Richter = HAYDN: Piano Sonata No. 44 in F Major; PROKOFIEV: Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14; Legend, Op. 12, No. 6; 10 Visions fugitives, Op. 22; Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, Op. 84 – Sviatoslav Richter, piano – BBC Legends

by | Dec 2, 2008 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Richter = HAYDN: Piano Sonata No. 44 in F Major; PROKOFIEV: Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 14; Legend, Op. 12, No. 6; 10 Visions fugitives, Op. 22; Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, Op. 84 – Sviatoslav Richter, piao

BBC Legends BBCL 4245-2, 75:37 [Distrib. By Koch] ****:

The Royal Festival Hall recital of 8 July 1961 marks the British debut of Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997), who begins with the relatively rare 1776 F Major Sonata of Joseph Haydn, one of nineteen Richter committed to his programs in the course of his career. In spite of his rather percussive approach, the Haydn achieves a combination of bright militancy and restrained introspection, especially in the second movement, an Adagio of poised inwardness, The opening movement begins in the manner of a march but soon becomes an acrobatic two-part invention. Richter takes all repeats in the final movement, a Tempo di minuetto that luxuriates in pearly trills and lyrical swagger – despite the persistent coughing of the audience, as though they were auditioning for Violetta in La Traviata.

The Prokofiev D Minor Sonata (1912) always provided a calling-card for Richter, which along with No. 6, he became closely identified, even in the composer’s mind. Its synthesis of musicbox sonorities with knotty metrics makes for a digital as well as intellectual challenge upon which Richter lavishes careful affections. The moody, mercurial shifts of mood as well as agogics become quite mesmerizing in Richter’s carefully modulated performance, played close to the vest, as it were. The Scherzo–a favorite of my own teacher, Jean Casadesus–enjoys that steely pointillism of which Richter was a past master. The galloping figures become lighter and more liquid but remain insistently stinging. The Andante proves reflective of autumn, perhaps touched by hues we find in Debussy. The martial figure clearly informs the G Minor Piano Concerto. The toccata last movement, Vivace, whisks by in series of stunning gestures, light and aerial, Liszt by way of St. Petersburg. The secondary, ostinato and hopping subject attains a Scriabinesque impishness before Richter brings the mad ride to a determined halt.

From the Ten Pieces, Op. 12 Richter plays the Legend, a decidedly Debussy-based series of chords and affects, whose middle section the composer marks Andante religioso. The set of 1915 Visions fugitives takes its cue from the poet Balmont, often sarcastically brief aphorisms in music that suggest a veil of illusion hides unpleasant truths from us. Still, sarcasms and jabbing figures intrude upon us, and few pianists can convince us both of their lyric power and flirtatious terrors more forcefully than Richter. Melancholy informs the Con eleganza, transparent and poignant. Pearly play and strict rhythmic balance dominate, even in the midst of irony or Schumannesque nostalgia. The Feroce and Inquieto visions easily become natural vehicles for Richer, albeit too brief.

Last, the third of the War Sonatas of Prokofiev, perhaps the most searching and introspective of the set, its structure reminiscent of the Shostakovich B Minor Sixth Symphony. The huge Andante dolce becomes restive, haunted; some commentators hear in the harmonic labyrinth fragments of two Pushkin projects Prokofiev contemplated in 1937.  A dark etude infiltrates the music about one third through the movement, set against declamatory, insistent punctuations in the left hand. The texture becomes brittle, resonantly contrapuntal, drunken Schuman and Bach. At two-thirds through the first movement, the descent clearly rings of Moussorgsky; only now, we recap through gloomy corridors and tiny eddies of reminiscence. The coda, an etude-toccata, quite blazes after the somber colors that had preceded it, only to relent at the last.

A kind of syncopated minuet ensues, a plea for simpler times of grace and elegance. The last movement, a passionate tarantella, exhibits Richter at his most colossally virtuosic, swirls of repeated notes and octave shifts each clamoring for predominance; yet a canny, lyric, percussiveness insinuates upon our hearts, a peasant dance–or truth–that refuses to be crushed by the forces of dissolution. Heroism or quixotic perseverance, who can say? The last pages take something from Beethoven’s Op. 110, only mixed with dauntless irony. The audience goes quite wild.
 
–Gary Lemco


 

Related Reviews
Logo Pure Pleasure
Logo Crystal Records Sidebar 300 ms
Logo Jazz Detective Deep Digs Animated 01