Josef HAYDN (1732-1809)
Keyboard Sonata in D major, Hob.XVI:24 (1773)
Keyboard Sonata in B minor, Hob. XVI:32 (1774-76)
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Préludes Book I (except No. 8, La fille aux cheveux de lin and No.12 Minstrels) (1909-10)
Images Book I No.1 Rêflets dans l’eau (1901-05)
L’isle Joyeuse (1904)
Sviatoslav Richter (piano)
rec. 27 March 1984, Tokyo and 23 January 1976, Moscow (L’isle Joyeuse)
Colour, NTSC, Region 0
PARNASSUS DVD PDVD1209 [85:00]
This video is noted as being a first release of a ‘previously unpublished video’ and that seems to be so, though I should say that the performance has been available on YouTube for several years. It captures Richter in Tokyo on 27 March 1984 performing for an intimate audience that constitutes more of a soirée than a concert. I understand, though I could be wrong, that this was performed at a private music venue called Sho-u-en.
The picture is slightly grainy for 1984 but the sound is perfectly reasonable. Richter plays his by-now favoured Yamaha. The camera angles are sensible and not too intrusive. Sometimes there are inevitable close-ups of the pianist’s face, often half face, and shots of the keyboard. Less successfully there are shots from the back of the hall which, though it’s not far away – given the intimacy of the dimensions of the room – still fails to convey either atmosphere or detail.
He enjoyed playing a selection of Haydn’s sonatas and began his recital with two of them with buoyant affection and tenderness in the slow movements. The stormy drama of the B minor is especially effective in this thoroughly engaged performance. There’s no sense at all that these are warm-up opportunities; on the contrary.
Richter was always a most sensitive colour and nuance-conscious Debussy performer and this example is no different. One can see him breathing and mouthing along to the opening bars of Voiles and it’s an example of something that he always maintained in his later years, that he had long since divested himself of unappealing repertory, no matter how eminent, and only performed music that he loved; he used the word love without embarrassment. His performance also shows, quite graphically, why he so disliked the performance of Book I of the Preludes given by Michelangeli which he characterised as ‘total perfection devoid not only of any atmosphere but also…charm that is absolutely indispensable to these Preludes.’ He went further, noting that Michelangeli’s fanaticism and perfectionism inhibited his imagination and stopped him expressing ‘any real love for the work he is performing’. This could never be said of Richter whose sense of colour, fantasy and evocation is always sovereign in this repertoire. He takes a bow after Les collines d’Anacapri, retires and then returns. He retires again after Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest – played with brilliant articulation – and then returns. He omits La fille aux cheveux de lin and Minstrels but plays Reflets dans l’eau as a farewell. He has a page turner, but the room is not plunged into gloomy twilight.
The bonus is a 1976 performance in a very different environment. Military men drowning in ribbons and politicos listen as he plays L’isle Joyeuse in Moscow, a piece he announces. There are two brief sound dropouts and one brief moment where the visual blacks out. He has no need of the music here. It brings the timing up to 85 minutes but other than a correspondence with the repertory, it does seem incongruous including it here.
There are no notes and no extras though DVD navigation is simple enough.
Of Richter performances there is no shortage. The audio element of the Tokyo concert has been issued on King Records KKC 2083 and there are numerous examples of the first book in both studio and live incarnations. If you need to see and hear Richter, however, in reasonable sound and vision, then this DVD might well fit the bill.
Jonathan Woolf
