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By Olga Fyodorova
…On March 20, 2002 there was a noisy crowd of people, with flowers
in hand, entering the elevator in the hallway of a Moscow high-rise, all
heading up to the 16th floor…
“You’re going to apartment 58?”
“Yes, where Richter lives…”
“It’s been more than four years since Svyatoslav Richter died, but I still
can’t believe he’s gone. It seems like he is still there waiting for you
to drop in…”
“March 20 is Richter’s birthday and each time the house was full of guests,
champagne flowed freely and there were masquerades and other surprises…
The host was so great at entertaining his friends…”
“Today we are going to have another surprise… We’ll be listening to a quartet
written by Svatoslav’s father, Teofil.”
“Was he a musician too?”
“Yes! He was a great pianist and organist and now we’ll have a chance to
appreciate his compositional talent as well…”
“How come we know so little about him?”
“He lived a tragic life, for many years even mentioning his name was taboo…
Still, Svyatoslav carefully preserved his father’s papers in his family
archives and so today we’ll be listening to a quartet written by
Teofil Richter.”
Teofil Richter was born in 1872 and studied music in Vienna becoming an
honors graduate of the local conservatory both as a pianist and composer.
Back in those days Vienna was literally awash in classical music and Teofil
occasionally ran into such luminaries as Brahms, Mahler and Strauss just
walking down the street… The local concert halls offered performances by
the world’s finest pianists…
Young as he was, Teofil was also active as a performing musician. Once,
after a concert, his admirers carried him on their arms to the carriage
and, acting as horses, gave him a good ride across the town…
That unforgettable musical atmosphere that permeated the Austrian capital
would forever stay in Teofil’s heart and soul, its intonations finding
their way also into the quartet he wrote when he was already living in
Russia.
Teofil Richter was a naturalized German. His forefathers, just like many
other Germans, arrived way back in the late 17th century, under Czar Peter
the Great. Small wonder, therefore, that, receiving a diploma in Vienna,
Teofil Richter made his way back to Russia.
Settling down in Odessa, a bustling port city overlooking the Black Sea
he plunged himself into the city’s bubbling cultural life, frequenting
the magnificent opera house and excellent concert halls graced by stellar
performances offered by stage superstars flocking in from around the world.
Teofil gave several concerts there only to realize that public performances
were not his cup of tea. Each time he walked out on stage he felt very
nervous and needed many days to calm down after it was over... It was like
a disease and there was nothing he could do about it…
Signing up with the local opera company, he quickly emerged as their best
pianist and playing organ in the Protestant church, he won kudos as a brilliant
improviser. Apart from playing, Teofil also worked as a teacher boasting
a large following of admiring students.
Teofil Richter was 43 when Svyatoslav was born. Even though the boy’s musical
talent emerged very early, his father was in no rush to take him on. He
never gave his much-talented offspring more than a handful of lessons preferring
to just watch the progress made by his prodigious son.
And still, Teofil’s larger-than-life personality and his very special musical
tastes that molded in the wonderful atmosphere of fin-de-siecle Vienna
inevitably told upon Svyatoslav. Just like his father, he loved opera,
bowed low to the musical genius of Brahms and Wagner, admired Gounod’s
“Faust” and was a great admirer of chamber music.
Getting increasingly aware of his son’s larger than life talent that was
too big for Odessa to accommodate, Teofil Richter suggested that he continue
his studies in Moscow. When Svyatoslav left, his father sorely missed
him. Svyatoslav left behind a gaping void Teofil’s young wife simply couldn’t
fill. The spouses often spent days without talking because there was simply
nothing to talk about, really. Svyatoslav’s letters and a shared
concern about his well-being was probably the only thing that kept them
together.
During the late-Thirties the air was filled with dark forebodings of something
terrible creeping up… People realized that there was no way Russia could
avoid a war with Nazi Germany.
Russia’s resident Germans were almost in panic, generally looked upon
as potential spies and constantly feeling the omnipresent attention of
state security agents. After the June 22 Nazi invasion in 1941, the surveillance
was tightened even more…
Hitler’s blitz came off to a pretty easy start. By late fall the German
armies controlled huge territories in the west and were fast moving east.
By December 1941 they were already outside Odessa. The citizens were ordered
to evacuate. Teofil Richter started packing up but, at the very last moment,
his wife said she wasn’t going anywhere because she couldn’t leave behind
a family friend who was too ill to go.
Many years later it transpired that the man wasn’t that ill after all.
He deliberately stayed behind to join the advancing Germans. Later, when
the Nazis had to vacate the city, away from the advancing Red Army forces,
the man left… in the company of Teofil’s widow. By then Teofil Richter
had been executed by a Soviet NKVD firing squad just like all other ethnic
Germans who refused to leave the city in the face of the advancing enemy.
It happened in the early hours of December 7, 1941…
Svyatoslav learned about his father’s execution already after the war was
over. He was devastated… Each night from December 6 to 7 he would light
candles, pour himself a glass of wine and listen to his father’s favorite
music…
After finding his father’s autographs, including the score of a string
quartet, Svyatoslav asked his friends - the famous Borodin Quartet - to
play it.
On March 20, 2002, members of the Borodin String Quartet sat down in the
dining room where the great pianist once used to entertain his guests.
There was a portrait of a handsome, fair-haired, man with a pair of neatly
manicured moustaches and a mischievous smile standing on the grand piano.
“Teofil Richter,” explained one of the musician’s relatives. In the
dead silence that followed, the room filled with the sounds of music written
at the very start of the 20th century in the first and now eternal tribute
to the memory of two Richters – the great Svyatoslav and his much-talented
father...
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