Sviatoslav Richter: A Pianist Who Made the Earth Move (2015)

Re:Sviatoslav Richter: A Pianist Who Made the Earth Move (2015) by spectramax on Sunday March 17, 2019 @10:51AM (#19414302)

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.

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Re:Sviatoslav Richter: A Pianist Who Made the Earth Move (2015) by ziotom78 on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:51AM (#19419778)

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.

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Re:Sviatoslav Richter: A Pianist Who Made the Earth Move (2015) by mykowebhn on Monday March 18, 2019 @05:42PM (#19425627)

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.

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