Hm ART tror at ZIG's kat passer bedre å mig, der hører mono på et halvt anlæg, og fra i morgen bliver her tyst en uges tid. Rørende problemer kan man vist sige. Sikke smukke Rubinsteiner du har mine er mere ydmyge genoptryk.
Schubert: Piano duets
Benjamin Britten/Sviatoslav Richter
Decca: Aldeburgh, 20 June 1964 and 22 June 1965
Norman Lebrecht
In musical conversations one player or other always tries to take the lead, play louder, push the pace. And when a composer sits at one end of the piano, protocol demands that any mere performer at the other register must yield precedence. This record is a rare exemplar of musical equality.
In June 1964, the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter arrived with his wife at the Aldeburgh Festival as guests of its founder, Benjamin Britten. Hardly had he checked in than Richter demanded to play. Britten found him a dead mid-morning slot and slipped onto the piano stool beside him She broke free to form her own Concert dâastree and was soon in demand as a guest conductor with major symphony orchestras.
Listen as closely as you like to this recording and will not be able to tell which of the two played primo and which secondo in the Schubert A-Flat major Variations, such was their mutual respect and sensitivity. Critics craned their necks but could not see who had his feet on the pedals. It hardly mattered, for this was a parnassian dialogue in which neither man moderated his momentum or gave ground to the other, yet together they found an elevated plane of discourse that rivets attention and admiration. The next year, they played the F-minor Fantasy and the Grand Duo. There is nothing like it on record.
Prokofiev: 8th piano sonata (+ Debussy Estampes, etc) Sviatoslav Richter
DG: London (Wembley Town Hall) July 1961
Her er hans kommentarer til denne helt uundværlige CD.
Richter was the last of the Russian legends to be let out. A formidably cultured pianist of Swedish-German parentage, furnished with an inimitable timbre and encyclopaedic musical knowledge, he voted for the American Van Cliburn at the 1958 Tchaikovsky competition and had to wait another two years before the Kremlin granted him a passport. Nervous in North America, he cut a hugely commercial Brahms second concerto in Chicago, Îone of my worst records,â he called it. ÎI donât play for an audience,â explained Richter, ÎI play for myself. If I derive any satisfaction then the audience, too, is content.â
On record he remained an enigma until, over ten days in London in July 1961, he gave five public concerts and followed them with recordings ö the Liszt concertos with the LSO and Kirill Kondrashin, and an extraordinary solo recital of Debussy and Prokofiev. French impressionism brought out Richterâs phenomenal range of colours; his Prokofiev was both tender and towering. He had premiered the seventh sonata in mid-War but preferred the eighth, which the composer had given to his arch-rival, Emil Gilels. This quiet performance in a nondescript town hall was Richterâs first wholly successful recording, a landmark in piano lore.
mvh. SES.
To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. Igor Stravinsky
Vi har alle lært at skjule vore fordomme, og vi viser ikke vore forkerte meninger. PO Enquist 1976.