These recordings were
made in the years when Richter was a
frequent visitor to Aldeburgh, both
as performer and personal friend of
Britten and Pears. It was a relationship
that bore much fruit, from the recording
of the Britten Piano Concerto, composer
conducting, Richter at the keyboard,
to the pianist’s late excursion into
opera production in his Turn of the
Screw of 1984.
These Aldeburgh Festival
performances from the mid-1960s, though
not wonderful in terms of their sound
quality, are nevertheless a splendid
addition to the catalogue. The principal
item is, of course, the Liszt B minor
Sonata, but the other works are full
of fascination and musical wonders.
He shapes the three Schubert Moments
Musicaux with sensitivity and intimacy,
though his tempo for no.6 in Ab is far
too slow for my taste. The marking is
Allegretto, yet Richter plays
it as an Adagio, and burdens
it with perhaps too much emotional intensity.
The less well-known E minor Sonata reveals
many beauties, and the limpid textures
of the Chopin Barcarolle are
perfectly realised.
But it is Richter’s
reading of the Liszt Sonata in B minor
– surely the composer’s greatest masterpiece
– that is truly remarkable. His spacing
of the music gives it such intensity
of contrast, and allows the symphonic
dimensions and arguments to be fully
appreciated. The ‘big tune’, with its
throbbing left-hand accompaniment, is
invested with ecstasy and power at each
of its appearances – and how Liszt must
have been tempted to repeat this great
theme far more often than he does -
while the twisted fugue subject has
a Mephistophelean menace. The only drawback
is the noisy Aldeburgh audience – such
a lot of coughing and sneezing for June!
Was it a cold Summer in 1966?
As mentioned above,
the recording quality is not great;
the piano sounds very ‘domestic’, though
this has the compensating effect of
enhancing the sense of intimacy, consistent
with the almost hypnotic concentration
of Richter’s playing. Most listeners
will want a fine modern recording of
the Liszt for repeated hearings; Pletnev
on DG and Demidenko on Hyperion, for
example, are both superb. But the sense
of a special live occasion is so strong
in this recording, and Richter is simply
not to be missed.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Sviatoslav Richter, piano 