The great pianist Svyatoslav Richter: life and creative path

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Richter Svyatoslav Teofilovich is an outstanding pianist of the 20th century, a virtuoso. He had a huge repertoire. S. Richter founded a charitable foundation. He also organized several music festivals.

Biography

Svyatoslav Richter, whose biography is presented in this article, was born in 1915 in Zhitomir. His childhood and youthful years were spent in Odessa. His first teacher was his father, a pianist and organist who studied music in Vienna. At the age of 19, S. Richter gave his first concert. At 22, he entered the Moscow Conservatory. In 1945 he became the winner of the All-Union Competition of Musicians. For a long time, the authorities did not let Richter go abroad on tour. His first trip took place in 1960. Then he performed in the USA and Finland. In subsequent years, he gave concerts in France, Great Britain, Austria and Italy.

Svyatoslav Richter was the founder of several music festivals and a charitable foundation. During the war, he lived in Moscow, while his parents were in the occupation in Odessa. Soon the father was arrested and shot. Mother went to Germany, and S. Richter believed that she was dead. He hasn't seen her for 20 years. LatestThe musician spent years of his life in Paris. Shortly before his death, he returned to Russia. The last concert of S. Richter took place on July 6, 1997. The pianist died on August 1, 1997. The cause of death was a heart attack. He was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Creative path

Svyatoslav Richter in 1930 worked as an accompanist at the Seaman's House in Odessa. Then he moved to the Philharmonic. Since 1934 he served in the opera house. In 1937 Svyatoslav Richter entered the Moscow Conservatory. But soon the pianist was expelled. After some time, he continued his studies. Graduated from the S. Richter Conservatory in 1947. The musician gained fame in the post-war years. In 1952, Svyatoslav Teofilovich took the stage for the first and last time in his life as a conductor. In the 1960s, the pianist went abroad with concerts for the first time. Svyatoslav Richter was the first Soviet performer to be awarded the Grammy Award. He gave 70 concerts a year. At the end of his life, he was often ill, but continued to perform, although he often canceled concerts due to he alth reasons.

December Evenings

December Evenings by Svyatoslav Richter is a music festival founded by the great pianist. It was first held in 1981. The festival is a cycle of concerts, where music is played and paintings selected for it are shown. Thus, the close relationship with each other of various types of art is shown. Over the years of the festival's existence, about 500 concerts were organized as part of its holding, in which outstandingmusicians, poets, artists, actors, directors.

Repertoire

Svyatoslav Richter performed works by various authors at his concerts. Music of various genres - from baroque to jazz - was included in the pianist's repertoire. Composers he has performed:

• I. S. Bach.
• Y. Haydn.
• M. Ravel.
• F. Leaf.
• P. I. Tchaikovsky.
• M. Balakirev.
• L. Cherubini.
• M. Falla.
• B. Britten.
• F. Chopin.
• F-B. Wekerlen.
• I. Sibelius.
• P. Hindemith.
• A. Copland.
• A. Alyabyev.
• A. Berg.
• D. Gershwin.
• N. Medtner.
• L. Delib.
• G. Wolf.
• K. Shimanovsky.
• E. Chausson.
• S. Taneyev.
• L. Janacek.
• F. Poulenc and others

Despite the fact that the repertoire was very wide and versatile, Svyatoslav Richter recorded very little in the studio. The pianist's albums are listed below:

• "Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor" for piano and orchestra by P. I. Tchaikovsky. Featuring the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by G. Karajan (1981).
• The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach - 1 movement (1971).
• The Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach - 2nd movement (1973).

S. Richter Foundation

In the 90s of the 20th century, the Svyatoslav Richter Foundation was founded. Its activities are aimed at holding various cultural events.in the province. First of all, these are festivals of classical music. It all started with the fact that S. Richter came up with the idea to create a school of creativity, where young artists and musicians could study and also relax. He dreamed of opening such an institution in the city of Tarusa, where his dacha was. He needed money to make his dreams come true. Then the idea came to Svyatoslav Teofilovich to hold annual festivals for artists and musicians, where he himself, as well as his creative friends, would participate. The proceeds from such events were planned to be used to open a school. Friends and colleagues of the musician - Yuri Bashmet, Galina Pisarenko, Natalia Gutman, Elizaveta Leonskaya and many others - supported his idea. Thus the S. Richter Foundation was founded. The pianist himself became its president. Svyatoslav Teofilovich transferred his dacha to the ownership of the foundation. The foundation's activities began with a concert by S. Richter. It took place on December 1, 1992.

Richter the artist

Rikhter Svyatoslav Teofilovich was fond of not only music. He collected a collection of paintings, as well as drawings created by people who were close to him: K. Magalashvili, A. Troyanovskaya, V. Shukhaeva, D. Krasnopevtseva. Of the foreign artists in his collection were paintings by P. Picasso ("Dove" with a dedication from the painter himself), H. Hartung, H. Miro and A. Calder. Anna Troyanovskaya was a great friend of the pianist, he learned to write with pastels from her. In her opinion, Svyatoslav Richter had a wonderful sense of color and tone, the concept of space,imagination and phenomenal memory.

The works of Svyatoslav Teofilovich, which are stored in the museum:

• Moscow.
• "Nanny".
• "Moon. China.”
• Blue Danube.
• "Old cottage".
• "Ninochka with Mitka on Rzhevsky".
• "Night and roofs".
• "In the south of Armenia".
• "At the church".
• "Pavshino".
• "Twilight at the Tablecloth".
• Church in Pererva.
• "Blizzard".
• "They carry a balloon".
• Yerevan.
• "Mourning".
• "Spring weather".
• "Street in Beijing".

Awards and titles

Svyatoslav Richter is a pianist who was rightfully awarded a large number of awards and titles. He is an honorary citizen of Turus. He received the title of People's Artist of the USSR, and then the RSFSR. He was awarded the Lenin and Stalin Prizes. The pianist was an honorary doctor of the Strasbourg and Oxford universities. S. Richter was awarded the orders of the "October Revolution", "For Services to the Fatherland". The musician also received awards: Leonie Sonning, named after M. I. Glinka, R. Schumann, F. Abbiati, Truimf and Grammy. Svyatoslav Teofilovich - holder of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), Hero of Socialist Labor and member of the Academy of Creativity in Moscow. And this is not a complete list of titles and awards.

Nina Dorliak

In 1943, Svyatoslav Richter met his future wife. The musician's personal life, despite the presence of his wife, has always been surrounded by rumors about his homosexuality. Svyatoslav Teofilovich himself did notcommented on gossip and preferred not to turn his personal life into the public domain. The wife of S. Richter was Nina Dorliak, an operatic soprano, People's Artist of the USSR and the RSFSR. Nina Lvovna often performed in an ensemble with Svyatoslav Richter. Soon she became his wife. After she left the stage, she began to teach. Since 1947 she was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Nina Lvovna died less than a year after her husband Richter Svyatoslav died. Children, family, friends and all other joys of life, according to the musician, were not for him, he believed that he should devote himself to art. Although he nevertheless had a wife, and he lived with her for 50 years, they did not have children. And their marriage was unusual. The spouses called each other "you", and each had his own room. Nina Lvovna bequeathed the apartment in which they lived to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Museum Apartment

In 1999, in Moscow, in an apartment on Bolshaya Bronnaya, where Svyatoslav Richter lived, a museum was opened. Here is furniture, personal belongings, notes, paintings - everything that belonged to the great pianist. The apartment is not luxurious. The lifestyle and character of its owner are felt in everything. The large room, which the pianist himself called "the hall", was used for rehearsals. Here stands the musician's favorite piano. Now this room is used for watching movies and listening to operas. In the office there are cabinets with sheet music, cassettes, concert costumes, records and gifts from friends and fans. Stored in a secretarythe manuscript of S. Prokofiev himself is the Ninth Sonata written by him, which is dedicated to the pianist. There are a large number of books in the office, especially Svyatoslav Richter liked to read the classics: A. Pushkin, T. Mann, A. Blok, A. Chekhov, M. Bulgakov, B. Pasternak, F. Dostoevsky, etc. The rest room of the musician, which he called "green", turned into an artistic one in those days when S. Richter gave concerts. In addition to music, as we have already mentioned, the pianist was interested in painting. He was not only a connoisseur, but also an artist. In a small room - a real exhibition of paintings. Pastels by Svyatoslav Richter are presented here, as well as works by various painters. The pianist himself very often organized vernissages in his house. The museum-apartment conducts excursions, which necessarily include listening to audio and watching video. In addition, music evenings are held here.

Memory of a musician

In memory of the outstanding pianist in 2011, a memorial plaque was erected in the city of Zhytomyr. An international piano competition bears his name. In several cities, monuments to Richter S. T. were erected - in Yagotin (Ukraine) and in Bydgoszcz (Poland). A street in Moscow is named after Svyatoslav Richter.