsure as to the correctness of the notes he was playing. The music was intended to be a check against any confusion arising from this. At least this is what he claims. Would be interesting to know if this was necessarily entirely psychological or not.

IIRC he forgot a note one performance and put the sheet music in front of him ever since.

It is easy to imagine forgetting which high or low disconnected note you're supposed to start a passage from on a piece you haven't played recently -- or you have the sense of the feeling of a note but might be off by a fourth.

When I play guitar while reading sheet music or tabs, I often glaze over what's actually on the paper or on the screen but still "read" it faintly -- Take away the guide or make me look at my hands and I'm helplessly lost, however.

I have a pet theory that it's more about flow and some kind of vision-muscle memory.

Felt strange to recognize the name, only because I was trying to find a good version of Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op.23 No.1, and just happened to come across the Richter version which was far and away the best I found. I've never heard him play anything else though.

I love his recording of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy. As I recall, the LP had lovely performances of a Schubert sonata and some impromptus on the flip side.

Not a fan of the Wanderer Fantasy. Don't find the melody compelling, personally. D. 946 no. 2, on the other hand, I find lovely, especially when the first main melody comes in not too long after the 3 minute mark, and especially when the real main melody comes in around the 5 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoMsV5VrpFA

(This comment isn't related to Richter, I'm just sharing a nice Schubert piece for anyone interested.)

Let me compensate the lack of Richter with a Richter recording that is not [1] a Schubert composition. Variations Serieuses (Mendelssohn Bartholdy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9qEIcgSXLU

[1] I love Schubert, best composer ever in my opinion. Unfortunately, Richter couldn't Play "Tod und das Mädchen" (death and the maiden)

I love his recording of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy. As I recall, the LP also had lovely performances of a Schubert sonata and some impromptus.