A mostly self-taught Odessa pianist stunned the century
Born in Zhytomyr in 1915, Sviatoslav Richter is routinely ranked among the twentieth century’s greatest pianists for depth, technique, and repertoire. His first public program—all Chopin—at Odessa’s Engineers’ Club on 19 March 1934 still came from a largely self-taught player.
Richter was born in Zhitomir, now in Ukraine, on 20 March 1915. His father Teofil, the son of German expatriates, had trained at the Vienna Conservatory; his mother came from Russian landed gentry. The civil war cut him off from his parents between 1918 and 1921, and he lived with an aunt who taught him to paint. Reunited in Odessa, he learned piano mostly on his own, became a superb sight-reader, and at 15 was accompanying rehearsals at the Odessa Opera. His all-Chopin debut at the city’s Engineers’ Club in March 1934 drew no press notices.
Three years later he auditioned for Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 28, and Neuhaus whispered that the young man was a genius, while later admitting he had taught him almost nothing. Richter gave up composing, seeing no point in adding to the world’s bad music. In 1941 his father was arrested on a false spying charge and shot; Richter never played in Odessa again and barely spoke to his mother for nearly two decades.
From 1945 until his death he lived with the soprano Nina Dorliak, though they never registered a marriage. He won the Stalin Prize in 1950, conducted once, at the 1952 premiere of Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto with Rostropovich, and in 1958 gave Van Cliburn a perfect score at the first Tchaikovsky Competition. In 1960 he defied officials by playing at Boris Pasternak’s funeral.
His Chicago debut that October, playing Brahms, caused a sensation and won a Grammy. He founded a festival at La Grange de Meslay near Tours and the December Nights festival in Moscow, and in 1986 toured Siberia for six months, giving perhaps 150 recitals. He died on 1 August 1997.
Source: Sviatoslav Richter
