Sviatoslav Richter in Hungary
János Mácsai Talks with Dezső Ránki
This conversation took place after the release of a fourteen-disc set of
recordings of Richter's live performances in Hungary by Hungarian Radio and
the Budapest Music Center. Richter had an enormous influence on Hungarian
musical life. He first stepped onto a Hungarian concert platform in 1954 and his
last concert was recorded by Hungarian Radio in 1993. In the four decades
between, Richter regularly appeared in Hungary (sometimes without notice),
giving sixty concerts altogether; twenty-eight in the capital and the rest in cities
throughout the country either as a soloist, chamber musician or accompanist.
Many pieces in the new set do not appear elsewhere. Richter was a major figure
in the story of a generation of Hungarian pianists—Zoltán Kocsis, András Schiff
and Dezső Ránki among them—who began their careers in the 1970s. Ránki,
who knew Richter and assembled a large private collection of his recordings,
contributed to the editing process.
Mácsai János: Clearly the box of 14 discs is especially interesting for anyone
who attended his concerts. But what possible reason otherwise could there be
for such a large-scale undertaking, given today's saturated CD market?
Dezső Ránki: I believe that Richter's playing on his recordings—not just in the
flesh, so to speak—would have a profound effect on anyone, and that goes also
for those who never heard him play live. Of course those of us who were
present at his concerts could be wrong about this; though, as it happens, I do
have childhood memories of listening to him on the radio, and I can recall
what a phenomenal effect he had on me. And the impact he had on me when
I was a twelve- or thirteen-year-old was no less strong than when I was in my
thirties and forties. Those early impressions are still so vivid that I'm sure that
a new listener today would have a similar reaction.
It's not by chance that Hungarian Radio and BMC asked you to select the material:
you are not only among the obviously most qualified, but also a passionate
collector of Richter recordings. It is likely that every one of his recordings has
passed through your hands. How many Richter recordings do you have?
I can't say for sure because there are a lot of multiple releases, pirate recordings
and so on. At any rate there are more than four hundred CDs of Richter. It is
certain that over 250 are individual recordings. Very few were made in the
studio; most are live performances. Although Richter was not terribly keen on
the studio, for a period he did make a series of recordings there. This was
untypical. But these studio performances exist and are very good, even if they
lack the kind of spontaneity which sparks the same feelings as a concert does.
There are the studio recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier, lots of Schubert
sonatas, smaller Tchaikovsky pieces and piano concertos. At any rate, it is not
surprising that he didn't like making studio recordings. When he recorded the
Liszt piano concertos with Kirill Kondrashin in 1961—if I remember correctly—
he played one, as far as I know, in ten full takes and the other in eleven because
he did not want them spliced. They are great performances. Only 25–30 CDsworth
of studio performances exist altogether.
My work on the release started with my listening to all the recordings made
in Hungary. I got all the material from Hungarian Radio and I compared them
with all the recordings available. I compiled suggestions with certain criteria in
mind, and, on this basis, ranked them using symbols I designed for the purpose.
Top of the list was material which must not, by any means, be excluded because
it was material which did not exist elsewhere. Next in line were performances
which were particularly good or, from the point of view of the collector,
important. There are those which, from the Hungarian perspective, are
interesting but are lacking in some way or other, say, the recording quality. In
any event, there are lots of things which I took into account, and I wrote down
my opinions and handed over my list to Hungarian Radio. But the editing itself
was done by them, mainly by Márta Perédi, I believe.
As far as I know, you have respected Richter's wish for what he himself did not
want released or didn't allow to be broadcast. But was he always right?
Three such examples spring to mind. One was a concert in Győr in 1986 of
which only the Diabelli Variations were allowed to be broadcast because the
piano was so bad that it caused problems even for him in the other pieces. The
second was a concert in the Vigadó, the Szymanovski sonata, which I think was
very good, but unfortunately he did not allow it to be broadcast. Certain parts
of the second volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier, which he gave permission
for, appear. He specified which parts could be included and which could not.
Did you have suggestions which, in the end, did not get into the final release?
The Hungarian material is enough for around fifty discs; around one third made
it to the final cut. It was impossible to know in advance how many discs could
be pressed from the funds available. The number that appeared in the end was
more than anyone could have counted on: fourteen discs. The first idea was to
group the editions by the composers; but doing so would only have been
justified on commercial grounds because discs are usually sold on shelves by
composer. Luckily the recordings of the selected concerts follow each other
chronologically. My feeling is that this works well and I agree with it.
Before you could have attended any of Richter's concerts, as a child learning the piano,
you had certainly heard of him. Richter was a living legend in Budapest. What did they
say about him in this period? And what was your experience of getting to know him?
I remember reactions of all sorts, some of them hostile because his playing was
far from the style of the "good little piano student" which older piano teachers
liked. But his playing had such a powerful effect that most people, whatever he
did, accepted him. Besides the effect of his extraordinary personal charisma, the
deepest impression he made on me was that everything happened precisely when
it should have done when he played. He was musically concrete. There was none
of this generally "beautiful playing" or the "beautiful formation" of phrases which
play to audiences' expectations. Rather, his phrasing was exceedingly precise and
every note and dynamic arrived exactly when they should have done. When you
feel inside: right, now is the time to explode or now is the time to wane, it all
happened just at the right time. For example, there is a stereotypical agogic when
the first note is elongated. Even if it is only a melody comprising a few notes. This
is mainly fashionable for string players but pianists have got into the habit, too.
I personally think that after a while it gets really annoying because it puts
everything out of joint and changes your expectations: after enough exposure to
this kind of playing you come to expect it to happen and it no longer has any of
its originally intended effect. It is not that I don't like this style because Richter
doesn't do it but rather I myself feel this way, too. This is perhaps one of the
biggest tasks that a musician
must live up to. This kind of
precision. The whole piece
should unfold in such a way that
every single detail within me is
in its ideal place. This was one of
the most important things which
one could learn from him.
[...]
Concerts and Recordings
Sviatoslav Richter's scrupulously kept diary shows that he gave almost 3,600 concerts
and recitals during his career. He played over 800 works by around 60 composers,
and his repertoire spanned the Baroque period to the contemporary. He performed
every important piano concerto, and chamber music, too, was an essential part of
his art.
In Budapest, he first performed in March 1954 in his 39th year, and 60 Hungarian
concerts over four decades followed at more or less regular intervals. Besides Moscow,
it was only in Czechoslovakia that he gave more. Richter took to the Budapest stage for
the last time on November 9, 1993. He performed on 28 occasions as a soloist in
Budapest and on 13 others in various Hungarian cities. He was a soloist with 11
orchestras and accompanied other soloists and singers—among them his wife Nina
Dorliac, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Yuri Bashmet—on eight occasions.
Budapest audiences were huge fans, and he gladly came to Hungary. With few
exceptions, Hungarian Radio recorded everything that Richter played here. At the
beginning, all his concerts and recitals were broadcast and later, too, there were a few.
But from his 1973 Bach evening onwards, he did not permit live broadcasts. Only after
a rigorous screening did he allow recorded concerts to be broadcast; after his concerts,
he decided which could and which could not be included. The joint release by
Hungarian Radio and BMC running to 14 discs respects Richter's intentions, and only
recordings which Richter himself approved are included.
What marks Richter's repertoire is that he only played pieces which interested him
in some way or other. With the exception of Bach's Well-tempered Klavier and the
second volume of Debussy's Preludes, he never recorded or played entire series; not
even if it was the composer's intention that the work should be played as a whole. So
there is no complete version of his of Chopin's Etudes, for example, or the Preludes.
Over the years, he managed to include almost every major work by Beethoven in his
programmes, although he left several (and otherwise popular) works unrecorded, even
some of the sonatas he otherwise often played. This selective approach is reflected in
his Hungarian concerts, too, which have been edited with particular care. The points of
view of atmosphere and style were determining factors. Musical considerations such as
key signatures—even in encores—also played a part in how the series was assembled.
The fourteen discs are a representative selection of Richter's art, and not only in terms
of repertoire: they also reflect how Richter's playing changed over the decades. Richter
is among artists whose performance style is exceptionally original, individual, and
recognizable even after a few notes. Yet beyond this spiritual unity much changed,
matured, crystallized and deepened during the course of his life.
A taste of the programmes on the 14 discs:
‘50s: Schumann A minor Piano Concerto (State Philharmonic Orchestra, Ferencsik),
Bach Well-tempered Klavier, C Minor French Suite, Prokofiev's 8th Sonata, works by
Ravel, Schubert C Minor Sonata, works by Liszt; ‘60s: Beethoven Op 22 B Major Sonata,
Op 101 A Major Sonata, Schubert ‘Wanderer' Fantasy, Shostakovich Preludes and
Fugues, Prokofiev Visions Fugitives, Chopin Scherzos, Debussy Preludes Vol. 1 and
Rachmaninoff Preludes; ‘70s: Bach Well-tempered Klavier Vol. 2, Debussy Images Vol. 1,
Schubert A Major Sonata, Beethoven Sonatas (Op 2/1 F Minor, 10/3 D Major, 14/1
E Major, 26 A Major); ‘80s: Works by Frank and Szymanovski, Tchaikovsky Piano
Pieces, Rachmaninoff Études-Tableaux; ‘90s: Grieg Lyrical Pieces 
János Mácsai
is a musicologist, a restorer of keyboard instruments and presenter for
MR3 Bartók Rádió, the classical music channel of Hungarian Radio.
