Sviatoslav Richter: The Complete Warner Recordings (24 CDs) Warner Classics

Often named the supreme pianist of his era, Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was a poet of the keyboard and an enigmatic, sometimes eccentric figure. These 24 CDs span three centuries of music – repertoire for solo piano and piano duo, chamber music, song and concerto – and bring Richter together with other great artists of his time. As the New York Times wrote, his pianism “combined astonishing technical mastery with bold, wide-ranging musical imagination. His control over the colorings of piano tone was incomparable.”

This 24-CD box set gathers together all the recordings that Sviatoslav Richter made, primarily in the 1970s, for the HMV (EMI) and Teldec labels.

Richter, considered by many to be the greatest pianist of the latter half of the 20th century, was born in 1915 in Ukraine to parents of German extraction. He trained at the Moscow Conservatory under Heinrich Neuhaus (who also taught another of the supreme pianists of the Soviet era, Emil Gilels). Neuhaus considered the young Richter “already a complete artist”, who had the ability to build a piece “so that it seemed to lie before him like an immense landscape, revealed to the eye at a single glance”.

Richter became a lifelong advocate of the music of his friend Prokofiev, whose 6th, 7th and 9th piano sonatas he premiered, and who features in this set along with Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Dvořák, Grieg, Handel, Mozart, Schubert and Schumann. This array of composers, spanning three centuries, gives an indication of the breadth of Richter’s musical interests. He was a towering soloist who also had a great love of chamber music, vocal music and opera (especially Wagner).

His first appearances in the West came in 1960, the year in which he caused a sensation in the USA. Over time he became known as an enigmatic, even volatile, eccentric and elusive figure and towards the end of his performing career he played from a score, illuminated by a single lamp, with the concert hall in darkness. He died in 1997.

Another of the 20th century’s major pianists, Glenn Gould, praised Richter for achieving “such a perfect liaison with the instrument that the mechanical process involved becomes all but invisible…and the performer, and consequently the listener, is then able to ignore all superficial questions of virtuosity or instrumental display and concentrate instead on the spiritual qualities inherent in the music itself”. After his death, the New York Times wrote: “Mr. Richter’s pianism combined astonishing technical mastery with bold, wide-ranging musical imagination. His control over the colorings of piano tone was incomparable. In romantic works by Schumann and Chopin, he could create uncanny effects with sound and shadings. And he could project inner voices in the sonatas of Schubert, which he particularly loved, and of Bach with extraordinary clarity and independence.” The Guardian judged Richter “a connoisseur’s pianist, a supreme lyric poet of the keyboard for whom the piano was an extension of his own body and mind and a means to musical thought that was devoted to the composer in question,” while in 2015, Gramophone wrote: “Richter was a chameleon who couldn’t be pigeonholed. He called himself ‘a normal human being who happens to play the piano.”

This collection features solo music, piano duos, chamber music, song and concertos. Among the magnificent line-up of performers joining Richter are: pianists Elisabeth Leonskaja and Andre Gavrilov (both protégés of Richter); string players David Oistrakh, Oleg Kagan, Yuri Bashmet and Mstislav Rostropovich; baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; the Borodin Quartet, and conductors Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel and Riccardo Muti.

Bach, J S:
Keyboard Concerto No. 3 in D major, BWV1054
Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Yuri Bashmet
Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G minor, BWV1058
Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Yuri Bashmet

Bartók:
Piano Concerto No. 2, BB 101, Sz. 95
Orchestre de Paris, Lorin Maazel

Beethoven:
Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 ‘Tempest’
Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56
David Oistrakh (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 ‘Spring’
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1
Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10 No. 3
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti

Berg:
Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin with 13 Wind Instruments
Instrumental Ensemble of the Moscow Conservatoire, Yuri Nikolayevsky

Brahms:
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83
Orchestre de Paris, Lorin Maazel
Die schöne Magelone, Op. 33
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone)

Dvorak:
Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Bayerische Staatsorchester München, Carlos Kleiber

Grieg:
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Lovro von Matačić

Handel:
Keyboard Suite, HWV 438 in E minor
Keyboard Suite, HWV 439 in G minor
Keyboard Suite, HWV 441 in G major
Keyboard Suite, HWV 452 in G minor
Keyboard Suite, HWV 436 in D minor
Andrei Gavrilov (piano)
Keyboard Suite, HWV 437 in D minor
Andrei Gavrilov (piano)
Keyboard Suite, HWV 440 in B flat major
Andrei Gavrilov (piano)
Keyboard Suite, HWV 447 in D minor
Andrei Gavrilov (piano)
Keyboard Suites (Suites de pièce) Vol. 1, HWV 426-433

Mozart:
Violin Sonata No. 23 in D major, K306
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Allegro in Bb major, KV372
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Violin Sonata No. 26 in B flat major, K378
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Violin Sonata No. 27 in G major, K379
Oleg Kagan (violin)
Andante & Allegretto in C, K 404/385d
Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, K482
Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti
Symphony No. 24 in B flat major, K182
Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti
Piano Sonata No. 15 in F major, K533/494
arr. Grieg
Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano)
Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K545 ‘Facile’
arr. Grieg
Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano)
Fantasia in C minor, K475
arr. Grieg
Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano)
Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K503
Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Yuri Bashmet

Prokofiev:
Piano Concerto No. 5 in G major, Op. 55
London Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel

Schubert:
Fantasie in C major, D760 ‘Wanderer’
Piano Sonata No. 13 in A major, D664
Piano Quintet in A major, D667 ‘The Trout’
Georg Hörtnagel (double bass), Borodin Quartet
String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D810 ‘Death and the Maiden’
Borodin Quartet

Schumann:
Fantasie in C major, Op. 17
Papillons, Op. 2
Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Lovro von Matačić
Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44
Borodin Quartet

Sviatoslav Richter (piano)