Customer Reviews

Richter Rediscovered: Carnegie Hall Recital 1960

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A fascinating release indeed-- Sviatoslav Richter, the great Russian pianist, playing during his American debut in 1960. This two-CD set documents the Carnegie Hall recital of December 26, 1960, complete with the many encores offered from that occasion and those from his program of December 28, in Newark's Mosque Theater. The release features superbly clear and dynamic "24/96" sound. The few selections that were previously found on a long out-of-print RCA LP are now heard in superior sound. The rest of the selections will be new even to many "seasoned" Richter collectors. One must bear in mind before buying that Richter himself was never satisfied with his playing during this 1960 American tour, and certainly a sampling from his vast discography will turn up more focused performances of many of these works, albeit in lesser sound. Yet, one still finds great value in this playing which balances poise with daring intensity, poetry with shattering power, and an elegance of true rarity. Haydn and Chopin selections from the first disc feature highly idiosyncratic interpretations. Particularly noteworthy is the intimacy of the Adagio from the Haydn, or the forward direction of the Chopin Scherzo. The Rachmaninov Preludes are regal, and are colored with somber, uncanny sense of timing. The Ravel pieces are brief examples of Richter's original approach which is not shy of dynamics, fluidity, and shadings. Disc two features an energetic Prokofiev Sixth Sonata, and the encores. A listener to this disc can share in the palpable excitement of the audience (note how between some selections, members of the audience silence others with "shh!" or at one point how a lady calls out "Thank You!" in Russian before Richter launches into a Prokofiev encore). The encores are miracles of versatility and characterization, as in the Debussy "Les Collines d'Anacapri." The final three Chopin encores show Richter at his poetic and communicative best. The overall excitement and sense of occasion is well-captured on this beautifully packaged release. The sound is immediate and intimate, though has surprisingly little of Carnegie Hall's warm acoustic ambience. Hopefully RCA will continue this highly-recommended tribute to a great artist with a follow-up release of more "Rediscovered" material.

The only question is; why did it take so long!!! The
sound quality, the piano and urgency of performance
make this recording a "must-have" for Richter and
Classical fans! Here we have a Richter who is just
becoming used to America after a series of amazing
recitals. While being "red-hot" in Prokofiev, he
lays on the "humor" and delicacy of Hadyn while
giving us the "drama" and passion of Rachmaninov and
Chopin. This is Richter at some of his most inspired
if not best playing! The variety of compositions on
these two discs also give a well rounded view of Richter's
versatility! What a musician!

This album should be titled "Richter Discovered." I have many of his recordings--all the Phillips collections and various live recitals among them--but nothing approaches this. "Powerful" is such a worn-out word for describing performances (performances much less powerful than this), but it will have to do for starters. And everything, everything is wonderful beyond belief--from the first notes of the Haydn you know you're in for something special. I've never heard those Chopin pieces played with such ability to evoke emotion in the listener. The Rachmaninov superb; the Prokofiev out of this world. Well, this babbling on is ridiculous. Words can't do this recording justice. You simply must experience it.

I've been a Richter fan since I was a boy. I listened to his recording of the Brahms Second Concerto so many times that I wore out two LPs. Still, this CD tops them all (well, maybe I should include the Well Tempered Clavier recording with this one).

I walked into Tower Records' classical department one day ... and heard this HAIR-RAISING performance of the last movement of the Prokofiev Sonata #6 just get under away. I was agog at the pianist's technique, and the breathtaking tempo; but what really slayed me was the poetry amidst all the ferocity, the incredible poise and balance amid the seeming violence in the music. And the things the pianist did with the rhythm, seeming to bend the barlines, yet keeping totally locked in with the INNER rhythm of the piece. And the performance was FLAWLESS. And I studied piano at Juilliard for four years, undergrad; believe me, I know what flawless is.

And then the coup de grace: applause at the end! My jaw literally dropped. I ran (really ran) to the cash register to see what amazing pianist had pulled this miracle off ... live. And of course, I was not surprised. It was SR himself. This CD. I bought one for myself and six more over the next month or so for friends and colleagues who I knew would be as both floored and enraptured as I was by this recording.

Hell, give this CD to people who don't even like classical music. Dare them to listen to Richter play the fourth movement of Prokofiev's op. 82. See if they can stand up after hearing it.

I used to think his performance of Prokofiev's Sonata #8 was the all-time winner. Now I'm not so sure. Treat yourself. This is a better performance, I'm sure, that even Prokofiev himself, a great virtuoso, would have been capable of.

Richter played an unrivaled Prokofiev at this concert, especially the sonata No. 6 in A, Op.82. I have rarely heard him play with so much intensity, love, spontaneity, passion. The splendid remastered sound adds more grandeur to his powerful and moving performance.
Besides the impressive Prokofiev, I also appreciate his Rachmaninov preludes, surpassing the other Russian pianists I know, Pletnev, Gavrilov, Ashkenazy, etc.
Richter's Chopin usually leaves me cold. Like Sofronitsky, an incomparable Scriabin performer, Richter played Chopin with too much virility, too much strength, lacking something subtle, refined, deep, romantic, touching.
Listening to Richter's Chopin, I yearn for Grigory Sokolov, the romantic pianist who can express all the emotions and passions of Chopin.

One of my favorite indulgences since purchasing this set has been to try to find the time to listen to both discs back to back, thus propelling myself through a musical journey of a staggering variety of classical piano music. The concert from which this set emanates appears to have been planned this way-the opening Haydn flowing into the Chopin which seques nicely into the Rachmaninoff and the Ravel. By the end of the first disc, my consciousness has been raised so that I try to concentrate on all of the marvelous details that make this set's impressionistic works such a wonder-it is rare to have performance be so intimate and so public at the same time. The second disc, with is primarily Prokofiev, shows Richter riding astride the back of a musical tiger, neither party giving way in a battle of minds and sinews, until both parties wind up victorious before a rapturous crowd. I would have loved to have been at this concert-I will settle for endless replaying of the discs.

These live recordings, taken from recitals in New York's Carnegie Hall and New Jersey in 1960, vividly capture Sviatoslav Richter's gargantuan technique and equally outsize musical personality.

Not surprisingly, the Russian music receives close to definitive treatment, with the Prokofiev Sixth Sonata breathtaking in capturing both the hard-edged virtuosity of the outer movements and decadent elegance of the Tempo di valzer lentissimo third movement. The Rachmaninov Preludes are a feast of warm tone and clear textures. The Prokofiev Visions Fugitives, performed as encores at both concerts, slip by like the quicksilver glimpses of fantasy they are.

The rest of the material is more controversial. The Haydn Sonata is notable for the incredible speed of its opening movement; the technique is dazzling but there is little else. The finale, oddly, proves to be on the sedate side. The Adagio, however, is beautifully shaped and balanced. The Chopin Scherzo and Third Ballade remind this listener of Horowitz, not in a good way: the music is driven too hard and loses poise, the end of the Ballade particularly difficult to endure in its overplayed clangor.

Nevertheless, as a whole, these performances are vivid and essential documents of one of the great pianistic personalities of the twentieth century. The sound is clear and perfectly acceptable, though there is little "live" ambience.

When Emil Gilels toured the U.S. in 1955 his response to critics who raved about his performances is said to have been: "Wait until you hear Richter!" Now that's gallantry. Only in May 1960 was Richter allowed to tour outside of the Soviet block, and it was no further than Finland. Five month later a big US tour was arranged, whose culmination was a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall. In July of the next year it was London, in October Paris, in May 1962 came Florence in Italy followed by Vienna in June and again in September for two programs of concertos, then back to Italy in October and November, and Paris in December (all this information comes from the wonderful Richter website maintained by Paul Geffen. For the discographic documentation of that era, see my review of Sviatoslav Richter: In Memoriam).

Back to October 1960, then. After an orchestral concert on the 15th with the Chicago Symphony under Leinsdorf with Brahms' 2nd Piano Concerto (immediately followed by the famous recording), Richter was at Carnegie Hall on the 19th with a program of Beethoven Sonatas (9, 12, 22, 23), followed on the 23rd by an all-Prokofiev program, whose highlights were the 6th and 8th Sonatas (there was another orchestral concert in Philadelphia between those two New York Concerts, in which Richter and Ormandy played both Dvorak's Piano Concerto and again Brahms' 2nd). More Carnegie Hall concerts followed on the 25 (Haydn-Schumann-Debussy), 28 (Beethoven-Schumann-Rachmaninoff), 30 (Schumann's Fantasie, Chopin, Ravel, Scriabin's 5th Sonata). In November Richter was all over the US, from Boston to LA, even making a foray to Toronto and Montreal in December. November is also when he recorded three Beethoven Sonatas and the 1st Piano Concerto for RCA (The Brahms Concerto and Beethoven items have conveniently been collated on Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Concerto 1/Brahms: Piano Concerto 2). This grand tour ended at the end of December with three more solo recitals in New York, one at Carnegie Hall again (23) in which he repeated his initial Beethoven program (adding the 3rd Sonata), and two more at Carnegie and the Mosque Theatre in Newark with the same program (except for the encores): Haydn's Sonata Hob XVI/50, Chopin's 4th Scherzo and 3rd Ballade, 4 Rachmaninoff Preludes, Ravel's Jeux d'Eau and Vallée des Cloches, then Prokofiev's 6th Sonata. And this is what is documented on this 2-CD set.

As the producer's note contained in the set makes clear, some of the material from these various Carnegie Hall concerts had been previously issued on LP (and in mono) in the mid-1960s, but never reissued, partly because of Richter's opposition to those releases. Likewise, the last Newark concert was published in 1965 on an RCA LP, "Richter in recital", with the addition of five of the ten Visions Fugitives that Richter played as encores on the previous Carnegie Hall concert. The present set is exceptional in that it brings back the full December Carnegie Hall concert in great, remastered stereo (piano sounding slightly metallic I find), encores included (10 excerpts from Prokofiev's Visions fugitives), to which it adds, as a fantastic bonus, the encores from the Newark concert (Prokofiev's Gavotte from Cinderella and a repeat of Vision Fugitive 4, Debussy's Collines d'Anacapri, two Chopin Etudes and a Mazurka.

Although Doremi has now reissued those other October Carnegie Hall Concerts (Sviatoslav Richter Archives, Vol. 10), some of the material featured on these 2-CDs is highly significant for the Richterite. While there are a number of other Richter recordings of the Rachmaninoff Preludes and Chopin pieces, there is only one other Richter studio recording of Haydn's Hob XVI/50 (Sonata # 60), from a few months earlier on Melodiya (reissued on Russian Piano School: Sviatoslav Richter, Volume Six with some Beethoven and Chopin material that, according to Geffen's discography, is attributed deceptive dates). Likewise, the Ravel items are relative rarities for Richter, although other live recitals do crop up now and then (Sviatoslav Richter in the 1950s, Vol. 3, Sviatoslav Richter Out of Later Years, Vol. 3). As for Prokofiev, like Gilels, Richter had special authority with this composer, premiering the 7th Sonata in 1943 and playing the 6th shortly after the composer had premiered it himself in 1940, which makes this concert an indispensable testimony - although earlier live recordings , from 1956 have been published by Praga (Prokofiev: Piano Sonatas Op.14, 82, 103) and Parnassus (Sviatoslav Richter in the 1950s, Volume 4). An earlier recital from 1958 in Moscow with the same selection of Visions fugitives was also released by Parnassus (Sviatislav Richter in the 1950s, Vol. 1).

This is exceptional piano playing. True, Richter's way can be somewhat wayward in Chopin, which smacks very much of Rachmaninoff. But his Rachmaninoff is, of course, unquestionable, and likewise his Prokofiev. In his wonderful notes Harris Goldsmith quotes his original review of these concerts in High Fidelity, contending that Richter's way with Prokofiev "was quite different from that of the steely-fingered, young virtuosos who are springing up all around us. Percussive, motoric energy is underplayed here, and the basic stress is on the immaculate proportion, the coloristic sensititvity and the impressionist lyricism of the writing". Now, now, that may be true with the two middle movements, but the finale lacks no steel, and by the end of the Sonata Goldsmith must have forgotten its first movement. With Richter it can be so percussive and pounding it makes you think of Bartok. Richter's Haydn I find exceptional and endearing for its delicacy and bounce. The same delicacy is much in evidence in Debussy's Collines d'Anacapri, which Richter keeps in soft dynamics, commendably resisting the virtuoso temptation of a hollow display of pyrotechnics. His Ravel is wonderfully atmospheric and evocative.

Lavish presentation, excellent and through notes, with a new essay by Harris Goldsmith reminiscent on these concerts which he was fortunate to attend, and a somewhat condescending article written back then by Harold C. Schoenberg, something like "what Richter still has to learn from the West". The West had much to learn from Richter.

These performances from one of Richter's first Carnegie Hall recitals offer amany interesting insights, although they are not of a uniform level, as we will see. Richter plays the Haydn admirably, but the sonata misses some necessary charm and humour. His Chopin Scherzo strikes me as a bit weird, although the Ballade is majestic and rathe convincing, despite the idiosyncratic tempo changes. In Rachmaninov, Richer is entirely in his element and he delivers spectacular, wonderfully autumnal performances of the Preludes on the programme. The Ravel, the last on the first disc, is splendid: Richter plays with the least probable ponderousness in Jeux-d'eau, going almost to a higher realm. The entire second disc is great. The Prokofiev Sonata no.6 has only been surpassed by Richter himself, in his Praga live recording (which also has more liquid sound) The sonata's final movement, where Richter plays with a stunning sense of rhythm and incredible virtuosity, is one of his finest moments. Richter runs through the ensuing Visions fugitives as if he was made to play this music. Follow a fine Debussy piece, two incredibly speedy Chopin etudes and a Mazurka, all played with much relaxation and authority. The Revolutionary Etude could have been fierier, but still. The only problem with the second disc is hat it is overloaded with applauses. Additionally, I do find he price a bit exorbitant when considering that both discs do not contain as much music as they could. In sum, a fine, recommendable set, with some historical value too (it was part of Richter's first American tour). The liner notes are good, but some of Harold Schonberg's remarks are doubtful (he says, among other things, that Richter lacks the power of Serkin or the technique of Cherkassky, wboth of which statements do not seem true to me). There may be other Richter recordings of this repertoire available that surpass these readings, however, and the price is definitely too high for the amount of music that is given.

Richter was an outrageous pianist; you may admire or disagree with his musical conceptions; but instead of that statement, you must recognize the presence of the genius in this unforgettable russian artist.

In this recording Richter has peaks and lows; his Haydn's sonate performance lacks of humor and spirit naif; his Chopin sounds cold; even expressive.

But listen Ravel's jeux; with the only exception of Cortot achievement's from 1928 , I've never heard such sound; loiaded with warm imagination and deep nuance.

The Prokoviev's sixth is the best of the record.I've matched with Sandor; Bronffman and an ancient russian pianist Yuri Boukoff (not released in CD yet) and forgive all the items. It's a winner.

In general terms it's an important document that lets you approach to Richter's craft.

Buy this one.