Richter’s debut in Boston was hotly awaited. He’d made his American
debut in Chicago, an appearance heralded a couple of years before
by his compatriot Emil Gilels who said, in effect, ‘if you think
I’m good, wait until you hear Richter.’ The chance for Bostonians
arrived on 1 November 1960. Some of the radio announcements
have been retained, which adds to the frisson of the evening
and allows one to note that the announcer pronounces the city’s
name as ‘Bawston’.
The evening started with the overture to The Creatures of
Prometheus in a taut and trenchant reading directed by
Charles Munch with guile and power. The Beethoven C major concerto
follows in the first part of the concert. Once again Munch provides
valuable, flexible and richly characterised support. It’s noticeable
how he vests each movement with its own sense of intensity,
supple and energetic in the first movement, rich and poetic
in the slow movement, and with a good, firmly etched walking
bass line. In the finale the orchestral accents register well,
and Richter responds with collaborative excellence. He is communicative
and dynamic in the opening, poetic and full of grace in the
Largo and even deadpan droll in the finale.
This is just as well, really, as the Brahms Concerto that follows
is another matter altogether. Technical problems assail Richter
from the very start and these prove to be infectious, as half
way through the first movement the horn principal suffers repeated
lapses. I have to admit that for much of the first movement
I was braced in the approved position for a crash landing. It’s
not a catastrophe, and I wouldn’t want to give that impression,
but Richter does suffer from a case of the Clifford Curzons
for too much of the time. The second movement still has accidents,
and Munch responds by stepping on the gas, the percussion thudding
away and the trumpets rapping out military turns of phrase.
Fortunately Munch also brings out some counter themes that are
often subsumed. The slow movement is better still, and a degree
of confidence is restored. It’s quite slow but not unconscionably
so. Richter can hardly have been unaware that the herald of
his visit two years before, Gilels, had recorded this very work
in Chicago in February 1958 with Fritz Reiner. In comparison
Richter’s performance is too accident prone and tentative, albeit
he didn’t have the luxury of a studio recording. And whilst
Richter sounds positively bloated alongside the taut Gilels-Reiner,
when Gilels re- recorded it with Eugen Jochum his tempos were
much more leisurely.
The notes consist only of a Wikipedia biography of Richter.
Kit Higginson’s restorations are fine. But, even for the Richter
specialist it was a rather mixed evening in Bawston back in
November 1960.
Jonathan Woolf
See also review by John
Quinn
Sviatoslav Richter (piano)