Sviatoslav Richter - Part One

The Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, as I hope this and the following episode will illustrate, is one of the greatest musicians of the recording era… unsurpassed technical expertise matched with a profound depth of musicality. But those clichés (whilst true) could be applied to a not insignificant number of other players. So why Richter? More than most musicians he was touched by history. Born in 1915 and dying in 1997, he outlived the Soviet Union but his life was utterly entangled with that state and the impact its leaders had on the people under their iron fists, Richter included. There is I think something in Richter's absolute immersion in his music that was a result of these extraordinary times and his strategies to protect himself from them. And along with the first part of his story there will be music from Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Schubert and Rachmaninoff.

[Episode Image: Richter c.1960 Time Life - Walter Sanders]