Sviatoslav Richter – Live
In East Germany Vol. 1
Recorded on 16.XI.1967, Volksbühne, Berlin, East Germany
*15.VII.1964, Nationaltheater, Weimar, East Germany
STEREO ℗ 1967 DRA, *MONO ℗ 1964 DRA
Restored by © 2026 THE LOST RECORDINGS from the original analogue tapes
33rpm Lacquer-cuts: Marie Pieprzownik
1st Edition, hand-numbered: 3000 copies
Tip-on Gatefold printed in Italy
180g Double-vinyl album
Phoenix Pressings™
Sviatoslav Richter was always a man apart.
At no point in his life did he follow in the footsteps of others, be they musicians, writers or political figures.
Until the age of 15, he simply worked on his piano, alone in Odessa.
Self-taught. He was more destined to become a painter, with little attention paid to him, tossed, in the midst of civil war, between parents with a rather dissolute life and his aunt Tamara.
He developed a passion for opera and became an excellent accompanist for the Odessa Opera and several ballet companies.
How did he end up, in 1937, at the age of 22, at the Moscow Conservatory in front of the immense professor Heinrich Neuhaus? No one knows.
History only records that during Richter’s performance, the master supposedly whispered to his neighbor: “In my opinion, he is a musical genius.”
This did not alter his character in any way.
Until the end of his life, he remained a completely free, almost enigmatic figure: “Life unfolds for me like a theater presenting a series of somewhat unreal feelings; while the components of art appear to me as a reality and go straight to my heart.”
Truths and legends intertwine: twice expelled from the conservatory for refusing “political” obedience, “forgetting” to start a tour in the United States, thousands of kilometers by car on the roads of Europe, followed by his piano, verbal skirmishes with Karajan, entire weeks spent secluded in his dacha with his instrument as his only companion…
As Bruno Monsaingeon writes in the text accompanying his film Richter, The Enigma: “He fears nothing and offers no hold, that will be his great strength.
Allergic to any planning, he plays where and when he pleases.” Richter expects nothing and aspires to nothing more than to serve music.
He is disciplined to the point of being obsessive, even counting his hours spent at the piano to make up for those he might have missed the next day. He would confess many times: “I am a mirror.” For him, the interpreter is merely an executor, specifying: “He must not dominate the music but dissolve into it.”
The Lost Recordings reveals for the first time exceptional recordings in more ways than one. We discovered, in the archives of East German radio, analogue tapes of two hitherto unreleased concerts.
In the mid-1960s, Sviatoslav Richter was fifty years old and had recently been performing on all the world’s stages. His playing was probably at its peak, both in power and delicacy.
With two composers who held a special place in the vastness of his repertoire: Sergei Rachmaninoff and Franz Schubert.
At the end of these two concerts, we recall the words of the one who had distinguished Richter above all others: his master, Heinrich Neuhaus. More aware than others of his student’s prodigious talent, he wrote about him this illuminating sentence: “His singular ability to grasp the whole without losing any of the smallest details of a composition suggests a comparison with an eagle which, from its great height, can see as far as the horizon down to the smallest detail of the landscape.”
Track List: Sviatoslav Richter – Live
Record 1
1. Sergei Rachmaninov: 13 Preludes
I. Prelude in F-sharp minor No. 1, Op. 23
II. Prelude in A major No. 9, Op. 32
III.Prelude in B minor No. 10, Op. 32
IV. Prelude in G-sharp minor No. 12, Op. 32
V. Prelude in A-flat major No. 8, Op. 23
VI. Prelude in C major No. 1, Op. 32
VII. Prelude in B-flat minor No. 2, Op. 32
VIII. Prelude in F minor No. 6, Op. 32
IX. Prelude in F major No. 7, Op. 32
X. Prelude in B-flat major No. 2, Op. 23
XI. Prelude in D major No. 4, Op. 23
XII. Prelude in G minor No. 5, Op. 23
XIII. Prelude in C minor No. 7, Op. 23
Record 2*
2.Franz Schubert: 3 Klavierstücke, D946
I. No. 1 in E-Flat minor: Allegro assai
II. No. 2 in E-flat major: Allegretto
III. No. 3 in C major: Allegro
