Cheap Richter: The Enigma (Video) (Bruno Monsaingeon) Price

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An In-depth and Inspiring Documentary
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>An in-depth and most worthwhile portrait of this great pianist. <
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>In an interview when he was 80 years old, Richter told us how he started his career as a pianist. He said he had three teachers: his father, Neuhaus and Wagner. He also told us that he never practised any scale or excercise. Instead he started with Chopin's Nocturne and Etude... <
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>His views on Heuhaus is quite different from Ashkenazy's. But it is quite interesting nevertjelss. He thought the unevenness of Heuhaus's performance was a result of his deevtion in teaching ( that might well be the case for Schnabel and Horszowski). We have clip of Heuhaus' performance so that we can judge for ourselves. He also told us what he had learned from this great teacher. He also told us which perfomances in his own career he himself was happy with differed hugely from general reception! <
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>He also touched upon the eminent Yudina (and verse visa ) with a passing comment on Gilel, whih was very positive. He was full of admiration for Oistrakh. There was a clip or two when Richter and Oistrakh performed together. Richter was, however, rather categoric in his disagreement with and pronounced in his dislike for Karajan and the word he used was "unforgivable"-- Karajan's Mahler was quite alright so said Richter. There were a clip or two where he performed with Rostropovich whose stance on music according to Richter would "shift" in no time... Richter was instead full of praise for his former pupil Gutman. He performed some chamber music together with the latter and also Oleg Kagan. (From other source, as far as cellist as concerned, it is clear that Richter prefers Daniil Shafran to Rostropovich.) We can also have sight of how he rehearsed with Kagan, Fisher Dieskau among others. It is, however, a pity that there is no mention of either Michalengeli whom he admired or Kocsis whom he performed together so often! <
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>Here Richter is most honest about his difficulty with playing Mozart despite the fact that there is a most precious clip of him playing a Mozart duet with Benjamin Britten which is most dazzling. There is a further clip showing Richter playing part of a Mozart Sonata. <
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>He talked with some detail about Prokofiev (and how he was influenced by Rachmaninov) and then Glinka and Shostokovich. There are alo some rather generous comments by Rubinstein and some crisp remarks by Glenn Gould on his Schubert... <
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>On the whole, within the 2.5 hour running time, you can expect about a quarter of it to see Richter on the keyboard some B/W and so in colour until a couple of years before his death. Nonetheless, the angles of view are most excellent. Some were taken from the ariel and some with his hands (and part of his wrists) higlighted. For the first part i.e. before he became famous, we have lot valuable clips showing how St Petersberg and Moscow were like in the early part of the century and what Russia was like at that time. A very good documentary on the modern history of Russia as well.

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FANTASTIC. But where is the DVD??
Does anyone have the coordinates for "nvc arts"?

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Svjatoslav Richter, the other "Titan"
In a few words this masterpiece lets itself describe, with honour and merit to what Richter deserves, but at the same time overloaded with superlatives for this whole concept.
I have quite a VHS-collection (between 500 and 600) of musicians (all genres), but this one beats everything: this film is "OUT OF CATEGORY" !!
The content of this VHS is about 1 of the 2 TITANS ever of the piano: Emil Gilels, whom Richter studied with at Moscow under Neuhaus, is the second one.
Concerning the film I will not spoil WHAT you will get to see and hear, but the makers of this 'movie' have well elaborated their theme. I will always be grateful to them: S. Richter is about - what is called in the European classic music world - the last Lisztian performer at the piano. Only Franz LISZT himself is in the neighbourhood when Svjatoslav Richter is touching his piano... As always with Richter his 'legato' playing (at Moscow he chose for legato, leaving 'the rest', meaning assai playing was more the style of Emil Gilels) keeps astonishing the listener. I was very pleased ànd surprised that the editors have been able to find that much rare footage: this pianist lived under Stalin and the Sovjetregime...
I have no problem to say that this VHS is A "REAL" MUST for all those who love the piano 'singing'. If you can, than also buy or listen to the triple CD that contains Richters pianowork as you can hear playing at the VHS. The experiences are not the same (different means!), but I can assure you that both are VINTAGE PRODUCTS.
P.S.: For those who are not acquainted with the word "Lisztian", it means more or less that the pianist can still perform in the style of the great virtuoso Franz Liszt was himself. Only a good dozen (Richter, Gilels, Horowitz, Michelangeli, Fischer, Arrau, Backhaus,...) may wear this title since Paderewski and Cortot.