The great pianist Svyatoslav Richter: life and creative path. Svyatoslav Richter - obstinate genius Recognition of the merits of the greatest of musicians

Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter

Dedicated to the memory of the great Svyatoslav Richter.

(German: Richter; March 7 (20), 1915, Zhytomyr - August 1, 1997, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian pianist, cultural and public figure, one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

Farewell wave of the hand of the Genius - departure of pianist Svyatoslav Richter from Kharkov, train Kharkov-Moscow
Date May 25, 1966 Source own work Author Shcherbinin Yuri

Sviatoslav Richter - Sviatoslav Richter - V.O.-story about Richter

The pianist's unusually wide repertoire covered works from baroque music to composers of the 20th century, and he often performed entire cycles of works, such as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. A prominent place in his work was occupied by the works of Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Prokofiev. Richter's performance is distinguished by technical perfection, a deeply individual approach to the work, a sense of time and style.

Biography

Richter was born in Zhytomyr, in the family of a talented German pianist, organist and composer Theophil Danilovich Richter (1872-1941), a teacher at the Odessa Conservatory and an organist of the city Church, his mother - Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva (1892-1963), from the nobility. During the Civil War, the family was separated and Richter lived in the family of his aunt, Tamara Pavlovna, from whom he inherited a love for painting, which became his first creative passion.

In 1922 the family moved to Odessa, where Richter began to study piano and composition, being mostly self-taught. At this time, he also writes several theatrical plays, is interested in the opera house and hatches plans to become a conductor. From 1930 to 1932, Richter worked as a pianist-accompanist at the Odessa Seaman's House, then at the Odessa Philharmonic. Richter's first recital, composed of Chopin's works, took place in 1934, and soon he received a place as an accompanist at the Odessa Opera House.

His hopes of becoming a conductor did not come true, in 1937 Richter entered the Moscow Conservatory in the piano class of Heinrich Neuhaus, but in the fall he was expelled from it, refusing to study general subjects, and went back to Odessa. Soon, however, at the insistence of Neuhaus, Richter returned to Moscow and was restored at the conservatory. The pianist's Moscow debut took place on November 26, 1940, when in the Small Hall of the Conservatory he performed Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata - for the first time since the author. A month later, Richter performs with an orchestra for the first time.

Sviatoslav Richter - Mozart piano concerto no.5

During the war, Richter led an active concert activity, performed in Moscow, toured other cities of the USSR, played in besieged Leningrad. The pianist performed for the first time a number of new compositions, including Sergei Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata.

S. T. Richter in Kharkov (1966. Photo by Y. Shcherbinin)

After the war, Richter gained wide popularity, having won the Third All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians (the first prize was shared between him and Viktor Merzhanov), and became one of the leading Soviet pianists. The pianist's concerts in the USSR and the countries of the Eastern Bloc were very popular, but he was not allowed to perform in the West for many years. This was due to the fact that Richter maintained friendly relations with "disgraced" cultural figures, among whom were Boris Pasternak and Sergei Prokofiev. During the years of the unspoken ban on the performance of the composer's music, the pianist often played his works, and in 1952, for the first and only time in his life, he acted as a conductor, conducting the premiere of the Symphony Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (soloist Mstislav Rostropovich)

Richter's concerts in New York and other American cities in 1960 became a real sensation, followed by numerous recordings, many of which are still considered standard. In the same year, the musician was awarded the Grammy Award (he became the first Soviet performer to receive this award) for his performance of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

In 1960-1980, Richter continued his active concert activity, giving more than 70 concerts a year. He toured a lot in different countries, preferring to play in chamber spaces than in large concert halls. The pianist recorded little in the studio, but a large number of "live" recordings from concerts have been preserved.

Great pianist Richter honored in Russia

The famous classical music festival takes place in the provincial town of Tarusa, a hundred kilometers west of Moscow. It is named after the world-famous pianist Sviatoslav Richter, an almost sacred name for classical music lovers.

Richter is the founder of a number of music festivals, including the famous "December Evenings" at the Pushkin Museum (since 1981), in which he performed with leading musicians of our time, including violinist Oleg Kagan, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Natalya Gutman. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Richter never taught.

In the last years of his life, Richter often canceled concerts due to illness, but continued to perform. During the performance, at his request, the stage was completely dark, and only the notes standing on the piano stand were illuminated by a lamp. According to the pianist, this gave the audience the opportunity to concentrate on the music, without being distracted by secondary moments.

Wife - opera singer, People's Artist of the USSR (1990) Dorliak Nina Lvovna (1908 -1998).

The pianist's last concert took place in 1995 in Lübeck. He died in 1997 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Sviatoslav Richter - Mozart piano concerto no. 27

Now let's talk about documentaries: Richter unconquered / Richter l "insoumis

Release year: 1998
Country: France
Genre: documentary

Directed by: Bruno Monsaingeon

Description: Bruno Monsaingeon is a French violinist and cinematographer who gained international fame with his films about Glen Gould, Yehudi Menuhin, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, David Oistrakh and others.
One of his last films, Richter Unbowed, won several awards, including the FIPA Gold Award in 1998.
In this film, an outstanding musician, for the first time overcoming a stubborn reluctance to talk about himself, spoke about his life, entirely devoted to music.

And the second documentary: Chronicles of Svyatoslav Richter

Released: 1978
Director: A. Zolotov, S. Chekin

Description: A film about Svyatoslav Richter. Includes performances of the following works:
Bach: 5th Brandenburg Concerto - cadence, 6th clavier concerto - rehearsal
Debussy: Suite Bergamas, 1 movement
Hindemith: violin sonata
Mozart: 18 concert
Prokofiev: 5 concerto

Sviatoslav Richter playing Chopin, and interviewed - "Richter, the Enigma" - medici.tv

Rachmaninoff: Etude-Picture Op. 39 number 3
Schubert: Musical Moment Op. 94 number 1 landlers
Schumann: Vienna Carnival, parts 1, 2 and 4
In addition: an interview with Milstein, statements by Gould, Rubinstein, Cliburn, Mravinsky about Richter, etc.

I plan to watch these documentaries this weekend. I wish you to find and watch these films about the great Richter.

Original post Art_Kaleidoscope
Thank you! Very interesting!
“I can’t have a family, only art,” he said. He went into art as into a monastery.
“Svetik had a feeling that nothing would happen to him. As if he was on friendly terms with all the elements of nature. And even the terrible episodes of his life, which crushed faith in the most beloved person - in his mother, and the death of his father could not extinguish his inner light. Unfortunately, I know exactly how it was. In 1937, Slava came from Odessa to Moscow to enter the conservatory with Heinrich Neuhaus. Although Svetik did not study anywhere (only at home his father studied with him), Neuhaus said: "This is the student I have been waiting for all my life." Then Heinrich Gustavovich wrote in one of his letters: “Richter is a man of genius. Kind, selfless, gentle, and capable of feeling pain and compassion.”
And Slava began to study at the conservatory. At first he lived with friends, and then he was registered with Neuhaus, and he moved there
ODESSA - THE CITY WHERE THE WAR CAUGHT RICHTER'S PARENTS
His parents remained in Odessa. The father was 20 years older than the mother. Slava said that he was a wonderful musician, played the organ and even composed something himself. He taught at the conservatory and played in the church.
His mother was Russian - Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva. A very beautiful woman of the Karenin type - plump, with graceful movements. She was completely red.
When they asked her what she dyes her hair with, Anna Pavlovna called Slava, and he ran out "as red as an orange."
If the father was from him, perhaps somewhat far away, then the mother was for Glory to everyone. She cooked very well and sewed wonderfully. The family basically lived on the money that Anna Pavlovna earned with her skill. In the morning she sewed, in the afternoon she cleaned and cooked, and in the evening she took off her bathrobe, put on a dress, combed her hair and received guests.
Among the friends of the house was a certain Sergei Dmitrievich Kondratiev.
It was a man who looked very much like Lenin. A disabled person who could only move around the apartment. Anna Pavlovna brought him meals.
Kondratiev was a theoretical musician and studied with Richter. Slava said that he could not stand this man, who gave him a lot in terms of music theory. Glory was irritated by his sweetness.
Kondratiev, for example, wrote to Sveta in Moscow: “Dear Slavonka! Now we have a winter-winter, frosty taps with his ice stick. How good the Russian winter is, can you compare it with overseas.
On June 23, 1941, Slava was supposed to fly to Odessa. Due to the outbreak of the war, all flights were cancelled.
But Svetik managed to receive several letters from his mother. Anna Pavlovna wrote that everything was fine with her father, but she went to Sergei Dmitrievich and was thinking of taking him to them, since it was becoming more and more difficult to move around Odessa every day.
Svetik admired his mother: “She walks 20 kilometers to take care of the sick.”
Then the Germans captured Odessa, and the correspondence ceased.
All this time, Svetik was talking about his mother, dreaming about how she would come to visit him. When we cooked potato peels - there was no other food, he said: “It turns out delicious. But mom will come and teach you how to cook even tastier.”
Svetik lived with the hope of meeting his parents. Mom was everything to him. “I’ll just say, and my mother is already laughing. I just think, and my mother is already smiling, ”he said. Anna Pavlovna was his friend, and adviser, and the basis of morality.
Before the war, she came to Moscow and charmed us all - both young and adults. We all started writing letters to her. One of Slava's girls she knew wrote to Anna Pavlovna that Richter had not returned the book to her. And she added that, probably, "all talents are like that." Anna Pavlovna immediately sent a letter to her son: “How embarrassing you will be if you are valued only as a talent. Man and talent are two different things. And a rascal can be talented.” This is how their relationship was.
In the photo: SVYATOSLAV RICHTER WHEN VISITING THE MOTHER
ANNA PAVLOVNA LEFT WITH THE GERMANS
When Odessa was liberated, Svetik's acquaintance, an engineer by profession, went there to assess the state of the city. Through him, Svetik gave his mother a letter, we also wrote to her.
It was in April. Svyatoslav went on tour, and we were waiting for the return of this familiar engineer. The time has already passed when he was supposed to return, but our man never appeared.
Then I myself went to him out of town. I found his house, I see - he is doing something in the garden. And I had such a premonition that it would be better for me not to approach him. But I pushed those thoughts away.
Bad news, the man met me. - Father Svetik was shot. And Anna Pavlovna, having married Kondratiev, left with the Germans.
It turned out that this Kondratiev was a big man before the revolution and his real name was almost Benkendorf. In 1918, with the help of the conductor of the Bolshoi Theater Golovanov and his wife, the singer Nezhdanova, he managed to change his passport and become Kondratiev.
For more than twenty years he pretended to be disabled. And the mother, whom Svetik admired so much, had an affair with him. And in the end even moved him to her.
It turned out that Anna Pavlovna went not to a sick friend, but to her lover. She betrayed her husband and son. She gave her husband to die. Svetik said: “This has not been proven, but they say that Kondratiev himself denounced his father.” A week before the surrender of Odessa, Richter's parents were offered to evacuate. But since Kondratiev was not taken with them, Anna Pavlovna refused to leave. Thus signing her husband's death warrant.
“Dad and mom were offered to evacuate,” Svetik later said. – But they didn’t take Kondratiev. And my mother refused. I think dad understood everything.
When the Germans entered the city, Kondratiev made public who he really was. Moreover, he married Anna Pavlovna and took her last name. When many years later Svetik came to his mother in Germany and saw the inscription “S. Richter," he became ill. “I couldn’t understand what I was doing here,” he told me. - And only then I realized that "S." - This is Sergey.
Svetik was often told abroad: "We saw your father." He replied: "My father was shot." Like this…
On the way from Tbilisi, where he toured, Svetik stopped in Kyiv with his friend, the wife of the famous eye doctor Filatov, and she told him everything about the fate of his parents. She was his father's closest friend. Speranskaya is her surname. “I could not imagine that a person could change so much before my eyes,” she later recalled. - He began to melt, lost weight, collapsed on the sofa and sobbed. I stayed with him all night."
When my sister and I met Slava at the station, he had an absolutely sick face. He got out of the car, as if he had fallen out, and said: “Vipa, I know everything.” Until 1960, we did not touch this topic.
In the photo: THEOPHIL DANILOVICH RICHTER AND ANNA PAVLOVNA RICHTER WITH LITTLE SVYATOSLAV
IT'S ALL ABOUT HYPNOSIS
As a result of long conversations, Svetik and I decided that the whole thing was hypnosis. After all, Anna Pavlovna had a complete change in personality. The fact that hypnosis could have affected her is said by one episode. She herself told me how, as a young girl from Zhytomyr, where she then lived, she went to visit her friend in a neighboring town. On the way back in the compartment opposite her sat a young man, intelligent, with an interesting face, usually dressed, middle-aged. And he looked at her intently.
“And suddenly I realized,” Anna Pavlovna said, “that he was giving me some instructions. The train slowed down, we drove up to the station in front of Zhytomyr. The man got up and I got up and followed him. I felt like I just couldn't stop walking. We went out to the vestibule. And at this time, my friend appeared from the next compartment and turned to me: “Anna, you are crazy! Zhytomyr is the next station!” I turned in her direction, and this man vanished into thin air, and I never saw him again. In the meantime, the train has moved on. Then, when, after all that had happened, my sister and I were in Odessa, we met with Anna Pavlovna's friend.
“She waited for Svetik throughout the war,” this woman told us. - But when the Germans left, she came to me with a small suitcase, completely pale, looked into the distance and said: "I'm leaving." A friend tried to reason with her, but Anna Pavlovna stood her ground: "I'm leaving."
MEETING WITH THE MOTHER
In October 1962, the magazine Musical Life published a translation of an article by Paul Moore from the American High Fidelity. In it, an American talks about how he witnessed Richter's meeting with his mother.
It so happened that it was Moore, who in 1958 was the first to write in the Western press about Richter, who did everything to make this meeting take place. Upon learning that a certain Frau Richter, who calls herself the pianist's mother, lives in the small German town of Schwäbisch Gmund, he immediately got into the car and went to her. Before that, in all conversations, Richter himself answered questions about his parents that "they died." That is why the foreign journalist and musicologist wanted to find out for himself who Frau Richter was.
Having found a small two-story house, one of the apartments in which the same lady and her husband occupied, Moore prepared to explain who he was and why he had come. But as soon as he appeared on the threshold, the mistress of the house herself recognized him.
“My bewilderment was cleared,” Paul Moore recalled, “when she informed me that a relative living in America had sent her the October 1958 issue of High Fidelity, which contained my article on Richter. Frau said: “Since we saw her, we have been praying all the time to meet you. We had not had any contact with Slava since 1941, so even the opportunity to see someone who saw him himself was a real sensation for us.
Anna Pavlovna also told the American about the circumstances of her departure from the Soviet Union: “Father Slava was arrested along with about six thousand other Odessans who bore German surnames. Such was the order received from Beria. My husband did nothing wrong, nothing. He was just a musician, and so was I; most of our ancestors and relatives were either musicians or artists, and we never got involved in politics. The only thing he could be accused of was that back in 1927 he gave music lessons at the German consulate in Odessa. But under Stalin and Beria, this was quite enough to arrest him and put him in prison. Then they killed him.
When the Axis troops reached Odessa, the city was occupied, mainly by the Romanians; then they began to retreat, my second husband and I left with them.
It was impossible to take a lot with me, but I took everything I could, connected with the memories of Glory. After leaving Odessa, we lived in Romania, in Hungary, then in Poland, then in Germany.”
That meeting between Moore and Anna Pavlovna did not last long.
“Frau Richter basically tried to get out of me any, the most insignificant news about Glory, or, as she sometimes called him, Svetik, which means “little light” in translation. At the same time, Anna Pavlovna sent a short note to her son through a journalist, which began with the words “Mein uber alles Geliebter!” (“My most beloved!”) and ended with “Deine Dich liebende Anna” (“Anna who loves you”). Through a mutual friend, Paul Moore managed to send a note to Richter in Moscow.
And the pianist's first meeting with his mother took place in the autumn of 1960 in New York, where the impresario Solomon Yurok arranged a Richter concert.
Anna Pavlovna later recalled that it took her so long to prove to Yurok that she was Richter's mother, that she felt like she was being interrogated by the police. At the same time, Richter was asked if he was going to seek the rehabilitation of his father. To which Richter replied: “How can an innocent person be rehabilitated?”
After that first meeting, Anna Pavlovna, on behalf of the Soviet Minister of Culture Furtseva, was invited to Moscow - for a visit or for good. But the woman refused. And, in turn, invited her son to visit. This visit became possible two years later.
Paul Moore left a detailed account of that meeting, which he also attended. “A modest two-room apartment, in fact, turned out to be a museum of Svyatoslav Richter. All the walls were covered with his photographs from childhood to adulthood. On one of them, he was depicted in disguise as Franz Liszt, whose role he once played in a Soviet film about Mikhail Glinka. There were also colored watercolors of Richter's houses in Zhytomyr and Odessa, as well as the corner in the Odessa house where his bed stood.
One of the pictures of the young Slava at the age of sixteen proves that in his youth, before his blond hair began to gradually disappear, he was truly strikingly handsome.
The hostess of the house said that Russian, Polish, German, Swedish and Hungarian blood is mixed in her son ...
Frau Richter took her son around the apartment and showed him the paintings she had saved from their old nest in Odessa. Richter looked at a pencil drawing of his old house in Zhytomyr and another in Odessa with an absent-minded gaze.
Along with Richter in Germany was his wife, Nina Lvovna Dorliak. Their train arrived from Paris. Paul Moore met Richter and Dorliac at the train station. “The couple arrived on time, carrying a lot of luggage with them, including a cardboard box, in which, as Nina Dorliak explained with a grin, an excellent top hat was resting, without which, as Slava decided, he simply could not appear in London (the next point of the tour after Germany Richter. - I.O.). With the same friendly mockery, Richter showed a long, round package wrapped in brown paper: according to him, it was a floor lamp that Nina intended to drag with her from London to Moscow via Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna and Bucharest.
They stayed in Germany for a total of several days.
The same Paul Moore recalled how "Frau Richter's husband" behaved during the way back to the station, from where Richter and Dorliak were supposed to go to London. “He laughed nervously and chatted non-stop the whole way. Suddenly, he unexpectedly asked: “Svetik, does your passport still say that you are German?” Richter, a little warily, as if not knowing what he was getting at, answered: "Yes."
“Oh-oh-oh, that's good! The contented old man laughed. “But the next time you come to Germany, you must definitely have a German name, like Helmut, or something like that.” Richter smiled condescendingly, but, secretly exchanging glances with his wife, he resolutely said: "The name Svyatoslav suits me perfectly."
At the station, while waiting for the train, everyone decided to have tea and cakes. Sat at the table and ordered. But Richter at the last moment changed his mind about drinking tea and went to wander around the city. He appeared on the platform at the same time as the train.
Then “Frau Richter tried to impress on her son how important it was for her to receive news from him. But I doubted the effectiveness of her requests: Nina once told me with a laugh that for all these years that they knew each other, Slava sent her many telegrams, but never wrote a single letter, not even a postcard.
What was the very last conversation between mother and son, Paul Moore does not know, as he deliberately left them alone. He approached Frau Richter only when the train started moving. “Frau Richter, smiling sadly, whispered, as if to herself: “Well, my dream is over.”
“MOM DEAD LONG FOR ME”
“When Svetik returned and I asked him how the meeting went,” says Vera Ivanovna, “he replied: “Mom is not there, instead of her there is a mask.”
I tried to ask him about the details, because so many years had passed. “Kondratiev never left us for a minute,” Slava said. - And instead of mom - a mask. We were not alone for a single moment. But I didn't want to. We kissed and that's it."
Nina Dorliak tried to distract Anna Pavlovna's husband by coming up with all sorts of tricks, for example, asking to see the house. But he didn't give in. After that, Svetik traveled to Germany several more times. The newspapers wrote: “Richter is going to his mother”, everything looked very nice. But they only talked about art.
When Anna Pavlovna became seriously ill, Richter spent all the money he earned on tour on her treatment. His refusal to hand over the fee to the state then caused a big scandal. He learned about the death of his mother from Kondratiev a few minutes before the start of his concert in Vienna. This was his only unsuccessful performance. “The end of the legend,” the newspapers wrote the next day. He also went to funerals.
He sent me a postcard: “Vipa, you know our news. But you also know that for me, my mother died a long time ago. Maybe I'm insensitive. I'll come and talk..."

ALTHOUGH there was something in his life that he really could not stand. For example, when...

... they were admired

ONCE a fan came into Richter's dressing room and started kissing his hands. The pianist, according to the recollections of relatives, almost squealed in horror. And in response, he rushed to kiss the hands of this man. He was deathly afraid of admiration. Hearing them, he closed himself and only smiled politely in response. And he was offended by his friends who fell on their knees in front of him and began to applaud. So why are they behaving like this? he said. - This hurts me so much!

When one of the critics said that the concert was brilliant, Richter replied: Only the creator can be brilliant. And a performer can be talented and reach the top only when he fulfills the artist's plan.

... asked about the mother

Richter's main tragedy was the betrayal of his mother. The musician's family lived in Odessa. My father worked at the opera house, my mother sewed wonderfully. When the Germans approached Odessa, the family was offered to leave for evacuation. But the mother, Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva, unexpectedly for everyone refused. According to the laws of wartime, Svyatoslav Teofilovich's father was arrested and shot. Since he, a German by nationality, does not want to leave the city before the arrival of the Nazis, it means that he is waiting for them. That's what the Chekists thought.

And the musician's mother unexpectedly married a certain Kondratiev, whom she courted before the war. Only many years later, Richter found out that this Kondratiev was only in words a seriously ill person. In fact, he, a descendant of an influential tsarist official, only pretended to be disabled and waited for the end of Soviet power.

Before Odessa was retaken by the Soviet troops, Kondratiev and the Germans fled the city with his wife. And Richter, who was studying at that time in Moscow, knew nothing. And he was waiting for letters from his mother, who was the closest person to him.

Throughout the war years, he lived in anticipation of meeting with his mother. You have no idea what kind of mother I have, ”he told his friends. - I'll just say something - she's already laughing. I just think of something - she's already smiling.

Anna Pavlovna was for him not only the best friend and adviser. She was for him the basis of morality. Somehow Svyatoslav, being a boy, did not return the book to a familiar girl, and she complained to the musician's mother: Of course, all talents are the same. And the woman immediately scolded her son: How ashamed would you be if people began to appreciate you only as a talent. You have been given a talent from God, you are not guilty of this. But if you humanly do not reckon with people - it's a shame.

When the musician found out about the betrayal of his mother, he withdrew into himself. It was the most terrible catastrophe of his life, which he could not survive. I can't have a family, he decided to himself. - Only art.

And the mother, having married Kondratiev and settled abroad, agreed that her husband bore her last name. The musician recalled with horror how, many years later, he saw a sign S. Richter on the door of his mother's house. What did I do? - thought Svyatoslav Teofilovich and only then remembered that Kondratiev's name was Sergei. It also happened that the stepfather gave interviews to foreign journalists on behalf of the father of the great pianist. Richter himself, hearing the phrase from correspondents: We saw your father, dryly cut them off: My father was shot.

The meeting with his mother took place many years later, when, thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Furtseva and Lyubov Orlova, the musician was finally released abroad. But communication, alas, did not work out. Mom is no more, - Richter told his loved ones. - Just a mask. We just kissed, that's all.

But when Anna Pavlovna became seriously ill, Richter spent all the money earned on tour on her treatment. His refusal to hand over the fee to the state then caused a big scandal.

The musician learned about the death of his mother from Kondratiev a few minutes before the start of his concert in Vienna. It was the pianist's only unsuccessful performance. The end of the legend, the newspapers wrote the next day.

… created special conditions

RICHTER was a surprisingly unpretentious person. Having arrived to enter the Moscow Conservatory, for some time he lived in the apartment of his teacher Heinrich Neuhaus, where he slept ... under the piano. Throughout his life, his favorite dish was fried potatoes.

The musician was distinguished by a sense of absolute equality with people. When he saw a woman washing the floors, he immediately rushed to help her. And if his neighbors in a communal apartment invited him to visit, Svyatoslav never refused. Your fried potatoes are insanely delicious, ”he thanked for the treat.

One day, while walking, he decided to swim. And while he was swimming, his shirt was stolen. There is nothing to do - he got out of the water, put on his trousers and went to the station. And there some workers sat and drank. Why are you walking around naked? one of them turned to Richter. - Come have a drink with us. And take my vest. How are you going to Moscow? And Svyatoslav put on a vest, went to Moscow in it, and then was very worried when it was thrown away.

According to the recollections of friends, he was easily given what seemed almost impossible to others. Once, in a large company, Richter went on foot to the monastery, which was about 50 kilometers away. When they reached their destination, everyone literally collapsed to the ground from fatigue. And Richter, as if nothing had happened, went to see the sights.

And he was not afraid of anything. During a tour in Tbilisi, when he was already the world-famous Richter, he was placed in the same room with a flutist. Before the rehearsal, Svyatoslav Teofilovich went for a traditional walk, and when he returned, he could not get into the room. Then he went into the next room and along the cornice of the sixth floor calmly reached his window. Weren't you afraid? Still, the sixth floor, - they asked him later. Not at all, Richter replied. - My neighbor was scared. He was with some lady, and when I appeared from the side of the window, I was terribly frightened.

... offended animals

BEYOND music, more than anything else, Richter adored nature. He considered the Oka and Zvenigorod the most beautiful places on Earth. When one of the German journalists asked him a question: You must be pleased, being in your homeland, Germany, to see the great river Rhine?, Richter replied: My homeland is Zhytomyr. And Rhine is not there.

Upon learning that director Andrei Tarkovsky burned a live cow to shoot one of his films, the pianist was horrified. I no longer want to hear the name of this person, - said Svyatoslav Teofilovich. - I hate him. If he cannot do without such cruelty, then he does not have enough talent.

Coming to visit and seeing a sleeping cat on the chair offered to him, Richter never dared to take the place chosen by the animal. No, you can't wake her up. I'd rather sit somewhere else," he said.

Shortly before his last trip abroad, Richter, as usual, strolled along the boulevards. Suddenly his eyes fell on a dead pigeon lying on the sidewalk. The musician picked up the carcass of the bird, buried it, and only after that he went on ...

Six days before his death, Richter recalled the beginning of the war, the night when they began to bomb Moscow. Together with other residents, the musician went up to the roof of the house to put out lighters dropped by the enemy. Above the capital, the engines of fascist aircraft sounded ominously. And Richter gazed admiringly at the intersecting beams of searchlights. It's Wagner, he said. - Death of gods.

I'm probably small

IN MARCH, a woman called our office. My name is Galina Gennadievna, she introduced herself. - I have Richter's letters, are you interested?

It turned out that Galina Gennadievna's brother Anatoly, a pilot by profession, was a close friend of the great musician. They often met, and when Svyatoslav Teofilovich left Moscow, they corresponded. Tolya often told me about Richter, - recalls Galina Gennadievna. - He said that Slava was a very unhappy person. And the brother wanted everyone to know that Richter's life was not at all as cloudless and prosperous as they wrote about it.

In the early 90s, Anatoly died tragically. And only quite recently, in his things, Galina Gennadievna found letters from Richter, one of which, with her permission, we publish.

Dear Anatoly! I was finally able to sit down to write to you. I received yours only yesterday morning, and therefore on Wednesday I watched for a long time the revival that reigned among the merry bathers in the light of sad twilight lamps; sat on the bench and worried.

Your letter (second) both upset me (selfishly) and reassured me (due to the fact that you will rest in bed). You are really tired and you need rest. Your letter made me want to see and feel you even more.

I am so sorry and annoyed that I often cause impatience and annoyance in you, and I would so like to avoid this. You write that you will not be enough for a long time, and again I feel very guilty.

Okay, please don't get mad at me. I so want (and will do) that everything is fine.

In my journey, everything was quite successful, beautiful and elegant. Except the most important thing - I am dissatisfied with my performance. Of course, this is natural, since I had a big break, but still it's a pity (outwardly it was a very big success, but you know that this is not the main thing for me).

On the way back, I stopped for one day in the capital of Ukraine, where I again sat at the instrument all day, preparing for the 28th (postponed on May 30) in Moscow. I arrived on the 27th and found your first letter from the airport (it made me very sad, apparently, I'm really small if I can't do simple things). Please write to me how it went.

You will probably stay until your son's birthday. And I understand this, as it should be. Now I am very interested when I will see you, because I will leave again very soon.

I ask you very much, if possible, rest and try not to get annoyed - this is the main thing for you. You will say: Easy to say!, but you will be wrong. Although I have a lot of things differently, but in terms of excitement, nerves and congestion at work, it’s true, it will turn out this way for us ...

I wish you that your worries in Kazan are crowned with success, that you feel good, and most importantly, that you are always happy.

I hug you, your Slavkin 05/29/64

Dossier

SVYATOSLAV RICHTER

People's Artist of the USSR (1961), Hero of Socialist Labor (1975), laureate of the State and Lenin Prizes.

He acted in the film "Composer Glinka" (1952. The role of Franz Liszt).

Wife - singer Nina Dorliak (died in 1998).

Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter(March 20, 1915, Zhitomir - August 1, 1997, Moscow) - one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, whose virtuoso technique was combined with a huge repertoire and depth of interpretation. Founder of a number of music festivals, including "December Evenings" at the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin.
Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). People's Artist of the USSR (1961). Laureate of the Lenin (1961), Stalin (1950) and Glinka State Prizes of the RSFSR (1987) and Russia (1996). The first Grammy winner in the USSR (1960).
Svyatoslav Richter was born into the family of pianist, organist and composer Theophil Danilovich Richter (1872-1941), teacher at the Odessa Conservatory and organist of the city church; mother - Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva (1892-1963), by mother von Reinke, from Russian nobles of German origin. During the Civil War, the family was separated, Richter lived in the family of his aunt Tamara Pavlovna, from whom he inherited a love for painting, which became his first creative passion.
In 1916 the family moved to Odessa, where Richter began to study piano and composition. Richter recalled that in childhood and in his youth, his father had a great influence on him, who was his first teacher and whose game the young Svyatoslav constantly listened to. Some sources indicate that Richter was mostly self-taught, however this refers rather to the fact that he did not take a standard piano course, playing scales, exercises and etudes. The first piece that Svyatoslav began to play was the nocturne by F. Chopin. At this time, he also writes several theatrical plays, is interested in the opera house and hatches plans to become a conductor. From 1930 to 1932, Richter worked as a pianist-accompanist at the Odessa Seaman's House, then at the Odessa Philharmonic. Richter's first recital, composed of Chopin's works, took place in 1934, and soon he got a job as an accompanist at the Odessa Opera House.
His hopes of becoming a conductor did not come true; In 1937, Richter entered the Moscow Conservatory in the piano class of Heinrich Neuhaus, but in the autumn he was expelled from it (after refusing to study general subjects) and went back to Odessa. Soon, however, at the insistence of Neuhaus, Richter returned to Moscow and recovered at the conservatory, receiving a diploma only in 1947. The pianist's Moscow debut took place on November 26, 1940, when in the Small Hall of the Conservatory he performed Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata - for the first time since the author. A month later, Richter performed for the first time with an orchestra.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Richter remained in Moscow. His father, who was in Odessa, was arrested by the Soviet authorities and soon shot, like many other Germans, and his mother, after the city was liberated from occupation by the Nazis, left the city along with the retreating troops and settled in Germany. Richter himself considered her dead for many years. During the war, Richter led an active concert activity, performed in Moscow, toured other cities of the USSR, played in besieged Leningrad. The pianist performed for the first time a number of new compositions, including Sergei Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata.
Richter's great friend and mentor was Anna Ivanovna Troyanovskaya (1885-1977), in her house in Skatertny Lane he studied on the famous Medtner piano. In 1943, Richter first met the singer Nina Dorliak, who later became his wife. Richter and Dorliac often performed together in concerts. Despite the marriage, among the musicians, talk about Richter's homosexuality never subsided. The musician himself preferred not to comment on his personal life.
After the war, Richter became widely known, having won the Third All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians (the first prize was shared between him and Viktor Merzhanov), and became one of the leading Soviet pianists. Richter's concerts in the USSR and the countries of the Eastern Bloc were very popular, but he was not allowed to perform in the West for many years. This was due to the fact that Richter maintained friendly relations with disgraced cultural figures, among whom were Boris Pasternak and Sergei Prokofiev. During the years of the unspoken ban on the performance of the composer's music, the pianist often played his works, and in 1952, for the first and only time in his life, he acted as a conductor, holding the premiere of the Symphony Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (soloist Mstislav Rostropovich). Prokofiev's ninth sonata is dedicated to Richter and was first performed by him.
Richter's concerts in New York and other American cities in 1960 became a real sensation, followed by numerous recordings, many of which are still considered standard. In the same year, the musician was awarded the Grammy Award (he became the first Soviet performer to receive this award) for his performance of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.
In 1952, Richter played the role of Franz Liszt in G. Aleksandrov's film Composer Glinka.
In 1960-1980, Richter continued his active concert activity, giving more than seventy concerts a year. He toured a lot in different countries, preferring to play in chamber spaces, rather than in large concert halls. In the studio, the pianist recorded relatively little, but a large number of "live" recordings from concerts have been preserved.
S. T. Richter in Kharkov (1966, photo by Y. Shcherbinin)
Richter's unusually wide repertoire spanned works from baroque music to composers of the 20th century, and he often performed entire cycles of works, such as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. A prominent place in his work was occupied by the works of Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Prokofiev. Richter's performance is distinguished by technical perfection, a deeply individual approach to the work, a sense of time and style. Considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.
Richter is the founder of a number of music festivals, including the annual summer Festival of Musical Festivities in Touraine (held since 1964 in a medieval barn in Mele near Tours, France), the famous "December Evenings" at the Pushkin Museum (since 1981), in within which he performed with leading contemporary musicians, including violinist Oleg Kagan, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Natalia Gutman. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Richter never taught.
In the last years of his life, Richter often canceled concerts due to illness, but continued to perform. During the performance, at his request, the stage was completely dark, and only the notes standing on the piano stand were illuminated by a lamp. According to the pianist, this gave the audience the opportunity to concentrate on the music, without being distracted by secondary moments.
In recent years, he lived in Paris, and shortly before his death, on July 6, 1997, he returned to Russia. The pianist's last concert took place in 1995 in Lübeck.
Svyatoslav Richter died on August 1, 1997 in the Central Clinical Hospital from a heart attack. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
Family
He was married to opera singer Nina Dorliak. The author and film critic Inga Karetnikova in her memoirs points out that this marriage was fictitious.
Awards and titles
Laureate of the III All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians (1945, 1st prize).
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1955).
People's Artist of the USSR (01/13/1961).
Hero of Socialist Labor (Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 20, 1975, the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle medal) - for outstanding services in the development of Soviet musical art and in connection with the sixtieth birthday.
Three Orders of Lenin (03/19/1965, 03/20/1975, 03/20/1985).
Order of the October Revolution (11/14/1980) - for the great work on the preparation and holding of the Games of the XXII Olympiad.
Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" III degree (Russia, 03/17/1995) - for services to the state and outstanding contribution to the development of world musical culture.
Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1985).
Golden Badge of the Order of Merit for the Polish People's Republic (Poland, 1983).
Grand Cross with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany, 1995).
Order of Peace and Friendship of Peoples (Hungary, 1985).
Lenin Prize (1961) - .
Stalin Prize of the first degree (1950) - for concert performance.
State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. I. Glinka (1987) - for concert programs in 1986, performed in the cities of Siberia and the Far East.
State Prize of the Russian Federation (1996) - for the International Music Festival "December Evenings" at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (1981-1995).
Grammy Award (1960).
Robert Schumann Prize (1968).
Leonie Sonning Award (1986).
Franco Abbiati Prize (1986).
Triumph Award (1993).
Prize "Golden Disc" of the company "Melody" - for the recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1.
Honorary Doctorate from Oxford University (1992)
Honorary doctorate from the University of Strasbourg (1977).
Honorary citizen of the city of Tarusa (Kaluga region, 1994).
Active member of the Academy of Creativity (Moscow).
Inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.

Memory
Postage stamp of Ukraine dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of S. Richter. 2015
On March 22, 2011, a memorial plaque to Richter was installed in Zhytomyr.
On May 20, 2016, the street in Zhytomyr where Svyatoslav Richter lived was renamed in his honor.
By the 100th anniversary of the musician, the leadership of the city of Zhytomyr and the region promise to open a monument and a museum on the street where he lived.
In January 1999, in Moscow on Bolshaya Bronnaya Street at 2/6, the opening of the Svyatoslav Richter Memorial Apartment - a department of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, a museum with which Svyatoslav Teofilovich had a long friendship, was opened.
International Piano Competition named after Svyatoslav Richter.
"Offering to Svyatoslav Richter" is an annual project that traditionally takes place in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. This is how the Richter Foundation honors the memory of the pianist and fulfills his promise to draw attention to the most interesting performers.
In the city of Tarusa, where the pianist liked to spend time at his dacha, an annual classical music festival is held, organized by the Svyatoslav Richter Foundation, and musicians from all over the world come to the forum.
Monuments to Richter are installed in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz and in the Ukrainian Yagotin.
In June 2015, a street in the Southern Administrative District of Moscow was named after Richter.
In the southern administrative district of Moscow, the Children's School of Arts named after the pianist (with his personal permission) was named after him. S. T. Richter, see the school website. The pianist performed in it more than once, and also donated some personal items and photographs to the school museum.
On February 2, 2015, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation issued a silver coin dedicated to S. T. Richter in the series of commemorative coins "Outstanding Personalities of Russia".

The name of Svyatoslav Richter is covered with legends, some of them are true, some are not. One thing is known for certain - Richter was an outstanding pianist of the 20th century, whose filigree performance technique, amazing memory and ability to improvise could not but arouse admiration.

In some way, Svyatoslav's life path was determined by his family: his father, who taught at the Odessa Conservatory, his mother and aunt, who instilled in the boy a sense of beauty.

Richter did not learn scales, he skipped the school bench and immediately got into the senior class. From childhood, Svyatoslav played, wrote theatrical plays, did not get out of opera houses, and even in his father's house he dreamed of becoming a conductor.

Richter was passionate about music, he could sit at the piano for long hours, playing one piece after another. In the Odessa House of the Sailor and in the Odessa Philharmonic, Richter worked as a pianist-accompanist. The first solo concert was dedicated to. Richter was noticed and invited as an accompanist to the Odessa Philharmonic.

A truly unexpected step was Richter's admission to the Moscow Conservatory. The young man made a great impression on Neuhaus, and not without some difficulties associated exclusively with a boring educational program, he completed his studies only in 1947.

The absence of a diploma could not make Svyatoslav sit idle. In 1940, the 25-year-old pianist performed phenomenally the Sixth Symphony in the Small Hall of the Conservatory. In musical circles, they started talking about him as the brightest phenomenon. The concerts that followed one after the other only strengthened the initial opinion of specialists and the public. But what everyone expected, but what no one wanted to believe in, happened - the war began.

During the war, Richter lost his family: his father was shot, and his mother, a German, was considered dead for a long time. Svyatoslav was left completely alone, without a roof over his head, without food and without warm clothes, and worst of all, without a musical instrument. Friends did not leave him in trouble, the artist Anna Troyanovskaya helped him more than others. For a long time, Richter did not part with the Medtner piano, which stood in the house of Anna Ivanovna. In Moscow and even besieged Leningrad, Svyatoslav gave solo concerts, performed with orchestras, building up his repertoire. This crazy time with a frantic pace can be described in a few words: rehearsals, trips, hotels, concerts, orchestras, the public, a flurry of applause, an airplane, cities and again endless rehearsals, packed halls and faces burning with anticipation.

Richter not only easily mastered the most difficult pieces, but also regularly gave out brilliant musical fireworks at concerts. He was truly inexhaustible, indefatigable, he was driven forward by the thirst for knowledge. In just four days, he understood, studied the Prokofiev sonata so that during the performance the hushed people cried.

At the end of the 40s, Richter is dressed in the purple of glory, he is treated kindly by the public, which goes to his concerts in droves. The victory at the All-Union Competition of Musical Performers brought him international recognition. Since 1945, Svyatoslav Richter has been a welcome guest in all major musical centers of the world. The pianist perfectly mastered the entire classical repertoire of piano music.

Richter travels a lot, the French, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Finns, Americans, British, Canadians, Italians and even the Japanese take off their hats to him. An enthusiastic audience praises his impeccable performance, critics try to appreciate the greatness of his genius.

And yet, Richter was not the only performer with a rich repertoire, he was not the only one who rehearsed every day until his fingers ache, he was not the only one striving for perfection, as if competing with the devil himself. So what made his performance so brilliant?

The answer lies in the spiritual warehouse of the pianist: in the uncontrollable, not recognizing omissions, sweeping away everything in its path, the desire to comprehend the world in all its manifestations. Richter stuns listeners, he draws them into the world of violent passions, brings down on them feelings that hardly any of them could experience, because they are not bold enough, cunning, selfish, brave, kind or angry!

The audience leaves the concert hall, feeling that their knees are giving way, that their disobedient heart is beating like an eagle locked in a cramped cage! Music, which they heard more than once in another performance, came to life under the hands of Richter, creating material images.

The work seemed to be filled with meanings that no one had noticed before. Music took on taste, density, viscosity, it finally took on a finished form.

Richter is a Renaissance artist who never doubted for a minute that everything is subject to man. It was for this that Svyatoslav was called a titan, and his music was considered music that was written for giants, considering it impossible to know with your fragile heart the whole depth of feelings.

The music, called to life by nervous, long fingers, swooped in like a heavy wind, forcing listeners to cling to the arms of their chairs. The fire covered the faces of the listeners, the trembling penetrated to the bones. Emotions swept over like waves of a sinking ship, and pulled to the bottom, then to lift it up again to the heavenly heights.

Richter called listeners to the wonderful world, he sang lullabies, soothed and consoled. Crystal, heard, rather, by the heart, the sounds were rhythmically repeated, making you forget about everyday reality. Richter immersed listeners in a divine dream, where there was no pain and memories.

Richter controlled matter, he ripped off the covers, exposed nerves and veins, he struck the hearts of listeners with a direct impact of electric current. The audience, the entire thousandth hall, was ready to swear that during the concert, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy and were sitting on a wedge heel next to Richetr!

The reincarnation of Richter in the authors of musical works, complete dissolution in music is the most striking feature of his work. Experts have repeatedly said that Richter, as an artist, is cold and abstract. He is a conductor of emotions that the author has invested in a musical creation. The pianist's dispassionateness, lack of "humanity" did not make the work worse; on the contrary, the expressiveness of the music became stronger and clearer.

Richter, who is fond of Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin and Blok, paints pictures from time to time, has extensive knowledge in the field of art, had a huge cultural baggage, but during the concert he lost it, transforming into a different person who lived in a different time and spoke a different language. language. Svyatoslav knew how to concentrate in such a way that only one actor remained on the stage - music.

Over the years, Richter did not lose his abilities, he continued to explore the bowels, found many more precious veins. The brilliant musician never rested on his laurels. Svyatoslav Richter has said more than once that the creative workload should increase from year to year, only under this condition is progress possible.

Richter participated in new projects, studied new works, and success awaited him in all enterprises. So, in the 80s, he organized "December Evenings" - a festival of music, painting and poetry, which took place in the Pushkin Museum. They were very popular with the public.

Richter staged operas, personally taking care of all the accompanying details: from lighting to scenery; traveled around the world and in Russia; played in ensembles. The years did not take away his efficiency, passion for new experiences, thirst for new knowledge and his skill.

Even during his lifetime, Svyatoslav Richter was recognized as a celestial, an Olympian who is able to call the souls of the dead from the kingdom of Hades, overthrow the titans into Tartarus, disrupt the passage of time and influence people's lives. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that after the death of Svyatoslav Richter became a legend.

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