One of the 20th century’s greatest pianists, Svyatoslav Richter liked playing
in ensembles pairing up  on
stage with leading musicians of his time. He is known to have played with
dozens of top-notch violinists, cellists, wind players and pianists. We’ll
be talking about just some of the lucky ones who happened to play with
Richer.
Svyatoslav Richter and Nina Dorliak first met during… a dirge. During
the 1940s and 50s leading musicians were invariably invited to play at
funerals of high-ranking Soviet officials. It was during one such sober
occasion that Richter, then an up and coming young pianist, and the already
famous chamber singer first met each other…
Richter was immediately
enchanted by Nina Dorliak’s palpitating voice and he later fell in love
with the woman who became his loving wife, a close friend and a devoted
companion. In 1946 the two started performing together and, like Richter
later admitted, Nina Dorliak ushered him into the wondrous world of the
old Russian love songs.
Svyatoslav Richter regularly teamed up on stage with the outstanding
violinist David Oistrakh. Both came from Odessa and had known each other
from an early age.
“I was 12 when we first
met and he was about 17 or so,” Richter wrote in his Diaries. “David was
an exceptionally likeable fellow. I later saw him on stage many times and
always admired the sheer power and beauty of his playing. I think he was
the greatest violinist I ever heard of. It’s such a pity we started playing
together so late in life, after the death of Lev Oborin… They made such
a wonderful duo, they really did… Always self-effacing, Oistrakh would
ask me if I was bored playing with him. I never was, how could I possibly
feel bored? We always looked eye to eye on what to play and how…”
In January 1972 the Moscow
Philharmonic Society was marking its 50th anniversary. Their chief conductor,
Kirill Kondrashin, decided to bring together three famous soloists and
invited Svyatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich to
play the Three Trios for piano, violin and cello by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Richter later said that the concerto they played with Kondrashin’s
orchestra was better than the same trios they later played with Herbert
von Karajan and his Berlin Symphony Orchestra.
Svyatoslav Richter
was especially partial to the legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
The two knew each other from recordings long before they played their first
concerts together in the mid-1960s…
Richter equally admired
the voice and singing mastery of his German partner who made easy work
of the vocal snags that dogged so many other singers while never losing
the clarity of each word he sang. His “musical speech” as Richter
put it, was filled with a profound inner meaning…
During the 1960s Svyatoslav Richter was asked to hold a chamber music
festival in France and was free to choose the venue he wanted. His
friends showed him a 13th century barn in Touren, which had excellent acoustics.
They moved in, cleaned it up and turned the whole place into an improvised
concert hall. Besides good old friends Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Mstislav
Rostropovich and David Oistrakh, the list of invitees included several
young musicians from Russia. It was the beginning of a long tradition of
the great pianist playing on stage with his young colleagues.
In the early 1980s this tradition continued with the famous December
Nights festival Richter was holding in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
in Moscow. The idea was to combine different arts, above all music
and painting. Richter played most of the numbers himself accompanied by
ensembles which also features very prominently there…
Richter loved to play with the young violinist, Oleg Kagan who once
studied with the great David Oistrakh. Richter appreciated Kagan’s inspired
playing and his easy, natural and genuinely Mozartian manner and the two
eventually recorded a very excellent CD of Mozart’s music.
Svyatoslav Richter often
played with Oleg’s charming wife, Natalya Gutman. One of Mstislav Rostropovich’s
best students, Natalya learned much from her great mentor, her femininity
tempered by warmth and her impassionate nature balanced out by a cold and
inquisitive mind. Svyatoslav Richter, Oleg Kagan and Natalya Gutman
made a dream team that invariably graced each and every concert they played
as part of the December Nights festival…
Oleg Kagan’s early death was a devastating blow to Richter and just
about everyone else who knew him. Richter felt as if it were his fault
to have outlived a young colleague…
Richter took heart in the
up and coming violist Yuri Bashmet who came along in the late 1970s. Impulsive
and quick-witted, Bashmet was now a fixture of the hose concerts Richter
regularly organized in his apartment.
Appreciating Bashmet’s unique talent, the great pianist said he knew
it wouldn’t be long before the young prodigy became a world celebrity,
making the viola a solo instrument.
It just so happened that
it was Yuri Bashmet who, following Richter’s death in 1997, took over as
artistic director of all of Richter’s music festivals, including, of course,
the December Nights festival in Moscow… |
|
