15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Playing beyond the possible., July 17, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: BEETHOVEN: 'Diabelli' Variations / Sviatoslav Richter (Audio CD)
This recording of the Diabelli Variations was made in 1988, in a live concert and suffers to some degree from somewhat echo-y acoustics. Nevertheless, Richter's playing here seems to come from a realm that perhaps no one else reached during his time. This collection of variations, written very late in Beethoven's life, is a very difficult piece, both for the player, and for the listener, but Richter makes the listener's job a great deal easier through his extraordinarily clear and controlled playing. Some of the variations, whose rhythms have confused me in the past, become sublimly simple and comprehensible, due to both the incredible technical mastery of the pianist, and his attempt to present the music "as it was written", with little personal idiosyncratic additions. The result is simply magnificent.
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