Live Richter continues
to pour in from all sides. This one
is prefaced by a note from the great
man himself:
"These recordings,
made during two live concerts with a
simple cassette recorder, cannot claim
to offer the same technical quality
as a digital recording. However, I feel
that they deserve to be made available
to a broader public for purely artistic
reasons".
That sounds official
enough, and yet according to the Richter
discography which can be consulted at
www.trovar.com
and which has some distinguished names
among its compilers, the given dates
are wrong. They claim that Sonata no.6
was played on 12 February 1981 and the
rest on 6 March of that year. I wish
companies putting out this sort of material
would be clearer about what they are
actually issuing and how they come to
have it. Instead, we just get a reasonable
enough essay by Ingo Harden on the music
itself.
Be that as it may,
nobody is disputing that we have here
examples of a late return by Richter
to part of his Prokofiev repertoire.
As for the recording, the reference
to a "simple cassette recording"
struck horror in my soul but I suggest
it must have been something a bit more
sophisticated. It is true that in comparison
with the 1960 Carnegie Hall recital
recently issued by RCA (see my review)
and containing the 6th Sonata
and a similar selection from "Visions
fugitives", the earlier recording
has slightly greater richness and depth,
but the present one has none of the
instability of pitch, distortion and
dynamic compression usually associated
with amateur taping. A certain shallowness
struck me as possibly a true reportage
of the acoustics of the hall and/or
the piano used, and I wondered if it
was taped from a broadcast rather than
just by someone sitting in the hall
with a tiny cassette recorder hidden
under his seat or in her handbag. Certainly,
no prospective buyer need fear that
the performances will be seriously compromised
on technical grounds.
Another question that
the notes might have addressed, bearing
in mind that the album is entitled "A
Musical Friendship", is that of
the frequency with which Richter actually
programmed Prokofiev’s music. According
to the above-mentioned discography,
only two pieces here, the Rondo op.52/3
and the Valse op.96/1, do not exist
in alternative Richter versions, but
the previous tapings all date from around
two decades earlier. In the case of
the 6th Sonata no fewer than
six versions exist from 1956 (Prague)
to 1966 (Locarno), then silence until
1981. The two alternatives of the 9th
Sonata are from 1956 (Prague) and 1958
(Moscow). Most of the alternatives of
the smaller pieces come from 1960, in
which year Richter programmed a not
dissimilar sequence. I speak very tentatively,
since I realize that during the late
1960s and the 1970s Richter must have
given hundreds of recitals of which
no recorded trace remains, but it does
rather look as though his proselytizing
on behalf of his friend reached its
peak in the decade following the composer’s
death and tailed off until this single
late return. It is interesting that
the pieces he returned to were the same
as always. The selection of ten pieces
from "Visions fugitives",
for example, is exactly the same as
in 1960. But I repeat, recordings may
yet emerge to disprove this point.
Compared with the 1960
Carnegie Hall performance of Sonata
no.6, three out of four movements were
slower in 1981:
| |
I |
II
|
III |
IV |
| 1960 |
08:34 |
03:47
|
06:58 |
06:14 |
| 1981 |
08:58 |
03:59 |
06:33 |
06:46 |
The 1981 first movement
gains in grandeur at the cost of a slightly
laboured feel at times, but the 1981
second movement is a delight. Richter
uses the extra space to give the music
a knowing, even saucy, air. And, while
in 1960 he emphasized the "Lentissimo"
part of Prokofiev’s instructions, in
1981 he does not forget that it is also
marked "Tempo di valzer";
it now has a greater flow, conversational
ease taking the lead over grim depth-searching.
By 1981 Richter could no longer go hell-for-leather
at certain passages of the finale as
in 1960, but the more lyrical sections
are perhaps better integrated into the
whole. Altogether, it looks as if confirmed
Richterites will need both versions.
I don’t have either
of the earlier recordings of no.9, but
can report a loving, mellow and relaxed
performance. The smaller pieces – almost
all in a moderate tempo – equally testify
to a Richter who, contrary to his image,
was ready to relax and even show a degree
of humanity and humour behind the granitic
set jaws. What he can’t quite do is
persuade me that, after the explosive
op.3 and op.4 pieces - from which the
famous "Suggestion diabolique",
stunningly played, closes the programme
- and the wholly remarkable, aphoristic
"Visions fugitives", Prokofiev’s
later short pieces are much more than
the Soviet equivalent of Hausmusik.
The differences between
the 1960 and 1981 performances of Richter’s
selection from the "Visions"
are minimal; very slightly, his younger
self seems more vividly attuned to the
young composer’s essays in expressionism,
but the richer recording may have contributed
to my impression. In 1960 these pieces
were played in small groups as encores,
so applause bursts in several times
along the way. This is clearly a point
in favour of the 1981 version purely
as a listening sequence. The Gavotte
from "Cinderella" was also
an encore in 1960; the 1981 performance
has more relaxed charm.
Confirmed Richterites
will need no encouragement from me to
snap this up; those whose interest is
more specifically in Prokofiev, or just
good music in general, are advised that
this album documents an important musical
relationship and an authoritative interpreter
of some of the 20th century’s
finest piano music in more than acceptable
sound. Richter’s own assessment, quoted
at the beginning of this review, proves
entirely correct.
Christopher Howell
Sviatoslav Richter (piano) 
