A few minutes before his death, Richter said: “I’m very tired. The great pianist Svyatoslav Richter: life and creative path Richter's works

(1915-1997) Russian pianist

The life of Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter bears little resemblance to the biographies of other artists. He followed a very special path to success. The future pianist spent his childhood in Odessa. His father, Teofil Danilovich, taught at the conservatory and was a famous musician in the city. At one time, he graduated from the Vienna Academy of Music, and it was he who gave his son his first piano lessons when the boy was only five years old.

However, the father could not constantly study with his son, since he was forced to devote all his time to classes with students. Therefore, from the age of nine or ten, Svyatoslav was practically left to his own devices. Only for a short time did he take lessons from the pianist A. Atl, one of his father’s students. And the boy used this freedom of action in a very original way: he began to play all the notes that were in the house. He was especially interested in opera claviers. Gradually, Richter learned to play any music from sight and became a qualified accompanist.

From the age of fifteen he already helps his father, and soon begins to work independently: he becomes an accompanist in music club at the Sailor's House. After graduating from school, he worked for several years as an accompanist at the Odessa Philharmonic. At this time, Svyatoslav traveled with concert teams, accompanying various musicians, and gained experience.

In 1932, he went to work at the Odessa Opera House and became an assistant to conductor S. Stolerman. Svyatoslav Richter helps him at rehearsals and in working with singers, gradually expanding his own repertoire. In May 1934, the pianist gives the first clavierabend - a solo concert - at the Odessa House of Engineers, performing works by Frederic Chopin. The concert was a great success, but at that time the young man had not yet thought about studying music professionally.

Only five years later, in the spring of 1937, Svyatoslav Richter finally went to Moscow to enter the conservatory. This was quite a bold step, since the young performer had no musical education. The outstanding pianist of our time, G. Neuhaus, heard him at the entrance exam. From that day on, Richter became his favorite student.

Neuhaus accepted Svyatoslav Richter into his class, but never taught him in the conventional sense of the word. As Neuhaus himself later wrote, there was nothing to teach Richter - it was only necessary to develop his talent. Richter retained a reverent attitude towards his first teacher throughout his life. It is interesting that, having played almost all the world's piano classics, he never included Beethoven's Fifth Concerto in the program, believing that he could not play it better than his teacher.

In November 1940, Richter made his first public appearance in Moscow. At this first concert in the Small Hall of the Conservatory, he performed with his teacher. A few days later he gave his own solo concert in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, and from that time his long life as a performing musician began.

During the war, Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter was in Moscow. At the slightest opportunity, he performed in concerts. And he never stopped studying for a day. Since June 1942 it has resumed concert activities and literally begins to “shower” the audience with new programs. At the same time, his tours to various cities begin. Over the last two war years, he traveled almost the entire country. He even took the state exam at the conservatory in the form of a concert in the Great Hall of the conservatory. After this speech, the commission decided to engrave Richter’s name in gold letters on a marble plaque in the foyer of the Small Hall of the Conservatory.

In 1945, Svyatoslav Richter became the winner of the All-Union competition of performing musicians. It is curious that for a long time he did not want to announce his participation in it. The fact is that Richter always considered the concepts of music and competition to be incompatible. But he began to participate in the competition in order to strengthen the teaching reputation of his teacher G. Neuhaus. Subsequently, he did not participate in any competitions. In addition, he always refused to chair the jury of many international competitions.

IN post-war years Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter continues to tour constantly, and his fame as a performer is growing. In 1950, he went on his first foreign tour to Czechoslovakia. Then come trips to other countries. Only after this does the management “release” Richter to Finland. His concerts are, as always, a triumph, and in the same year the pianist makes a big tour of the USA and Canada. And crowded concert halls applaud him everywhere.

The secret of Richter’s rapid rise should be seen not only in the fact that he had a unique breadth of repertoire (he played Bach and Debussy, Prokofiev and Chopin with equal success), but also in the fact that he created a unique and complete image from any piece of music. Any music performed by him sounded as if he had composed it in front of the viewer.

Unlike other pianists, Svyatoslav Richter knew how to lose himself in the music he performed. It fully revealed his genius. The maestro himself said when journalists approached him with a request for an interview (and he was very, very reluctant to contact the press): “My interviews are my concerts.” And the musician considered performing in front of the public a sacred duty.

For many years, next to Svyatoslav Richter was his wife, singer Nina Lvovna Dorliak. She once performed with her own concerts, but left the stage and became famous music teacher. Richter himself never had students. Probably he simply didn’t have time, or maybe the reason is that genius cannot be taught.

The versatility of his talent, reminiscent of the geniuses of the Renaissance, was also reflected in Richter’s passion for painting. All his life he collected paintings and even painted in oils himself. The Museum of Private Collections houses several original works by Richter. As for the main collection, most of it has also been transferred to the museum. It must also be said that in the sixties and seventies, Svyatoslav Richter organized art exhibitions of representatives of informal movements in his house. The expositions of E. Akhvlediani and V. Shukhaev turned out to be especially interesting.

Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter was the organizer and permanent participant of regular summer music festivals in France, as well as the famous December evenings in the Moscow Museum fine arts them. Alexander Pushkin, in whose Italian courtyard in August 1997 Moscow said goodbye to the greatest pianist of the 20th century.

The pianist's unusually wide repertoire covered works from Baroque music to 20th-century composers; he often performed entire cycles of works, such as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. A prominent place in his work was occupied by the works of Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Prokofiev. Richter's performance is distinguished by technical perfection, a deeply individual approach to the work, and a sense of time and style.

Biography

Richter was born on March 7 (20), 1915 in Zhitomir of the Russian Empire, (now Ukraine), in the family of a talented German pianist, organist and composer Theophil Danilovich Richter (1872-1941), teacher at the Odessa Conservatory and organist of the city Church, mother - Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva (1892-1963), von Reinke by mother, from Russian nobles. During the Civil War, the family was separated and Richter lived with his aunt, Tamara Pavlovna, from whom he inherited a love of painting, which became his first creative hobby.

In 1922, the family moved to Odessa, where Richter began studying piano and composition, being largely self-taught. During this time, he also wrote several theater plays, became interested in opera, and harbored plans to become a conductor. From 1930 to 1932, Richter worked as a pianist-accompanist at the Odessa Sailor's House, then at the Odessa Philharmonic. Richter's first solo concert, composed of Chopin's works, took place in 1934, and soon he received a position as an accompanist at the Odessa Opera House.

His hopes of becoming a conductor were not justified; in 1937, Richter entered the Moscow Conservatory in the piano class of Heinrich Neuhaus, but in the fall he was expelled from it (after refusing to study general education subjects) and went back to Odessa. Soon, however, at the insistence of Neuhaus, Richter returned to Moscow and was reinstated at the conservatory. The pianist's Moscow debut took place on November 26, 1940, when in the Small Hall of the Conservatory he performed Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata - for the first time since the author. A month later, Richter performed with the orchestra for the first time.

During the war, Richter was active in concerts, performed in Moscow, toured other cities of the USSR, and played in besieged Leningrad. The pianist performed for the first time a number of new works, including Sergei Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata.

In 1943, Richter first met singer Nina Dorliak, who later became his wife. Richter and Dorliac often performed together in concerts.

Richter’s great friend and mentor was Anna Ivanovna Troyanovskaya (1885-1977), in her house in Skaternny Lane he practiced the famous Medtner piano.

After the war, Richter gained wide fame by winning the Third All-Union Competition of Music Performers (the first prize was divided between him and Viktor Merzhanov), and became one of the leading Soviet pianists. The pianist's concerts in the USSR and the countries of the Eastern Bloc were very popular, but for many years he was not allowed to perform in the West. This was due to the fact that Richter maintained friendly relations with “disgraced” cultural figures, among whom were Boris Pasternak and Sergei Prokofiev. During the years of the unspoken ban on performing the composer’s music, the pianist often played his works, and in 1952, for the first and only time in his life, he acted as a conductor, conducting the premiere of the Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (solo: Mstislav Rostropovich) Prokofiev’s Ninth Sonata is dedicated to Richter and performed for the first time by him.

Richter's concerts in New York and other American cities in 1960 became a real sensation, followed by numerous recordings, many of which are still considered standard. In the same year, the musician was awarded a Grammy Award (he became the first Soviet performer to receive this award) for his performance of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. In 1952, Richter played the role of Franz Liszt in G. Aleksandrov’s film “The Composer Glinka.” In 1960-1980, Richter continued his active concert activity, giving more than 70 concerts a year. He toured extensively in different countries, preferring to play in intimate venues rather than in large concert halls. The pianist recorded little in the studio, but a large number of “live” recordings from concerts have been preserved.

Richter is the founder of a number of music festivals, including the famous “December Evenings” at the Pushkin Museum (since 1981), during which he performed with leading musicians of our time, including violinist Oleg Kagan, violist Yuri Bashmet, cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Natalya Gutman. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Richter never taught.

In the last years of his life, Richter often canceled concerts due to illness, but continued to perform. During the performance, at his request, there was complete darkness on the stage, and only the notes on the piano stand were illuminated by a lamp. According to the pianist, this gave the audience the opportunity to concentrate on the music without being distracted by minor moments.

Last concert pianist competition took place in 1995 in Lübeck.

Awards and titles

• Stalin Prize (1950);
• People's Artist of the RSFSR (1955);
• Grammy Award (1960);
• Lenin Prize (1961);
• People's Artist of the USSR (1961);
• Robert Schumann Prize (1968);
• Honorary Doctor of the University of Strasbourg (1977);
• Leonie Sonning Award (1986).
• Hero Socialist Labor (1975);
• Order of Lenin (1965, 1975, 1985)
• Order of the October Revolution (1980)
• State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. I. Glinka (1987) - for concert programs of 1986, performed in the cities of Siberia and Far East
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (1995).
• State Prize Russian Federation (1996)
• Triumph Award (1993)

Memory

• On March 22, 2011, a memorial plaque to Svyatoslav Richter was installed in Zhitomir.
• In honor of Svyatoslav Richter in Zhitomir they are going to rename the street where he lived.
• For the 100th anniversary of the musician, the leadership of the city of Zhitomir and the region promise to open a monument and a museum.
• In January 1999, in Moscow on Bolshaya Bronnaya Street at 2/6, the opening of the Svyatoslav Richter Memorial Apartment took place - a department of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, a museum with which Svyatoslav Teofilovich had a long friendship.
• International Piano Competition named after Svyatoslav Richter
• “An offering to Svyatoslav Richter” is an annual project that traditionally takes place in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. In this way, the Richter Foundation honors the memory of the great pianist and fulfills his promise to attract attention to the most interesting performers.

Bibliography

• Rasmussen Karl Aage Svjatoslav Richter - Pianist. - Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2007. - ISBN 9788702034301
• Rasmussen Karl Aage Szvjatoszlav Richter - A zongorista. - Rozsavolgyi es Tarsa, Budapest, 2010. - ISBN 9789638776488
• Rasmussen Karl Aage Sviatoslav Richter - Pianist. - Northeastern University Press, Boston, 2010. - ISBN 978-1-55553-710-4
• Milshtein Y. Svyatoslav Richter, “ Soviet music", 1948, No. 10;
• Delson V. Svyatoslav Richter, M., 1961;
• Neuhaus G. On the art of piano playing, 3rd ed., M., 1967;
• Rabinovich D. Portraits of pianists, 2nd ed., M., 1970;
• Gakkel L. For music and for people, in the collection: Stories about music and musicians, L.-M., 1973;
• Neuhaus G. Reflections, memories, diaries. Selected articles. Letters to parents, M., 1983;
• Tsypin G. M. S. Richter. Creative Portrait, M., 1987;
• Bashkirov D. The boundlessness of the sensation of music, “SM”, 1985, No. 6;
• Neuhaus S. Moral height, greatness of spirit, “SM”, 1985, No. 6;
• Kogan G. Pride Soviet art. In the book: Selected articles, 3, M., 1985;
• Bruno Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press, 2001;
• Terekhov D. F. Richter and his time. Notes from the artist. Unfinished biography (facts, comments, short stories and essays). - M.: Consent, 2002.
• Bruno Monsaingeon, Richter. Dialogues. Diaries Publisher: Classics XXI, 2007.
• Yu. Borisov. Towards Richter. M.: KoLibri, Azbuka-Atticus, 2011. 336 pp., 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-389-01751-1

Svyatoslav Richter was not only an outstanding pianist of the last century, but also a cultural figure, took an active part in public life, founded the December Evenings festival.

Great, brilliant, outstanding - this is how everyone who has ever heard his virtuoso performance speaks of pianist Svyatoslav Richter classical works. His repertoire includes works by Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, Haydn.

He had his own individual approach to music, he had a sense of time and style, and his performance technique was brought to absolute perfection.

Childhood

Svyatoslav Richter was born in Zhitomir in Ukraine, although at that time it was Russian empire, March 20, 1915. The boy's father was a talented German pianist, organist, and composer Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872-1941), who taught music at the Odessa Conservatory and played the organ in a local church. Svyatoslav’s mother’s name was Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva (1892-1963), a hereditary Russian noblewoman, after von Reinke’s mother. All Civil War little Svyatoslav lived with his aunt Tamara, from whom his nephew inherited a love of painting, which later became one of his serious hobbies after music.

In 1922, the boy and his family moved to Odessa and learned to play the piano. His father, a famous pianist who received his musical education in Vienna, helps him at this time. Little Svyatoslav was very attracted to the opera house, he even begins to write theater plays and dreams of studying to be a conductor. Svyatoslav gave two years from 1930 to 1932 to the Odessa Sailor's House, where he was accepted as a pianist-accompanist, after which he moved to the local philharmonic. In 1934, Richter gave his first solo concert, performing mainly the music of Chopin. Soon after this, he was accepted into the Odessa Opera House as an accompanist.

Conservatory

Richter's dream of conducting never came true. In 1937, the young man became a piano student at the Moscow Conservatory, ending up with the famous Heinrich Neuhaus, but that same autumn he was expelled. The reason is that Svyatoslav flatly refused to study general education subjects.

The young man returns home - to Odessa. But Neuhaus managed to insist on his own and Richter agreed to return to Moscow, to the conservatory. The pianist's debut in Moscow was a performance in November 1940, held in the Small Hall of his native conservatory. The young pianist’s repertoire included Prokofiev’s Sixth Sonata, which had previously only been performed by its author. Just a month later, Svyatoslav gives his first concert accompanied by an orchestra. He graduated from the Richter Conservatory in 1947, receiving a gold medal.

War

During the war years, the pianist gave concerts not only in Moscow, but also in other cities. Soviet Union. He also visited besieged Leningrad. He tried to please his war-weary compatriots beautiful music, perfect execution. His repertoire increasingly includes new works; he played S. Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata indescribably.

Parents

In the biography of Svyatoslav Richter there was one tragedy that he carefully hid from those around him - the betrayal of his own mother. Before the war, the family lived in Odessa, the father served in the opera theater, the mother was engaged in sewing. Just before the occupation of Odessa, their family was offered to evacuate, but the mother refused. The boy's father is arrested by security officers, citing martial law, and shot, only because he was German by nationality, and therefore a traitor waiting for the arrival of the Nazis. At this time, unexpectedly for everyone, the mother marries Sergei Kondratyev, a descendant of an official Tsarist Russia who hated him fiercely Soviet power and even allows him to take the surname Richter.

Without waiting for Odessa to be occupied by Soviet troops, Anna and her newly-made husband flee abroad and settle in Germany. Svyatoslav at this time lives and studies in Moscow and knows nothing, waiting throughout the war to meet his beloved mother, who was both an adviser and a friend for him. Having learned about what had happened, the young man closed himself off - it was a real catastrophe, the collapse of everything that had previously been sacred. He experienced this pain all his life, he even decided that he would never have a family - only creativity.

He hadn't seen his mother for twenty years. Their meeting took place when Furtseva and Orlova obtained permission for Svyatoslav to travel abroad. But alas, the closeness that was before did not work out. But nevertheless, when Richter learned about his mother’s serious illness, he spent the entire fee he earned on tour on her. Kondratiev informed Svyatoslav about her death just before the performance in Vienna - and the great pianist was unable to cope with his excitement and failed the concert. This was his only failure in his entire life.

Creation

Richter’s name began to appear after the war; the Third All-Union Competition brought him particular fame, but in which he became the winner, sharing the first prize with V. Merzhanov. He was recognized as the best Soviet pianist. Then there were tours in his homeland and in socialist countries, but he was not allowed to go to the West. The reason for this was the pianist’s friendship with Sergei Prokofiev, who fell into disgrace. Prokofiev's music was secretly banned, but this did not stop Richter from performing his works. In 1952, Richter's dream came true - he conducted the premiere of the Symphony-Orchestra for the first time. M. Rostropovich played the solo part. Prokofiev even dedicated his Ninth Sonata to Richter, and the pianist performed it brilliantly. Richter was the first performer in the Soviet Union to be awarded prestigious award"Grammy" His concert life was very intense - up to 70 concerts per year.

The work of Svyatoslav Richter is preserved by numerous recordings, both studio and concert, which were recorded in the period from 1946 to 1994.

Social activity

Svyatoslav Richter is the founder of the “December Evenings”, which were held at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. These were thematic festivals of music and painting, at which popular classical music was played and paintings corresponding to the theme were demonstrated. These evenings brought together the best musicians, artists, directors and actors. The festival was first held in 1981.

Richter also took the initiative to organize the “Musical Celebrations” festival in Touraine in 1964 and the music festival in Tarusa in 1993.

In the early 90s, Richter was working to create a school for young artists and musicians, where they could not only study, but also relax. The pianist considered the ideal place for such a school to be the city of Tarusa, where his dacha was located. But to fulfill my dream I needed money. This is how the idea of ​​holding annual festivals in which artists and musicians would participate arose. To be able to hold them, the pianist organizes the Svyatoslav Richter Foundation, of which he becomes president. The pianist also donated his dacha to the foundation.

Painting

One more great love Richter was painting. He had a whole collection of paintings and drawings that were given to him famous artists– K. Magalashvili, A Troyanovskaya, V Shukhaeva, D. Krasnopevtseva.

He even had a painting by the great Picasso - “Dove”, on which the artist left a dedicatory inscription. Richter’s mentor in the art of painting was A. Troyanovskaya; he took lessons from her. She believed that Richter had a special sense of light, he somehow perceived space in his own way, had a vivid imagination and a phenomenal memory.

Personal life

My future wife Svyatoslav met in 1943. ABOUT personal life There were a lot of rumors and gossip about the pianist, even to the point that he was a homosexual, despite having a wife. The musician never talked about the details of family relationships - it was too personal. His wife's name was Nina Dorliak (1908-1998).

She was a daughter popular singer To Dorliak. At the time they met, Nina was a singer (soprano), and after that she became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. Nina Lvovna outlived her husband by almost a year. They lived long life– 50 years old, but never gave birth to children. Richter believed that he did not need all these quiet family joys; he was happy only in art. They had a very unusual marriage - this was an appeal to you, living in different rooms... According to N. Dorliak's will, their apartment became the property of the Pushkin Museum.

Museum

Since 1999, the apartment that previously belonged to Richter has become a museum. Everything here remains as it was during the life of the great pianist. All things are in their places, the piano with sheet music is in the same room in which Svyatoslav Teofilovich rehearsed. Now this room is used for watching films and listening to classical music. The cabinets are still filled with sheet music, cassettes, and records that were donated to the great maestro by friends and numerous fans.

The original manuscript of Prokofiev’s Ninth Sonata, dedicated to Richter, is also safely kept here. The musician’s office amazes with the abundance of books; he was fond of Russian classics. And painting occupies a special place in the museum - another serious hobby of the pianist. Here are his own works and paintings by his artist friends, famous and not so famous. The museum is open to anyone who wants to listen. good music or take part in one of the musical evenings yourself.

Recognition of the greatest of musicians

Richter's work was rewarded with numerous titles and awards. He is a People's Artist of the USSR and the RSFSR, received the Lenin and Stalin Prizes. He was awarded the title of honorary doctor by two universities - Strasbourg and Oxford.

He was awarded the Order of the October Revolution and the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. He is the winner of numerous domestic and foreign awards, is a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters received in France, a Hero of Socialist Labor and a member of the Moscow Academy of Creativity.

In memory of the pianist

In 2011, a memorial plaque was installed in Zhitomir, the homeland of the great musician. An international piano competition was named after Svyatoslav Richter. In the city of Yagotin in Ukraine and in Bydgoszcz in Poland there are monuments to the unsurpassed maestro. One of the streets in Moscow also bears the name of Svyatoslav Richter.

Richter made his last public appearance in Germany in 1995. The musician died in Moscow on August 1, 1997. Burial place: Novodevichy Cemetery.

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“There are some transitional moments when what has passed has not yet become completely the past.
There are frames of existence, although they have disappeared, but are still visible, tangible and existing in some kind of reality...” E. Mravinsky.

That's Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter seems to me still alive, I hear in his performance spiritual element, inspiration, which are restrained by the power of his intellect. But More than 10 years have passed since his death.

Richter was not only an outstanding pianist, but also a bearer of the highest artistic and moral authority, the personification of the modern universal musician-educator. Richter's enormous repertoire, which expanded until his last years active life, turned on the music different eras, from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and Handel's Suites to Gershwin's Concerto, Webern's Variations and Stravinsky's Movements.

And on March 20 the whole planet will celebrate 100th anniversary of his birth.

The biography of S. T. Richter is interesting and tragic.

Theophilus Dmitrievich's father Richter was a piano tuner and musician, and therefore Theophilus became a musician. Showing outstanding musical abilities, Theophilus went to study at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied in 1893−1900. Then he returned to Zhitomir and worked until 1916 at the Music School.

In Zhitomir, Richter marries a Russian girl, the daughter of a Zhitomir landowner, Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva. On March 20, 1915, their son Svyatoslav was born. From the age of three, Svetik’s mother and then father taught him music.

In 1916, the family moved to Odessa, where Theophil Richter became an organist in the Lutheran church, he was given an apartment in the house of the church servants. At the same time, Theophilus Richter taught general piano at the conservatory. According to his colleagues, because of his modesty, he occupied “a place lower than he deserved.”

In 1925-1926, when his son was already growing up, the “public” accused him of being a “cult worker.” “Such people do not have the right to educate Soviet youth.” Despite the protests of the church pastor Schelling, Richter stops working in the church and becomes an “orchestra artist” Opera House. It was at this time that the theater acquired a small organ, on which Richter performs organ parts. To support his family, Richter also gave private lessons.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War, in August 1941, T. D. Richter was arrested under Art. 54-1a of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR. He was charged with the crime of visiting the German consulate, which took place in 1932-36. He was sentenced to capital punishment - execution with confiscation of property. The sentence was carried out on October 6, 1941. Rehabilitated posthumously in February 1962.

Svyatoslav Richter performs the waltz "Old Vienna", written by his father, Theophilus Richter. It was January 1, 1988.

So, Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter was born in Zhitomir (Ukraine) into a family of Russified Germans. His mother, Anna Moskaleva, was a noblewoman. She was 20 years younger than Theophilus.

In 1916, the young father received an invitation to Odessa to become the organist of the local Lutheran church. Pavel. “At that moment I fell ill with typhus,” Richter later recalled, “and I could not be taken to Odessa.” Theophilus went to the seaside town alone. But it so happened that he also fell ill with typhus, so Anna, leaving her son in the care of her relatives, went to Odessa to save her husband. “I stayed in Zhitomir with Aunt Mary,” said Richter, “and saw my mother only four years later.”

The name of the father of the great pianist Svyatoslav Richter, Teofil Danilovich, is closely connected with the Odessa Church.
The Richters lived in Odessa in a parsonage on Nezhinskaya Street, 32.

The family united in Odessa only in the early 20s. Svyatoslav learned to play the works of Chopin. There was a harmonium in the Richter house and music was often played. The father, oddly enough, did not give his son systematic music lessons, but watched his musical development. “I often asked my dad about certain works,” said the pianist, “and received valuable advice. When I was 8-9 years old, I started playing. I had never played scales - I immediately started learning Chopin’s first nocturne...

The father was shocked, and the mother said: let him do as he wants, and I played whatever I wanted: “Tannhäuser”, “Lohengrin” ... The son’s first opuses were written by his father’s hand: “Evening in the Mountains”, “Morning Birds” , "Dream".

Svyatoslav Richter with parents and relatives

Young Richter gave his first concert on February 19, 1934 in Odessa, performing a number of difficult works by F. Chopin.At the age of 15, Richter began accompanying in group concerts, traveled to clubs, worked in the sailors' palace for three years, and then he was accepted into the opera.At the Opera House, Richter was first a ballet tutor and then an accompanist. However, he dreamed of becoming a conductor and working with an orchestra. And such an opportunity soon appeared.

In 1937, the famous pianist and teacher Heinrich Neuhaus came to the Odessa Conservatory to take state exams. He was asked to audition the young accompanist of the Opera House. 15 minutes after Richter began to play, Neuhaus invited Svyatoslav to enroll in the Moscow Conservatory. So the 22-year-old musician ended up in Moscow - the city with which his entire future life will be connected.

Richter's Moscow debut took place in 1940, when he was the first after the author to play S.S. Prokofiev's Sixth Piano Sonata. In 1941, his father was repressed as a German spy, Richter’s mother, Anna Pavlovna (1892-1963), was forced to emigrate to Germany and was deprived of the opportunity not only to see her son, but also to correspond with him. During the Great Patriotic War, Richter was active in concerts, performed in Moscow, toured other cities of the USSR, and played in besieged Leningrad. In 1945, Richter was awarded first prize at the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians (the other first prize went to M.L. Rostropovich). Since 1945 he began performing, except solo concerts, in an ensemble with a singer Ninoy Lvovna Dorliak (1908-1998), who became his constant musical partner and life partner. In 1947 he received a diploma from the Moscow Conservatory. In 1955 he was awarded the title "People's Artist of the RSFSR", in 1961 - the title "People's Artist of the USSR". Richter's performances were a huge success (G.G. Neuhaus directly called his student a "genius"; D.D. Shostakovich spoke about described as an “extraordinary phenomenon” - among other things, the pianist had a “photographic memory”, instantly learned new works and was an excellent sight-reader for orchestral scores, including newly created ones). In 1960, Richter gave concerts in Helsinki, Chicago and New York, and soon became extremely popular in the West. However, the pianist was not at all inclined to lead the life of a traveling virtuoso: an unusually serious and deep musician, Richter preferred to constantly work on improving his skills and expanding his repertoire. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated March 20, 1975, Richter Svyatoslav Teofilovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal (No. 16554). S.T. Richter is the initiator of the annual summer festival Musical Celebrations in Touraine (held since 1964 in a medieval barn in Mel near Tours, France) and the annual winter festival “December Evenings” (held since 1980 in the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts named after A. .S. Pushkin). Richter's last public appearances took place in 1994. In the minds of several generations of domestic musicians and amateurs, Richter was imprinted not just as a pianist, even a very important one, but as a bearer of the highest artistic and moral authority, the personification of a modern universal musician-educator. Richter's repertoire included music from different eras, from J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel to J. F. Stravinsky, P. Hindemith, B. Britten and D. Gershwin. His highest performing achievements are associated with the work of J. Haydn, L. Beethoven, F. Schubert and other romantics, M. P. Mussorgsky, C. Debussy, B. Bartok, S. S. Prokofiev (who dedicated his Ninth Sonata to Richter), D.D. Shostakovich. Richter's art, inspired by the desire to accurately convey the composer's intention, was characterized by a fantastic richness of pianistic colors, a clearly expressed strong-willed spirit and exceptional spiritual strength. Richter was not only an outstanding soloist, but also a unique ensemble player; among his partners are singers D. Fischer-Dieskau and P. Schreyer, instrumentalists D. Oistrakh, M. L. Rostropovich, Russian musicians of the younger generation, including O. M. Kagan, N. G. Gutman and Yu. A. Bashmet, who saw their own in Richter mentor. Richter's pianistic style can be generally described as powerful, courageous, highest degree concentrated, alien to external shine; each time his manner matched the style of the music he performed. He made many recordings, and the best of them were recordings directly from concerts. The pianist's last concert took place in March 1995 in Lubeck (Germany). In recent years he lived in Paris, and shortly before his death - on July 6, 1997 - he returned home to Russia. He died on August 1, 1997 in Moscow from a heart attack, at the age of 83. Buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Awarded three Soviet Orders of Lenin (March 19, 1965, March 20, 1975, March 20, 1985), the Order of the October Revolution (1980), the Russian Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd degree (March 17, 1995), other orders and medals, and also orders and medals of foreign countries, including the French Order of Merit in the Field of Literature and Art (1985). Lenin Prize laureate (1961), Stalin Prize 1st degree (1949), State Prize of the RSFSR (1987), Grammy Award (1960), Robert Schumann Prize (1968), Leonie Sonning Prize (1986). Honorary Doctor of the University of Strasbourg (1977), Honorary Doctor of the University of Oxford (1992).

Richter not only a musician, but also most talented artist, he drew and wrote a lot without ever studying professionally. Some of our best old artists said that if Richter had devoted his life to painting, he would have achieved the same heights in it, the same heights that he achieved in the field of pianism.The artist and friend of the musician Anna Ivanovna Troyanovskaya said:“He painted solely from impressions and from memory: he had some kind of developed concepts about space, about distance, about perspective, and his sense of tone and color was simply exceptional. But the most amazing thing about him is his instinct for movement. This is probably what should be characteristic of a musician... His memory was phenomenal. And imagination too. It is absolutely clear that without incredible imagination he would not be able to imagine the thought of the composer whose piece he is working on.”

S. Richter. Street in Beijing.

The wife of the great pianist Svyatoslav Richter was Nina Dorliak, this is common knowledge. But few people know that all his life he had an amazing woman, Vera Prokhorova, by his side, who blessed him to marry Dorliak.
Daughter of the last owner of the Trekhgornaya manufactory Vera Prokhorova met her love in 1937, when she was 19 years old. And until her death, for 75 years she was true to this feeling. She didn't want to marry anyone else. I didn't want to have children. Her only love there was Svyatoslav Richter. On TV channelCulture" in 2013 they showed the film "My Light and Someone Else" about this secret love.

Vera Prokhorova’s book “Four Friends Against the Background of the Century” recently appeared. She wrote her memoirs all her life. This is an amazing book written by the closest friend of Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter. They met in 1937, when Richter came to G. Neuhaus to enter the Moscow Conservatory. Neuhaus registered Richter with him, and Neuhaus's wife was the aunt of Vera Prokhorova, who was only 17 years old when a spark of love ran between them at their first meeting, but Richter lived his life with the singer Nina Dorliak, who was much older than Richter, but he loved all my life only my mother and Vera Prokhorova. Amazing book. There is a lot in this book characters: Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Bulgakov, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Marina Tsvetaeva, the famous professor of the Moscow Conservatory Heinrich Neuhaus and Stalin's People's Commissar Yezhov, Yuri Nagibin and Bella Akhmadulina, artists Valentin Serov and Robert Falk, academician Andrei Sakharov and Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva and many others - great and not so much - the characters. It is read in one sitting.

I will quote you a few pages from this book by my closest friend S.T. Richter.

"In 1937, Slava came from Odessa to Moscow to enter the conservatory under Heinrich Neuhaus. Although Svetik did not study anywhere (his father only taught him at home), Neuhaus said: “This is the student I have been waiting for all my life.” Then Genrikh Gustavovich will write in one of his letters: “Richter is a brilliant man. Kind, selfless, sensitive and capable of feeling pain and compassion."

And Slava began studying at the conservatory. At first he lived with friends, and then he was registered with Neuhaus, and he moved there.

His parents remained in Odessa.

The father was 20 years older than the mother. Slava said that he was a wonderful musician, played the organ and even composed something himself. He taught at the conservatory and played in the church.

His mother was Russian - Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva. Very beautiful woman Karenin type - plump, with graceful movements. She was absolutely red. When they asked her what she used to dye her hair, Anna Pavlovna called Slava over, and he ran out “as red as an orange.”

While his father was perhaps somewhat distant from him, his mother was everything to Slava. She cooked very well and sewed wonderfully. The family basically lived on the money that Anna Pavlovna earned with her skills. She sewed in the morning, cleaned and cooked during the day, and in the evening she took off her robe, put on a dress, combed her hair and received guests.

Among the friends at home was a certain Sergei Dmitrievich Kondratyev. This was a man who looked very similar to Lenin. A disabled person who could only move around the apartment. Anna Pavlovna brought him lunch. Kondratiev was a theoretical musician and studied with Richter. Slava said that he could not stand this man, who gave him a lot in terms of music theory.

Slava was irritated by his sweetness. Kondratyev, for example, wrote to Sveta in Moscow: “Dear Slavonka! Now we have winter-winter, the little frost is tapping with its ice stick. How good is the Russian winter, can you compare it with overseas!”

On June 23, 1941, Slava was supposed to fly to Odessa. Due to the outbreak of war, all flights were cancelled. But Svetik managed to receive several letters from his mother. Anna Pavlovna wrote that everything is fine with dad, but she goes to Sergei Dmitrievich and is thinking of moving him to them, since moving around Odessa is becoming more and more difficult every day. Svetik admired his mother: “She walks 20 km to care for the sick.”

Then Odessa was captured by the Germans, and correspondence stopped.

All this time, Svetik talked about his mother, dreaming about how she would come to visit him. When we were preparing potato peelings - there was no other food - he said: “It turns out delicious. But mom will come and teach you how to cook even more deliciously.”

* * *

Although it was a hungry time, when Svetik returned from speaking at the front, he brought canned food every time, and we had real feasts. The neighbors were surprised at what was happening here: there were shouts of “Hit! Cut!” And it was Svetik who shouted: “Drink! Eat!”

Moreover, Svetik once exclaimed: “How boring we live!” - and suggested organizing a home performance.

We acted out a scene from War and Peace with him, in which Pierre Bezukhov finds out that Helen is unfaithful to him and in anger throws something heavy at her. I played Helen. After the performance, Svetik praised me: “What a great job you did! You ducked down so naturally.” What could I do when a huge Wagner score whistled over my head!

Then Svetik began to think about how to play “Seasons” by Tchaikovsky. Having chosen “Snowdrop”, he asked to give him a white sheet. And when they refused him - it was war, there was no time for washing - and they gave him one that had already turned yellow, he was not upset: “Well, okay, let it be like March snow.”

Every day we expected that he might be arrested and stayed up until five in the morning and read. After all, it would not be difficult to find out his new NKVD address. But, probably, they had no time for that or were just lazy. And during this time we managed to read so much - Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Moliere.

All these years, Svetik lived in the hope of meeting his parents.

Mom was everything to him. “I’ll just say it, and my mother will already laugh. “I just think about it, and my mother is already smiling,” he said.

Anna Pavlovna was his friend, adviser, and the basis of morality.

Before the war, she came to Moscow and charmed us all - both young and old. We all started writing letters to her.

One of Slava’s acquaintances wrote to Anna Pavlovna that Richter did not return the book to her. And she added that, probably, “all talents are like that.” Anna Pavlovna immediately sent her son a letter: “How ashamed you will be if they begin to value you only as a talent. Person and talent are two different things. And a scoundrel can be talented.”

That's how their relationship was.

It is not surprising that we were all under the spell of anticipation of meeting Anna Pavlovna.

When Odessa was liberated, Svetik’s acquaintance, an engineer by profession, went there to assess the condition of the city. Through him, Svetik gave his mother a letter, and we also wrote to her.

This was in April. Svyatoslav went on tour, and we were waiting for the return of this engineer friend. The deadline has already passed when he was supposed to return, but our man never showed up. Then I went to see him out of town myself. I found his house, I see he is doing something in the garden. And I had this feeling that it would be better for me not to approach him. But I pushed these thoughts away. “Bad news,” the man greeted me. — Svetik’s father was shot. And Anna Pavlovna, having married Kondratyev, left with the Germans.”

It turned out that this Kondratiev was before the revolution big man and his real name is almost Benkendorf. In 1918, with the help of a conductor Bolshoi Theater Golovanov and his wife, singer Nezhdanova, he managed to change his passport and become Kondratiev. For more than twenty years he pretended to be disabled. And the mother, whom Svetik admired so much, had an affair with him. And in the end she even moved him to her place. It turned out that Anna Pavlovna went not to see her sick friend, but to her lover. And she betrayed both her husband and son. She gave her husband up to die. Svetik said: “This has not been proven, but they say that Kondratyev himself denounced his father.”

A week before the surrender of Odessa, Richter’s parents were asked to evacuate. But since Kondratyev was not taken with them, Anna Pavlovna refused to leave. Thus, signing the husband’s death warrant. If the German Richter does not want to leave on the eve of the surrender of Odessa, one conclusion suggests itself: he is waiting for the Nazis. Father Svyatoslav was arrested, loaded with other Odessa Germans onto a barge and drowned in the sea.

“Mom and dad were asked to evacuate,” Svetik later said. - But Kondratyev was not taken. And mom refused. I think dad understood everything.”

When the Germans entered the city, Kondratiev revealed who he really was. Moreover, he married Anna Pavlovna and took her last name. When many years later Svetik came to his mother in Germany and saw the inscription “S. Richter,” he felt sick. “I couldn’t understand what I had to do with it,” he told me. “And only then did I realize that ‘S’ is ‘Sergei’.”

Svetik was often told abroad: “We saw your father.” He answered: “My father was shot.” Like this…

On the way from Tbilisi, where he was touring, Svetik stopped in Kyiv with his friend, the wife of the famous eye doctor Filatov, and she told him everything about the fate of his parents.

She was his father's closest friend. Her last name is Speranskaya. “I couldn’t imagine that a person could change so much before my eyes,” she later recalled. “He began to melt, lost weight, collapsed on the sofa and sobbed. I sat with him all night."

When my sister and I met Slava at the station, his face was absolutely sick. He got out of the car, as if he had fallen out, and said: “Vipa, I know everything.”

Until 1960, we did not touch this topic...

As a result of long conversations, Svetik and I decided that it was all about hypnosis. After all, Anna Pavlovna experienced a complete personality change.

The fact that hypnosis could have affected her is evidenced by one episode. She herself told me how, as a young girl from Zhitomir, where she lived then, she went to visit her friend in a neighboring town. During the return journey, in the compartment opposite her sat a young man, intelligent, with interesting person, casually dressed, middle aged. And he looked at her intently.

“And suddenly I realized,” said Anna Pavlovna, “that he was giving me some instructions. The train slowed down as we approached the station in front of Zhitomir. The man stood up, and I also stood up and followed him. I felt that I simply could not help but go. We went out into the vestibule. And at that time, my friend appeared from the next compartment and turned to me: “Anya, you’re crazy!” Zhitomir is the next station! “I turned in her direction, and this man disappeared as if into thin air, and I never saw him again. Meanwhile, the train moved on."

Then, when after everything that happened, my sister and I were in Odessa, we met with Anna Pavlovna’s friend. “She waited for Svetik throughout the war,” this woman told us. “But when the Germans were leaving, she came to me with a small suitcase, completely pale, looking somewhere into the distance and saying: “I’m leaving.”

Her friend tried to reason with her, but Anna Pavlovna stood her ground: “I’m leaving.”

* * *

He was not allowed abroad for a long time. As a test trip, he was sent to China, where he played in front of Mao Zedong. Svetik later said that Mao smiled at him when they met and drummed his fingers in the air, wanting to show how Richter played the piano.

Then, through the efforts of many people, in particular Lyubov Orlova (Svetik believed that it was she who saved him from arrest, she was quite an influential person), they finally began to let him go abroad.

Orlova, who studied music with Richter's father, was herself a good pianist. She then appeared more than once in Svetik’s life. So, Lyubov Petrovna was able to persuade him to play the role of Liszt in the film “Composer Glinka”. Although Svetik himself really didn’t want this.

He had a good relationship with Lyubov Petrovna. She was connected with the organs. It simply implied that, as someone who constantly traveled abroad, she had certain duties to the KGB. But I used them to help my friends. For example, Richter should go on tour abroad.

Minister of Culture Furtseva then asked him: “Will you come back?” Richter replied: “Of course!”

It was then that he met his mother for the first time. Their meeting took place at an official banquet after Richter's concert. Before this, Anna Pavlovna was offered to come to Russia herself, but she did not want to.

* * *

In October 1962, an article by Paul Moore, who witnessed Richter’s meeting with his mother, appeared in the American magazine High Fidelity.

More than two decades later, translated by L. Kanevsky, it will be republished by the magazine “ Music life", a copy of which was given to me by Vera Ivanovna.

It so happened that it was Moore, who in 1958 was the first to write about Richter in the Western press, did everything to make this meeting take place. Having learned that a certain Frau Richter lived in the small German town of Schwäbischgmünd, who called herself the pianist’s mother, he immediately got into the car and went to see her. Before this, in all conversations, Richter himself answered questions about his parents that “they died.” That’s why the foreign journalist and musicologist wanted to figure out for himself what kind of Frau Richter he was.

Having found a small two-storey house, one of the apartments in which that same lady and her husband occupied, Moore prepared to explain who he was and why he had come. But as soon as he appeared on the threshold, the hostess herself recognized him.

“My confusion was cleared up,” recalled Paul Moore, “when she told me that a relative living in America had sent her the October 1958 issue of High Fidelity, which contained my article on Richter. Frau said: “Ever since we saw her, we have been praying all the time to meet you. We haven’t had any contact with Slava since 1941, so even the opportunity to see someone who saw him himself was a real sensation for us.”

Anna Pavlovna - and it was, of course, she - told the American about the circumstances of her departure from the Soviet Union: “Father of Slava was arrested along with about six thousand other Odessa residents wearing German surnames. This was the order received from Beria. My husband did nothing wrong, nothing. He was just a musician, and so was I; most of our ancestors and relatives were either musicians or artists, and we never political activity. The only thing he could be accused of was that back in 1927 he gave music lessons at the German Consulate in Odessa. But under Stalin and Beria, this was quite enough to arrest him and put him in prison. Then they killed him.

When the Axis troops reached Odessa, the city was occupied mainly by the Romanians; then they began to retreat, my second husband and I left with them.

It was impossible to take much with me, but I took everything I could related to the memories of Slava. After leaving Odessa, we lived in Romania, Hungary, then Poland, then Germany.”

That meeting between Moore and Anna Pavlovna did not last long. “Frau Richter mainly tried to extract from me any, the most insignificant news about Slava, or, as she sometimes called him, Svetik, which translated means “little light.” At the same time, Anna Pavlovna passed through a journalist a short note for her son, which began with the words “Mein uber alles Geliebter!” (My most beloved) and ended with “Deine Dich liebende Anna” (Loving you Anna).”

Through a mutual friend, Paul Moore managed to send a note to Richter in Moscow.

The pianist's first meeting with his mother took place in the fall of 1960 in New York, where impresario Solomon Hurok arranged a Richter concert. Anna Pavlovna later recalled that she had to prove to Yurok for so long who she was related to Richter that she felt like she was being interrogated by the police. At the same time, Richter was asked whether he was going to seek his father’s rehabilitation. To which Richter replied: “How can you rehabilitate an innocent person?”

After that first meeting, Anna Pavlovna, on behalf of the Soviet Minister of Culture Furtseva, was invited to Moscow - for a visit or for good. But the woman refused.

And, in turn, she invited her son to visit. This visit became possible two years later.

Paul Moore left detailed memories of the meeting, which he also attended. “The modest two-room apartment, in fact, turned out to be the museum of Svyatoslav Richter. All the walls were covered with photographs of him from childhood to adulthood. One of them showed him made up as Franz Liszt, whose role he once played in a Soviet film about Mikhail Glinka. Colored watercolors of the Richter houses in Zhitomir and Odessa, as well as the corner in the Odessa house where his bed stood, hung there.

One of the photographs of young Slava at the age of sixteen proves that in his youth, before his blond hair began to gradually disappear, he was truly strikingly handsome.

The mistress of the house said that her son had mixed Russian, Polish, German, Swedish and Hungarian blood...

Frau Richter took her son around the apartment and showed him the paintings that she had saved from their old nest in Odessa. Richter looked at the pencil drawing his old house in Zhitomir and another in Odessa.”

Nina Lvovna was also in Germany with Richter. Their train arrived from Paris. Richter and Dorliac were met at the station by Paul Moore. “The couple arrived on time, carrying with them a lot of luggage, including a cardboard box in which, as Nina Dorliak explained with a grin, rested an excellent top hat, without which, as Slava decided, he simply could not appear in London (the next point of the tour after Germany Richter - I. O.). With the same friendly mockery, Richter showed a long round package wrapped in brown paper: according to him, it was a floor lamp that Nina intended to carry with her from London to Moscow via Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna and Bucharest.

It turned out that they forgot something from their luggage in Paris. “Richter heard this, but immediately again turned to us carefree and continued the conversation, without losing the smile on his face; Nina had to look into the loss herself and establish what exactly disappeared on the way.

“Of course,” she said, giving way to momentary irritation, “I remember exactly where you left it.”

- I left? — Richter asked, and his eyes widened with indignation.

“Nothing,” Nina said soothingly. “You can send a telegram...”

They stayed in Germany for a total of several days.

On the eve of his departure, when Nina Dorliak went shopping, Richter decided to buy flowers for five women who had visited his mother’s house the day before. Together with him in flower shop Paul Moore also went.

“The store where we were sent had an unusually wide selection, and Richter, although it was already late, spared no time in thinking about the decision. He acted according to this method: he restored in his memory the image of each of the women separately, concentrating all his attention on her, on the impression that she made on him, and then made the appropriate purchase. In the end, he was satisfied with his purchases - the flowers filled a huge cardboard box almost the size of a coffin.

And, apparently, he was given special pleasure by one inspiration he caught: for that Latvian woman whom he first saw barefoot, working in the sweat of her brow, he bought a branch of delicate orchids.

When we returned home, with great difficulty we managed to convince him that there was no time left to personally present the bouquets. He absolutely seriously asked his mother to explain to the ladies that such a violation of etiquette did not occur intentionally on his part...”

The same Paul Moore recalled how “Frau Richter’s husband” behaved during the way back to the station, from where Richter and Dorliak were supposed to go to London: “He laughed nervously and chatted incessantly the whole way. Suddenly he unexpectedly asked: “Svetik, does your passport still say that you are German?” Richter, a little warily, as if not knowing what he was getting at, replied: “Yes.” “Ooh, that's good! - The satisfied old man laughed. -But next time you come to Germany, you should definitely have German name, for example Helmut, or something like that.” Richter smiled condescendingly, but, quietly exchanging glances with his wife, he said decisively: “The name Svyatoslav suits me quite well.”

At the station, while they were waiting for the train, everyone decided to have tea and cakes. We sat down at the table and made an order. But Richter last moment I changed my mind about drinking tea and went to wander around the city. He appeared on the platform at the same time as the train.

Then Frau Richter tried to impress upon her son how important it was for her to hear from him. But I doubted the effectiveness of her requests: Nina once told me with a laugh that in all these years that they knew each other, Slava sent her many telegrams, but never wrote a single letter, not even a postcard.”

Paul Moore does not know what the last conversation between mother and son was about, since he deliberately left them alone. He approached Frau Richter only when the train started moving. “Frau Richter, smiling sadly, whispered to herself: “Well, my dream is over.”

* * *

When Svetik returned and I asked him how the meeting went, he replied: “Mom is not there, there is a mask instead.”

I tried to ask him about the details, because so many years had passed. “Kondratiev did not leave us for a minute,” said Slava. - And instead of mom there is a mask. We were not alone for a single moment. But I didn't want to. We kissed and that was it."

Nina Dorliak was also with him then and tried to distract Anna Pavlovna’s husband, coming up with all sorts of tricks, for example, asking to show the house. But he did not give in.

After that, Svetik traveled to Germany several more times. The newspapers wrote: “Richter is going to his mother.” Everything looked very nice. But they only talked about art.

When Anna Pavlovna became seriously ill, Richter spent all the money he earned on tour on her treatment. His refusal to hand over his royalties to the state caused a big scandal at the time.

He learned about his mother’s death from Kondratiev a few minutes before the start of his concert in Vienna. This was his only unsuccessful performance. “The end of a legend,” the newspapers wrote the next day. He also went to funerals.

He sent me a postcard: “Vipa, you know our news. But you also know that for me, my mother died a long time ago. Maybe I'm insensitive. I’ll come and talk..."

The betrayal of his mother became for him the collapse of faith in people, in the opportunity to have his own home. This terrible tragedy became for him like a capsule in which he lived his whole life. “I can’t have a family, only art,” he said.

He went into art as if into a monastery.

And he also started a cult of his father. He collected his photos, letters...

* * *

Richter was a surprisingly unpretentious person. He loved to go abroad and went to the most exquisite restaurants there. But when he came to me, he asked me to fry some potatoes for him.

Only cellist Natasha Gutman, whom he adored, could cut his hair. As well as her husband, violinist Oleg Kogan.

* * *

Having said these words, Vera Ivanovna suggested calling Gutman. The clock showed three o'clock in the morning. But Gutman was happy about Vera Ivanovna’s call. They were talking on speakerphone.

“We are now remembering Slava. And I talked about you,” said Vera Ivanovna. “We drink to your health, Natasha.” And, touching the microphone on the phone with a glass of vodka, my interlocutor drained it to the bottom.

We also went crazy. And they continued the conversation.

* * *

Svetik found it easy to do what was difficult for us. Once we walked many kilometers to an ancient monastery. Approaching its walls, they literally collapsed from fatigue. And Svetik immediately went to inspect the monastery.

He was interested in painting. Falk said that if Richter had devoted his life to this, he would have become a great artist.

Richter loved animals. When he was offered to sit in the chair on which the cat was sleeping, Svetik refused. “No, you’ll have to wake her up. I’d rather sit somewhere else.”

He loved our dog Alma so much that he could eat dumplings from the same plate with her.

When he was still very small, he told his uncle: “I don’t love you. You are bad because you go hunting and kill animals. And they are our brothers.”

And one day he came to me very upset, he had no face. “You know,” he says. — I was told that director Tarkovsky burned a live cow during filming.

I hate him. Anyone who can commit such a brutal act is not human. If he could not otherwise express what he wanted, then he lacked talent. I don’t even want to hear his name anymore.”

He had some kind of internal connection, unity with nature. Be it a person, a leaf from a tree, fire. He was never afraid of anything. We used to have Christmas trees at home and decorate them with cotton wool, it was his idea. And one day the cotton wool caught fire. We were confused, and Svetik put out the fire with one hand (he had wide palms). “You could get burned,” we were afraid. “No,” he answers. “If you take the fire right away, you will never get burned.”

* * *

We sat with him at his dacha on Nikolina Gora six days before his death. He believed in the future, said that in a year he would start playing... Suddenly Svetik raised his head and followed with his gaze a bird that had taken off from a branch. “Do you know why she got so excited? - he asked me. — She noticed the cat. Over there, do you see her sneaking along the fence? But it’s too late, the bird is out of danger. Well done! I’m very happy for her!”

On the way to the house we saw a dead pigeon. “Vipa, let’s bury him,” suggested Svetik. We dug a hole, buried the dove and only after that we went home...

Yes, I saw him six days before his death.

He recalled the third night of the Nazi bombing, when we extinguished German lighters on the roof of the Neuhaus house. Richter was then very shocked by the crisscrossing beams of searchlights in the sky, looking for planes. “It’s like Wagner,” he said. - "Death of gods"".

I remembered Zvenigorod, where I came up with the idea of ​​holding my festival. He said: “You know, Vipa, they’ll probably take me to the sea again. I need one more year before I start playing. I’m already playing a little.”

He didn't play then because of depression. I experienced my complete isolation from native land, From friends. They say he was in France, at the sea, which he loved. Yes, I did. But for three months to sit and just look at the sea...

But he couldn’t argue with Nina Dorliak...

* * *

The union with Nina Lvovna did not become a way out of the misfortune that befell him. Even according to her friends, she was a deeply suspicious person, with a painful attitude towards life.

She was much older than Richter. He and Richter spoke to each other on first-name terms until the end of their days.

The widow N.L. Dorliak was the initiator of a very controversial film about Richter. "Unconquered Richter"

In my next post I will introduce you to the music of the great genius.

And at the end, watch a short film about Richter’s 3 muses: mother, Anna Pavlovna, Dorlean and Prokhorova.

People's Artist of the RSFSR (1955).
People's Artist of the USSR (1961).
Hero of Socialist Labor (1975).

Born on March 7 (20), 1915 in Zhitomir, in a family of musicians.
His father was an organist and taught at the city music school. He received his initial musical education from his father, but learned a lot on his own (in particular, he learned to read orchestral scores as a child).
He made his debut as a soloist in Odessa on February 19, 1934, performing a number of difficult pieces by Chopin; worked as an accompanist for some time Odessa Theater opera and ballet.
In 1937, he began to study in Moscow with professor of the Moscow Conservatory G.G. Neuhaus (was enrolled in the conservatory without exams; received a diploma in 1947).
While still a student (1940), Richter made his debut in Moscow, premiering Prokofiev’s just-written Sixth Piano Sonata, and the author was so satisfied that two years later he commissioned the pianist to premiere his Seventh Sonata (Richter later became the first performer of the Eighth and Ninth Sonatas) .
In 1945 he took part in the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians and received first prize; in 1949 he became a laureate of the Stalin Prize. Since 1945, he began performing, in addition to solo concerts, in an ensemble with singer Nina Lvovna Dorliak (1908–1998), who became his constant musical partner and life partner.

Richter’s performances were a huge success (Neuhaus directly called his student a “genius”; D.D. Shostakovich spoke of him as an “extraordinary phenomenon” - among other things, the pianist had a “photographic memory”, instantly learned new works and excellently read orchestral pieces from sight scores, including newly created ones). In 1960, Richter gave concerts in Helsinki, Chicago and New York, and soon became extremely popular in the West. However, the pianist was not at all inclined to lead the life of a traveling virtuoso: an unusually serious and deep musician, Richter preferred to constantly work on improving his skills and expanding his repertoire.

In 1964, Richter, with the support of the record company EMI, founded the annual summer festival in Touraine around French city Tour, in which he regularly took part. In 1989, with the patronage and participation of Richter in the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin, the “December Evenings” festival began to be held, within the framework of which the musician’s dream of a synthesis of arts was realized: Richter was passionate about watercolors throughout his life, had a keen understanding of painting and collected it. He also undertook the experience of performing as a conductor, but subsequently did not continue it.

During his life, Richter toured a lot in different countries of the world, but he considered his most interesting tour to be a huge concert tour of Russia in 1986, when he, traveling by train from Moscow to Vladivostok, gave concerts along the way, including in small towns. Richter played his last concert in Lübeck (Germany) in March 1995. In the last years of his life, he gave a series of interviews to the French musician and documentary filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon, which formed the basis of the film Richter: L'Insoumis (in Russian translation, The Unconquered Richter), where for the first time he spoke with great frankness about the deep experiences that accompanied his creative path in the conditions of the Soviet regime, about his worldview, about relationships with various musicians.

The pianist's repertoire was enormous. Its center was the classics, primarily Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms; he played a lot of Scriabin, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich. Throughout his life, the musician gravitated towards ensemble performance, performing together with the greatest contemporary musicians, Russian and foreign (in particular, with D.F. Oistrakh and M.L. Rostropovich, and since the 1970s - with the then young O. M. Kagan, N.T. Gutman, G.M. Richter's pianistic style can be generally described as powerful, courageous, highly concentrated, and devoid of external brilliance; each time his manner matched the style of the music he performed. He made many recordings, and the best of them were recordings directly from concerts.

prizes and awards

3rd All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians (1st prize, 1945)
Stalin Prize (1950)
Lenin Prize (1961)
State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. I. Glinka (1987) - for concert programs of 1986, performed in the cities of Siberia and the Far East
State Prize of the Russian Federation (1996)
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (1995)
Three Orders of Lenin (1965, 1975, 1985)
Order of the October Revolution (1980)
Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1985)
Grammy Award (1960)
Robert Schumann Prize (1968)
Leonie Sonning Award (1986)
Franco Abbiati Prize (1986)
Triumph Award (1993)
Honorary Doctor of Oxford University (1992)
Honorary Doctor of the University of Strasbourg (1977)
Honorary citizen of the city of Tarusa (Kaluga region) (1994)
Full member of the Academy of Creativity (Moscow)
Gold Badge of the Order of Merit of the Polish People's Republic (Poland, 1983)
Grand Cross with star and shoulder sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Germany, 1995)
Order of Peace and Friendship of Peoples (Hungary, 1985)
“Golden Disc” prize from the Melodiya company - for the recording of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1