Having been unhappy with Doremi’s over-interventionist
mastering of Richter’s Szeged recital,
I am relieved to say that the present
disc offers sound which, if rather limited
and with the odd touch of wow, is unobjectionable
and certainly no barrier to listening
to the performances.
Richter returned to
Beethoven frequently throughout his
career, yet he remained a perplexing
interpreter of this composer. Op. 101
begins with a surprisingly free treatment
of the opening movement, romantically
distant from Richter’s often marmoreal
image but lacking the simple sublimity
Schnabel found here. On the other hand,
Schnabel’s March and Finale are too
much of a mess to testify to much beyond
the right intentions and Richter is
obviously unfazed by any technical hurdles
Beethoven can throw up. However, the
emphasis in the second movement is very
much on the "Lebhaft" part
of Beethoven’s instructions, a little
too manic to be a march and resulting
in some rather dry sonority. Likewise
in the finale a more simply buoyant
performance seems to be waiting in the
wings, occasionally glimpsed at but
more often brushed aside. The brief
interlude of the third movement - in
Tovey’s words, "one of the most
pathetic and mysterious things in all
music" – brings me to a recurrent
worry about these performances, namely
that when sublimity and repose are called
for, Richter can be merely dutiful,
almost perfunctory.
Most interpreters follow
Schnabel and Backhaus in treating the
first movement of op. 109 as a prayer,
the Vivace sections serenely flowing.
Richter takes the Vivace at its face
value, providing great vitality. An
interesting alternative view. An extremely
energetic Prestissimo is followed by
an account of the variations which,
once past the rather static performance
of the theme itself, captures that serene
flow which evidently does not come easily
to Richter.
Surprisingly, he is
extremely gentle and relaxed with the
sublime first movement of op. 110, which
gets a very beautiful performance indeed.
It is followed by a scherzo so slow
that, in other hands, I would have thought
the pianist was playing safe with the
fearsome hand-crossings of the trio,
but I hardly suppose Richter would have
let that worry him. His restrained,
low-key approach to the sonata continues
to the end with both the Arioso and
the Fugue sections a little slow for
my taste – Beethoven did after all write
the pulsing accompaniment of the former
in 16th notes rather than
8th notes and I suppose all
the extra tails are there for a purpose,
while the latter doesn’t really seem
Allegro to me, even allowing for the
"ma non troppo" qualification.
Still, it’s a performance that should
be heard.
The first movement
of op. 111 provides further evidence
that Richter was not really a natural
interpreter of Beethoven, since the
various ritardandos are all somewhat
exaggerated, pulling apart a movement
which has a stop-go element already
written into it. The last movement follows
the by-now familiar pattern of a perfunctory
Arietta followed by much of beauty in
the variations.
If Schnabel’s op. 101
is too much of a mess for a general
recommendation, his opp. 109, 110 and
111, conveniently brought together by
Naxos, is one Schnabel disc that everyone
should have, so totally does he seem
in tune with the sheer sublimity of
Beethoven’s inspiration. I can’t quite
say the same for Richter, who is a frequently
interesting, sometimes revelatory, but
incomplete Beethoven interpreter. For
that matter, Richter’s tendency was
to withdraw ever more into his icy hermitage,
playing in small halls away from the
great centres, a standard lamp by the
piano illuminating the score in the
otherwise dark hall while Beethoven,
forced into semi-exile from the world
by his deafness, longed to reach out
to the millions. The two men’s agendas
were hardly well-matched.
Christopher Howell
Sviatoslav Richter (piano) 
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