The Pianist and the Soviet State: Sviatoslav Richter

An undated picture of the Ukranian pianist Sviatoslav Richter playing in a concert conducted by German Herbert von Karajan (standing). (AFP via Getty Images)

Working as an artist in Soviet Russia was not exactly a freewheeling joyride of self-expression. The biographies of notable figures during this period are, for the most part, a litany of misery.

The poet Osip Mandelstam died in the Gulag for writing (hilarious) satirical verse about Stalin. Boris Pasternak was vilified by the state press for writing “Doctor Zhivago” and forced to decline the Nobel Prize for Literature. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ordeal in the gulags is world famous.

In his essay, “Russian Writers, Censors, and Readers,” novelist Vladimir Nabokov summed up why Soviet art tended to be terrible: “Of the two forces that simultaneously struggled for the artist’s soul, … the first was the government.” The second was the utilitarian critic who “regarded everything … as only a means to improve the social and economic situation of the underdog.”

Soviet composers, too, always felt a shadow lurking nearby. The works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev were sometimes praised by Soviet critics, then alternately denounced for their supposed Western influences. Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 memorably alludes to the fear of arrest, with dissonant chords in the beginning of the fourth movement that sound like dreaded knocks on the door—the last thing many people heard before they disappeared forever.

Unlike these other unfortunates, Sviatoslav Richter avoided overt persecution. One of the greatest pianists of all time, his relationship with the mother country was complex. Like everyone else, Richter faced certain restraints, but was able to travel internationally and play Western pieces the Communist Party disapproved of. Though he was apolitical by disposition, his commitment to individual musical expression was courageous in an era of state-sanctioned art.

An Isolated Prodigy

Richter was a natural genius at the piano. Unlike other prodigies like Mozart, though, he had no formal training. His father, Theophile Richter, was himself a professional pianist and piano teacher at the Odessa Conservatory. While Theophile taught his son rudimentary piano theory and skills, the boy mostly learned by sight-reading, an ability that stayed with him all his life. Without any preparation, Sviatoslav could play a piece he had never seen before, devote it to memory in a short period of time, and still remember it 50 years later.

Theophile, father of piano prodigy Sviatoslav Richter. (Public Domain)

In his early 20s, Richter auditioned at the Moscow Conservatory to study under the famed pianist Heinrich Neuhaus. Despite his lack of training, Neuhaus considered the boy a genius and admitted him. The older player always expressed admiration for his pupil, praising the “spirituality” and “passion” of Richter’s playing: “Our young people often think that passion starts below the navel. How they are misled!”

Performing in Dangerous Times

When World War II broke out, Richter helped boost morale by giving public performances. He traveled on trains without light or heat to play ramshackle pianos for soldiers in the trenches. In the winter of 1944, he played at Leningrad during an air raid. Although a shell had broken the windows of the Philharmonic concert hall and the audience was huddling in coats, the performance went well. “As soon as you start playing, you stop feeling cold,” Richter said.

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After his performances, he would usually be forced to leave—not out of danger but because of his dual German and Russian nationality. “The Russians told me: ‘You’re German.’ And the Germans told me: ‘You’re Russian.’” Sometimes, this was a blessing in disguise. Right after being put on a train out of Murmansk, bombing resumed and the city was destroyed.

Because of his German background, Richter was under constant surveillance during this time. He became aware of this and would even play games with his spies. Once, late at night, while he was trying to get to his hotel to prevent being locked out, he began running. His shadow chased him. Richter hid behind a building at a street corner and intentionally bumped into the man, who pretended it was an accident. Another time, while in a cable car, Richter confronted his shadow and asked whether he would get off at the next stop. When the spy replied “Yes,” Richter told him, “I’m not!”

The Qualities of Greatness

What made Richter one of the great pianists of all times? Physically, his hands were large and slender, his thumbs long and flexible, with a hand span that could stretch more than an octave.

His photographic memory and sight-reading abilities, already referred to, allowed him to store the entire repertoire of great piano works—from Bach to modern times—inside his head.

This memory had its downsides. Richter called it “terrifying,” saying that it “quite literally torments me.” He reported that the names of everyone he’d ever met “are filed away inside my head. … I’m for ever rattling them off in my mind.”

Physical qualities and memory will only take one so far, however, and many pianists have possessed both. What elevated Richter into a league of his own was his musical empathy. According to biographer Karl Rasmussen, Richter had a chameleon-like ability to adopt the color of a composer’s intention:

“His piano sound is warm and singing when he plays Schumann; sparklingly brilliant or wildly effervescent when he plays Liszt; weighty and full-toned when he plays Brahms; aggressive and razor-sharp when he plays Prokofiev; glistening and pastel-colored when he plays Debussy.”

Richter’s inner understanding of a composition allowed him to be sensitive to the tone, strength, intensity, or delicacy it required. He also displayed theatricality on stage. One method, which he attributed to his teacher Neuhaus, was “how to make silences sound.” This involved sitting at the bench without moving when he appeared on stage. While he counted to 30, the audience would shift uncomfortably, thinking something was wrong. Then he would begin, to delayed gratification.

An Unintentional Dissident

Richter usually played the music he wanted, denying accusations that he deliberately protested against state sanctions. He was committed to musical expression, above all. Nevertheless, his choice of works to perform had subtly rebellious implications. In 1945, he played songs based on texts by Anna Akhmatova, who had been condemned for writing poetry about the Stalinist horrors.

When an artist was named an “enemy of the people,” their work was banned and any reference to them was deemed suspect. This was especially the case after 1948, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party denounced Shostakovich and Prokofiev for their Western “formalism,” along with other composers. As an admirer of Prokofiev, Richter said that he did not understand this attitude. Shortly after the Central Committee’s denunciation, he gave a concert that included the older composer in the program. It was well-received, and Prokofiev afterwards took the stage to give thanks for “reviving my dead works.”

Pianist Svyatoslav Richter on the balcony of the Kharkiv hotel admires the Dzerzhinsky Square (now Svobody Square) in Kharkov. (Shcherbinin Yuriy/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Richter’s genius and enigmatic personality, which resembled his variable playing style, spawned a cult following that has never quite gone away. Though a documentary and several biographies have appeared since his death in 1997, scholars admit to the difficulty in capturing the man’s essence, which is as it should be. Keeping people guessing is a good way of securing one’s legacy.

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