German by father, who endlessly loved Russia. A "homeless child" who has chosen the whole world as his home. An obstinate proud man who could not be broken by either war, or the threat of arrest, or the roar of enemy guns almost outside the windows of the concert hall.
Pianist Svyatoslav Richter became one of the most famous Russian musicians, having almost entirely lived with his country in the turbulent 20th century.
The son of a musician, composer of the Zhytomyr Conservatory, Svyatoslav was born in 1915. That same year, when Russia's victory in the First World War still seemed possible, the soldiers of the empire marched without fear to the German trenches with a bayonet, laying down under machine-gun fire, and on the horizon of the composer, the terrible events of the revolution collaborated.
The father of the future pianist was a talented musician of German origin, his mother was a Russian noblewoman. Not the best combination for a country in which, during the first three years of Svyatoslav's life, the Germans were first hated, and then the nobles began to be destroyed.
In the early years of his life, Richter was not favored with special attention: his parents had to work hard, and even find a way to survive the attacks of the agents of the young Soviet Cheka, who could not help but pay attention to the noblewoman and the German in the former stronghold of the counter-revolution - Odessa.
Miraculously or with great difficulty, the Richter family still managed to survive the revolution and the Civil War, to be able to survive when explosions rumbled around and rifles of firing squads rattled around.
But little Svyatoslav, perhaps, managed to survive the terrible times quite easily: there was already music in his life then.
obstinate student
Speaking of Richter, many researchers claim that he was self-taught. Allegedly, the brilliant pianist Svyatoslav Richter did not learn anything, but comprehended the great secret of music at the snap of his fingers. This is not entirely true.
Svyatoslav's first teacher was his own mother, a talented student of Richter's father, who was a composer, pianist and also played the organ.
For a short time, even his father Theophilus tried to teach his child music. But they didn't get along. The student was caught obstinate: he completely refused to play scales, exercises, etudes.
The child declared that scales and exercises had nothing to do with music. For which he was repeatedly flogged by his beloved papa, who knew how to teach music only in this way, worked at the conservatory, where he had already learned more than one musician, and besides, he was distinguished by German formalism.
Misunderstood by his father, but encouraged by his mother, Svyatoslav spat on the scales and began to play everything that came across in the house. Any sheet of music left unattended became the fair prey of the young virtuoso.
Impressing his father and surprising his mother, the young Richter, who never received a full education, managed to become a fully capable accompanist at the Odessa House of Sailors by the age of fifteen, which is easy to expect from a child who managed to play Chopin's nocturne at the age of ten.
Again and again refuting his father's beliefs, Richter becomes an assistant conductor, begins to give recitals, showing excellent pianist skills, is interested in theater and opera, and writes plays of his own composition.
In 1937 Richter entered the Moscow Conservatory. A brilliant and caustic teacher, also a German, by the name of Neuhaus, who was widely known in musical circles, taught at the conservatory. Thus began the true story of the pianist Svyatoslav Richter.
Here is what the teacher of a brilliant man himself said about this:
“And so he came. A tall, thin young man, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a lively, surprisingly attractive face. He sat down at the piano, put his big, soft, nervous hands on the keys, and began to play. He played very reservedly, I would say, even emphatically simply and strictly. His performance immediately captured me with some amazing penetration into the music. I whispered to my student, "I think he's a brilliant musician."
And again, Richter showed himself to be an obstinate student, in 1937, in Moscow. Being descended from a German father and a noble mother, Svyatoslav refused to go to classes in political subjects, mandatory for students of the conservatory.
The twenty-two-year-old student declared that they had nothing to do with music; moreover, he called Marx "some kind of utopian socialist."
But at the insistence of Neuhaus, who had been waiting for such a student all his life, Richter was reinstated at school. Svyatoslav Richter was not an oppositionist or a dissenter, he was simply never afraid of anything, did not allow anyone to tell him and never did what he did not want to.
Richter and war
In war, there are things no less important than a grenade thrown under the belly of an enemy tank, or an accurate bayonet strike that allows the enemy to die for his homeland. There is such a thing - fighting spirit, a state without which a soldier will not be able to fight, let alone win.
Beginning in the winter of 1941, pianist Svyatoslav Richter began to travel around the USSR, engulfed in war. With propaganda teams, he travels to the front, with concerts he appears in cities destroyed by bombs.
Wherever people hear music born from the fingers of a man of genius, they again find the strength to take up arms and fight for their freedom.
In Moscow, Novgorod, Bryansk, Tula - everywhere, Richter's music helps tired fighters regain faith in victory. In 1944, Svyatoslav's music was heard in Leningrad, devastated by the blockade.
There, in the concert hall, the windows are shattered, the walls are damaged from bomb explosions, it's cold, people are sitting in fur coats, and Richter is on stage only in a concert coat, he is not cold: he plays music - great classics for himself and for these people who survived hell, smiles on their faces again. He first brought to Leningrad the works of the "disgraced" Prokofiev.
In the war, Richter also meets his love - the singer Nina Dorliak, a woman with whom he will never part and who will outlive him by one year.
Unbreakable Music
According to Neuhaus, there was nothing to teach Richter, it was only necessary to develop his talent, because Svyatoslav was always with the piano for you. Knowing how to choose the right music for every occasion, Richter had an amazing sense of time, a unique style.
He combined the strength, soul, emotions invested in his works with such a level of technical performance that was unattainable for any other musician. Svyatoslav knew how to play each work in such a way that it would be remembered, that it would sink into the soul, become for a person a bright moment of musical revelation.
Unlike the Canadian virtuoso pianist who considered going on stage a duel, a struggle between the will of the musician and the audience, pianist and orchestra, Richter saw his flock in the public.
The brilliant pianist in his performance seemed to take the audience by the hand and lead along the waves of music to where its amazing sound is born. Not without reason, starting from the eighties, Richter ordered the hall to be plunged into complete darkness, leaving only the notes and the piano lit.
He believed that music should be seen and felt, and not looked at the pianist. Also, unlike Gould, Richter hated studio recordings.
Any of his concerts was unique: for each audience, whether it was a huge concert hall or a small “closet” of the stage in a village club, he chose exactly the music and the performance that allowed him to touch the audience for a living, to feel the classics just for himself.
A Grammy winner, a pioneer of music festivals in France and Japan, a man capable of playing an out-of-tune old grand piano somewhere in a restaurant at the station, if only he had an appreciative listener, Richter hated one thing - to be idolized. He did not play for fame, not for money, he played music for people.
Musical genius Svyatoslav Richter did not grow up on scales and etudes. His most powerful "fortissimo" and bewitching "pianissimo" is a gift of God, which at one fine moment declared itself.
Richter's first teacher was his father. Teofil Danilovich, a graduate of the Vienna Academy of Music, gave his first lessons to his son at the age of five. It was not a standard piano course. Only the basics.
Then Richter studied himself - according to the works of the greats. I just took all the notes that were in the house. Liked, for example, Chopin. Having learned to read like a virtuoso, after graduating from school he worked as an accompanist at the Odessa Philharmonic. At the age of 19 he gave his first solo concert and only at 22 decided to enter the Moscow Conservatory. Richter was considered self-taught ... and accepted.
“In my opinion, he is a brilliant musician,” said the venerable pianist Heinrich Neuhaus, “after Beethoven’s Twenty-Eighth Sonata, the young man played several of his compositions, read from the sheet. And everyone present wanted him to play more and more ... "
And he played. Because there was nothing to teach Richter. Neuhaus simply developed the talent of his favorite student.
The young virtuoso played almost all the piano classics, except for Beethoven's Fifth Concerto. In this work, he recognized in advance the superiority of his teacher. Richter completed his studies as an already well-known performer. His state exam was a concert in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. And along with the diploma, the musician was awarded the “golden line” on the marble plaque in the foyer of the Small Hall.
At home - a victory at the All-Union competition of performers. In the West - "Grammy" for the Second Piano Concerto by Brahms.
For the first time, a Soviet musician received this prestigious award. Richter toured extensively. He preferred chamber rooms to huge halls. Sofitam - darkness, in which a ray of light snatches out only notes, so as not to distract the viewer from the main thing - music.
More than seventy concerts a year. The widest repertoire: from the baroque to the works of contemporaries.
“Last night I listened to Prokofiev. Richter played. It's a miracle. I still can't remember. No words (in any order) can even remotely convey what it was. It almost couldn't be."
Anna Akhmatova
Even during the period of the unspoken ban on Prokofiev's music, Richter performed his works. Including the Ninth Sonata, which the great composer dedicated to the great pianist.
Svyatoslav Richter. Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Budapest. 1954
“But I have something interesting for you,” S. Prokofiev once said to Richter, and showed the sketches of the Ninth Sonata. This will be your sonata... Just don't think it won't be effective... Not to impress the Great Hall.' But Richter still amazed ... With his talent.
He was versatile. One of the pianist's first hobbies since childhood was painting. Already a famous musician, he took lessons from his friend Robert Falk, an artist at the intersection of modern and avant-garde.
As a result, Richter's airy pastels and December Evenings appeared - a harmonious combination of fine art and music.
The pianist entrusted the Pushkin Museum with his unique collection of paintings and drawings. Many of the paintings were donated to the pianist by his artist friends.
General recognition often weighed on Richter. Despite world fame, the famous musician remained a modest man. Having traveled all over the globe, he considered the Oka and Zvenigorod the most beautiful places. Loved fried potatoes. And he did not like the increased attention of journalists: "My interviews are my concerts." And the most admissible praise for yourself: “It seems that this time something happened ...”
Richter Svyatoslav Teofilovich
(Born in 1915 - died in 1997)
Outstanding pianist, music legend of the 20th century. An amazing virtuoso performer. One of the organizers of the famous Moscow festival "December Evenings".
According to critic Boris Lifanovsky, “the phenomenon called “Svyatoslav Richter” is so immense and majestic that in order to speak about it in detail and seriously, considerable courage is probably needed. Richter passed away recently, we all had the honor of being his contemporaries, one might say, got used to it. It is all the more surprising to observe how his name and his work are rapidly leaving the present in the history of music, becoming one of its greatest pages.
Svyatoslav was born in Zhitomir, in a family with strong musical traditions. His paternal grandfather, Daniil Richter, was a tuner. He was a real ethnic German, but originally from Poland, and emigrated to Russia in search of work. A piano master, he opened his own workshop in Zhytomyr. His son Theophilus was the youngest of five children and the only one who connected his life with music. After serving in the army, he was sent to study in Vienna, which at that time was the musical capital of the world. Then one could easily meet Mahler or Grieg on the street, and Brahms regularly attended the opera. Theophilus Richter was educated as a composer and pianist and showed great promise.
After graduating from the conservatory, he did not return to his homeland for a long time: he played at the court of Queen Draga, gave private lessons for Austrian aristocrats. Returning to Zhytomyr after 22 years, Theophilus married the noblewoman Anna Moskaleva. Her father, Pavel Petrovich, who at one time even chaired the Zemstvo, was categorically against such an unequal marriage, but nevertheless gave his consent.
On March 20, 1915, a son was born to the Richters, who was named Svyatoslav. A year later, they moved to Odessa, where their father was offered a place at the conservatory. In 1918, a terrible typhus epidemic broke out. Svyatoslav at that time was visiting his grandfather in Zhytomyr. There he fell ill, and with him his mother's sister Elena. The aunt soon died, and news came from Odessa that my father was also ill. The mother considered it necessary to be near her husband, and the boy remained for three years in the care of numerous relatives (there were seven children in Anna's family).
The greatest influence on little Svyatoslav was his aunt Mary, who at that time was 16 years old. It was to her that he owed his hobbies for painting, theater and cinema, carried through his whole life. If the mother of the future pianist was a real secular lady, then her aunt was an eccentric, cheerful woman who constantly invented something. She painted all the time and tried to introduce her nephew to painting, who was not against it at all. At that time, little Richter was absolutely not interested in music and was going to become an artist.
Upon returning to Odessa in 1921, the boy found himself in a completely different world. Music reigned here. Father not only taught, but also played the organ in the local church, where everyone went to listen to him on Sundays. Musical evenings were constantly arranged at home. All this led to the fact that at the age of about eight years the boy himself sat down at the instrument. He never played scales, but immediately took up Chopin's nocturne. Subsequently, the young talent more than once surprised his father, who was engaged in his primary musical education. For example, Svyatoslav himself learned to read orchestral scores. True, music did not yet seem to him a choice for life. Just at the direction of his mother, he performed in front of the guests something like a mandatory program, but of his own choice. The desire to become a pianist appeared after the first public performance in the house of the Semyonov sisters in 1931.
From the age of 15, Svyatoslav, who was in love with the theater, began to accompany in various concerts and even worked for three years at the Palace of Sailors. Then it was time for the opera. Initially, he was taken as a ballet tutor. However, he soon made his debut as a solo artist. It happened on February 19, 1934 in the hall of the club of engineers. The audience enthusiastically appreciated the performance of rather complex works by Chopin, Svyatoslav was even called for an encore.
After working for some time as an accompanist of the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater and trying to avoid military service, Richter went to study in Moscow. In 1937, without exams, he was enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory, in the class of G. G. Neuhaus. Here is how the great teacher later recalled this event: “He did not receive any musical education, he did not study anywhere, and they told me that such a young man wants to enter the conservatory. He played Beethoven, Chopin, and I whispered to those around me: “I think he is a genius.” Later, almost everyone who hears Richter's play will come to the same opinion. Even when he was a student, S. Prokofiev heard him and was so captivated by the mastery of his performance that in 1940 he entrusted this generally young and little-known pianist with the premiere of his Sixth Piano Sonata. Subsequently, the musician will become the first performer of the rest of Prokofiev's sonatas, so he will be delighted with his playing. And the Ninth Sonata was even dedicated to Richter by the composer.
On the eve of the war, a tragedy occurred in the Richter family, which Svyatoslav Teofilovich did not mention for a long time. However, in his declining years, he told about this in one of the documentaries about himself. Later, this story was repeated by him repeatedly in various books and diary entries. Apparently, it was a very painful topic that tormented the musician for a long time. The story was worthy of a ladies' novel, and perhaps it would not have been perceived so sadly if it had not happened in life.
Back in the years of the revolution, the son of a prominent tsarist official fled to Odessa. He himself was German, but in order to avoid persecution, he changed his surname to Kondratiev. He showed promise as a musician, but, again for fear of exposure, chose to leave the conservatory and feign bone tuberculosis. The role required being bedridden. He earned his living by giving private composition lessons. Richter was among his students. The boy did not like the lessons, but he regularly attended them. As a result, his mother became very close to the imaginary patient. Anna Pavlovna was not a compassionate and soft-hearted woman, but here she succumbed (according to Richter) to suggestion. Sergei Kondratyev was moved to their house, and she selflessly looked after him. Richter, as we remember, was in Moscow at that time and had no idea about what was happening in the family of his parents. Meanwhile, with the beginning of the war, everyone was offered to evacuate, but the mother refused. Her father, understanding everything perfectly, stayed with her and was shot in 1941 on a denunciation as a German, shortly before the arrival of the invaders. With the advent of the enemy, the "sick" suddenly recovered and after 20 years got up and went. Anna Petrovna fled with him to Germany, where they got married, and Kondratiev preferred to take his wife's surname. When he was mistaken for the father of a great pianist, he did not mind at all and even took advantage of it ...
Throughout the war, Svyatoslav Richter traveled with concerts, traveling both the north of Russia and the Transcaucasus. He considered this period the beginning of his career. In the summer of 1942, his first solo concert took place in the Small Hall of the Conservatory. When he played in Leningrad in 1944, the windows were broken in the hall, and the audience sat in fur coats, because it was very cold. Richter, on the other hand, played as always, claiming that he was warmed by inspiration.
In 1945, Svyatoslav Richter became the winner of the All-Union Competition of Performing Musicians. In 1947, he finally completed his studies at the conservatory, interrupted by the war, and in 1949 he already became a laureate of the Stalin Prize. At the same time, in addition to solo performances, he began to give joint concerts with Nina Lvovna Dorliak. They met during the war in 1943 at one of the then numerous memorial services, where both performed. Here is how the musician himself recalled this: “And then the singer came out, I really liked her and looked like a princess. She sang wonderfully, and only then I realized that it was Nina Dorliak.
Nina Lvovna came from a fairly well-known theatrical and musical family. Like Richter, she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal and, like her mother, later became one of its most prominent professors. They lived together for more than 50 years, while until the end of their days they called each other only “you”. It all started in 1946, when Richter, not having his own housing (upon his arrival in Moscow, he lived with Neuhaus), moved to Nina Dorliak's apartment on the Arbat. These were two rooms in a communal apartment where she lived with her mother and nephew. And their last home was an apartment on the 16th floor on Nezhdanova Street, where now the Svyatoslav Richter Museum-Apartment is part of the Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin. They often arranged musical evenings, carnivals, movie screenings and even opera libretto readings for friends there.
Until Stalin's death in 1953, Richter did not travel abroad. He was an amazing person and never hid that he played at the funeral of the father of nations, where he was hastily taken from Tbilisi on a military plane. Svyatoslav was so alien to politics that he could not answer who Karl Marx was during the exam, and he recalled literally the following about this event: “I played the piano and saw closely the dead Stalin, and Malenkov, all the leaders. Played and went out."
Afterwards, Richter will travel all over the world with concerts, starting from Prague and all the way to the Far East. For example, in 1986 he performed 150 times. In total, he had 80 concert programs, and he played all of them from memory. The success was insane, but being a serious musician, Richter did not get hung up on tour. For him, self-improvement and constant work were the most important.
In 1964, Richter founded an annual festival in France, in Touraine, and took part in it constantly. And in 1989, with his participation, an annual event has been organized since then at the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin festival "December Evenings" (by the way, the pianist is the author of this name).
Unattainably great on the world stage, the maestro was very modest and never refused to perform at the smallest venues. Richter said: "I'm ready to play at school without a fee, I play in small halls without money, I don't care."
So in 1978, he readily responded to the request of I. T. Bobrovskaya, director of the Moscow Children's Art School No. 3. The warmest relations developed between the musician and the teachers of the school, and since then the concerts have become regular. Now this educational institution bears the name of Svyatoslav Richter.
The musician believed that "the public is always right" and "is not to blame for anything", but at the same time noted that he plays for himself and the better he plays for himself, the better the audience perceives the concerts. His mother admitted that, while carrying her son, she tried to watch and listen only to the most beautiful things, so that the child would perceive all this. Well, she did it. Svyatoslav Richter brought his amazing art to this world. People, listening to his game, became happier, better, cleaner and kinder. He never went against his conscience. At the first competition P. I. Tchaikovsky, he gave Van Cliburn 25 points, and the rest of the participants zero. Since then, he has not been invited to the jury.
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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 pianist Svyatoslav Richter is described by everyone who has ever heard his virtuoso performance of classical works. His repertoire includes works by Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, Haydn.
He had his own, individual approach to music, he felt the time and style, and the performance technique was brought to absolute perfection.
Childhood
Svyatoslav Richter was born in Zhytomyr in Ukraine, although at that time it was the Russian Empire, on March 20, 1915. The boy's father is a talented German pianist, organist, composer Theophil Danilovich Richter (1872-1941), taught music at the Odessa Conservatory and played the organ in the local church. Svyatoslav's mother's name was Anna Pavlovna Moskaleva (1892-1963), a hereditary Russian noblewoman, von Reinke's mother. Throughout the Civil War, little Svyatoslav lived with his aunt Tamara, from whom his nephew inherited a love of painting, which later became one of the serious hobbies after music.
Photo: Svyatoslav Richter in his youth In 1922, the boy and his family moved to Odessa, learning 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 theatrical plays and dreams of becoming a conductor. From 1930 to 1932, Svyatoslav gave two years to the Odessa Seaman's House, where he was accepted as a pianist-accompanist, after which he transferred to the local philharmonic society. In 1934, Richter gave his first recital, playing mainly Chopin's music. Soon after, 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, having got to the famous Heinrich Neuhaus, but in the same autumn he was expelled. The reason - Svyatoslav flatly refused to engage in 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 with a gold medal.
War
During the war years, the pianist gave concerts not only in Moscow, but also in other cities of the Soviet Union. He also visited besieged Leningrad. He tried to please his compatriots, exhausted by the war, with beautiful music and perfect performance. In his repertoire, new compositions are increasingly heard, he indescribably played the Seventh Piano Sonata by S. Prokofiev.
Parents
In the biography of Svyatoslav Richter there was one tragedy that he carefully concealed from others - the betrayal of his own mother. Before the war, the family lived in Odessa, my father served in the opera theater, my 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 the security officers, referring to the law of war, and shot, only because he was a German by nationality, which means a traitor waiting for the arrival of the Nazis. Mother at this time, unexpectedly for everyone, marries Sergei Kondratiev, a descendant of an official of Tsarist Russia, who fiercely hated the Soviet regime and even allows him to take the surname Richter.
Photo: Svyatoslav Richter with his mother and father Without waiting for Odessa to be occupied by Soviet troops, Anna and her newly-made husband flee abroad and settle in Germany. Svyatoslav at that time lives and studies in Moscow and knows nothing, all the war waiting for a meeting with his beloved mother, who was both an adviser and a friend for him. Upon learning of what had happened, the young man became isolated - it was a real disaster, the collapse of everything that used to be a shrine. He experienced this pain all his life, he even decided that he would never have a family - only creativity.
He had not 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, no longer happened. But nevertheless, when Richter found out about his mother's serious illness, he spent on her the entire fee that he earned on tour. Kondratiev informed Svyatoslav about her death just before the performance in Vienna - and the great pianist could not cope with the excitement and failed the concert. It was his only failure in his entire life.
Creation
Richter's name sounded after the war, the Third All-Union Competition brought him special 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 at home and in the socialist countries, but he was not released to the West. The reason for this was the pianist's friendship with Boris Pasternak and Sergei Prokofiev, who fell into disgrace. Prokofiev's music was tacitly banned, but this did not stop Richter from performing his works. In 1952, Richter's dream came true - he conducted for the first time at the premiere of the Symphony Orchestra. The solo part was played by M. Rostropovich. 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 the prestigious Grammy Award. His concert life was very intense - up to 70 concerts a year.
The work of Svyatoslav Richter is kept 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, where popular classical music was played and a demonstration of paintings corresponding to the theme took place. 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 Festivities festival in Touraine in 1964 and the Tarusa Music Festival in 1993.
In the early 90s, Richter was working on creating a school for young artists and musicians, where they could not only study, but also relax. The pianist considered the city of Tarusa, where his dacha was located, to be an ideal place for such a school. But in order to fulfill his dream, he needed money. This is how the idea of holding annual festivals, in which artists and musicians will participate, arose. To be able to hold them, the pianist organizes the Svyatoslav Richter Foundation, in which he becomes president. The pianist also donated his dacha to the foundation.
Painting
Another great love of Richter was painting. He had a whole collection of paintings and drawings that were presented to him by famous artists - K. Magalashvili, A Troyanovskaya, V. Shukhaeva, D. Krasnopevtseva.
He even had a picture of 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 some special sense of light, he somehow perceives space in his own way, has a vivid imagination and a phenomenal memory.
Personal life
Svyatoslav met his future wife in 1943. There were many rumors and gossip about the pianist's personal life, to the point that he was a homosexual, despite having a wife. The musician never told the details of family relationships - it was too personal. His wife's name was Nina Dorliak (1908-1998).
Photo: Svyatoslav Richter with his wife Nina Dorliak She was the daughter of the popular singer K Dorliak. During their acquaintance, 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 a long life - 50 years, 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 is an appeal to you, living in different rooms ... According to the will of N. Dorliak, their apartment became the property of the Pushkin Museum.
Museum
Since 1999, the apartment, previously owned by Richter, has become a museum. Here everything remains as it was during the life of the great pianist. All things are in their places, the piano with notes 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 still contain notes, cassettes, records, which were given as a gift to the great maestro from friends and numerous admirers.
The original of Prokofiev's manuscript with the Ninth Sonata dedicated to Richter is also safely stored here. The musician's office amazes with an abundance of books; he was fond of Russian classics. Painting, another serious hobby of the pianist, occupies a separate place in the museum. Here are his handwritten works and paintings by his artist friends, eminent and not so famous. The museum is open to everyone who wants to listen to good music or take part in one of the musical evenings.
Recognition for the merits of the greatest of musicians
Creativity Richter 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 at once by two universities - Strasbourg and Oxford.
He was awarded the orders of the "October Revolution" and "For Services to the Fatherland". He is a laureate of numerous domestic and foreign awards, is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Literature received in France, a Hero of Socialist Labor and a member of the Moscow Academy of Creativity.
In memory of a pianist
In 2011, a memorial plaque was installed in Zhytomyr, the birthplace of the great musician. The name of Svyatoslav Richter was given to the International Piano Competition. In the city of Yagotin in Ukraine and in the city of Bydgoszcz in Poland there are monuments to the unsurpassed maestro. One of the streets of Moscow also bears the name of Svyatoslav Richter.
Richter last performed in public in Germany in 1995. The musician died in Moscow on August 1, 1997. Place of burial - Novodevichy cemetery.
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Original post Art_Kaleidoscope
Thank you! Very interesting!“I can’t have a family, only art,” he said. He went into art as into a monastery.
“Svetik had a feeling that nothing would happen to him. As if he was on friendly terms with all the elements of nature. And even the terrible episodes of his life, which crushed faith in the most beloved person - in his mother, and the death of his father could not extinguish his inner light. Unfortunately, I know exactly how it was. In 1937, Slava came from Odessa to Moscow to enter the conservatory with Heinrich Neuhaus. Although Svetik did not study anywhere (only at home his father studied with him), Neuhaus said: "This is the student I have been waiting for all my life." Then Heinrich Gustavovich wrote in one of his letters: “Richter is a man of genius. Kind, selfless, gentle, and capable of feeling pain and compassion.”
And Slava began to study at the conservatory. At first he lived with friends, and then he was registered with Neuhaus, and he moved there
ODESSA - THE CITY WHERE THE WAR CAUGHT RICHTER'S PARENTS
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. A very beautiful woman of the Karenin type - plump, with graceful movements. She was completely red.
When they asked her what she dyes her hair with, Anna Pavlovna called Slava, and he ran out "as red as an orange."
If the father was from him, perhaps somewhat far away, then the mother was for Glory to everyone. She cooked very well and sewed wonderfully. The family basically lived on the money that Anna Pavlovna earned with her skill. In the morning she sewed, in the afternoon she cleaned and cooked, and in the evening she took off her bathrobe, put on a dress, combed her hair and received guests.
Among the friends of the house was a certain Sergei Dmitrievich Kondratiev.
It was a man who looked very much like Lenin. A disabled person who could only move around the apartment. Anna Pavlovna brought him meals.
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. Glory was irritated by his sweetness.
Kondratiev, for example, wrote to Sveta in Moscow: “Dear Slavonka! Now we have a winter-winter, frosty taps with his ice stick. How good the Russian winter is, can you compare it with overseas.
On June 23, 1941, Slava was supposed to fly to Odessa. Due to the outbreak of the war, all flights were cancelled.
But Svetik managed to receive several letters from his mother. Anna Pavlovna wrote that everything was fine with her father, but she went to Sergei Dmitrievich and was thinking of taking him to them, since it was becoming more and more difficult to move around Odessa every day.
Svetik admired his mother: “She walks 20 kilometers to take care of the sick.”
Then the Germans captured Odessa, and the correspondence ceased.
All this time, Svetik was talking about his mother, dreaming about how she would come to visit him. When we cooked potato peels - there was no other food, he said: “It turns out delicious. But mom will come and teach you how to cook even tastier.”
Svetik lived with the hope of meeting his parents. Mom was everything to him. “I’ll just say, and my mother is already laughing. I just think, and my mother is already smiling, ”he said. Anna Pavlovna was his friend, and adviser, and the basis of morality.
Before the war, she came to Moscow and charmed us all - both young and adults. We all started writing letters to her. One of Slava's acquaintances wrote to Anna Pavlovna that Richter had not returned the book to her. And she added that, probably, "all talents are like that." Anna Pavlovna immediately sent a letter to her son: “How embarrassing you will be if you are valued only as a talent. Man and talent are two different things. And a rascal can be talented.” This is how their relationship was.
In the photo: SVYATOSLAV RICHTER WHEN VISITING THE MOTHER
ANNA PAVLOVNA LEFT WITH THE GERMANS
When Odessa was liberated, Svetik's acquaintance, an engineer by profession, went there to assess the state of the city. Through him, Svetik gave his mother a letter, we also wrote to her.
It was in April. Svyatoslav went on tour, and we were waiting for the return of this familiar engineer. The time has already passed when he was supposed to return, but our man never appeared.
Then I myself went to him out of town. I found his house, I see - he is doing something in the garden. And I had such a premonition that it would be better for me not to approach him. But I pushed those thoughts away.
Bad news, the man met me. - Father Svetik was shot. And Anna Pavlovna, having married Kondratiev, left with the Germans.
It turned out that this Kondratiev was a big man before the revolution and his real name was almost Benkendorf. In 1918, with the help of the conductor of the Bolshoi Theater Golovanov and his wife, the 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 even moved him to her.
It turned out that Anna Pavlovna went not to a sick friend, but to her lover. She betrayed her husband and son. She gave her husband to die. Svetik said: “This has not been proven, but they say that Kondratiev himself denounced his father.” A week before the surrender of Odessa, Richter's parents were offered to evacuate. But since Kondratiev was not taken with them, Anna Pavlovna refused to leave. Thus signing her husband's death warrant.
“Dad and mom were offered to evacuate,” Svetik later said. – But they didn’t take Kondratiev. And my mother refused. I think dad understood everything.
When the Germans entered the city, Kondratiev made public 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 became ill. “I couldn’t understand what I was doing here,” he told me. - And only then I realized that "S." - This is Sergey.
Svetik was often told abroad: "We saw your father." He replied: "My father was shot." Like this…
On the way from Tbilisi, where he toured, 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. Speranskaya is her surname. “I could not 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 stayed with him all night."
When my sister and I met Slava at the station, he had an absolutely sick face. 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.
In the photo: THEOPHIL DANILOVICH RICHTER AND ANNA PAVLOVNA RICHTER WITH LITTLE SVYATOSLAV
IT'S ALL ABOUT HYPNOSIS
As a result of long conversations, Svetik and I decided that the whole thing was hypnosis. After all, Anna Pavlovna had a complete change in personality. The fact that hypnosis could have affected her is said by one episode. She herself told me how, as a young girl from Zhytomyr, where she then lived, she went to visit her friend in a neighboring town. On the way back in the compartment opposite her sat a young man, intelligent, with an interesting face, usually dressed, middle-aged. And he looked at her intently.
“And suddenly I realized,” Anna Pavlovna said, “that he was giving me some instructions. The train slowed down, we drove up to the station in front of Zhytomyr. The man got up and I got up and followed him. I felt like I just couldn't stop walking. We went out to the vestibule. And at this time, my friend appeared from the next compartment and turned to me: “Anna, you are crazy! Zhytomyr is the next station!” I turned in her direction, and this man vanished into thin air, and I never saw him again. In the meantime, the train has moved on. Then, when, after all that had 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, looked into the distance and said: "I'm leaving." A friend tried to reason with her, but Anna Pavlovna stood her ground: "I'm leaving."
MEETING WITH THE MOTHER
In October 1962, the magazine Musical Life published a translation of an article by Paul Moore from the American High Fidelity. In it, an American talks about how he witnessed Richter's meeting with his mother.
It so happened that it was Moore, who in 1958 was the first to write in the Western press about Richter, who did everything to make this meeting take place. Upon learning that a certain Frau Richter, who calls herself the pianist's mother, lives in the small German town of Schwäbisch Gmund, he immediately got into the car and went to her. Prior to that, in all conversations, Richter himself answered questions about his parents that "they died." That is why the foreign journalist and musicologist wanted to find out for himself who Frau Richter was.
Having found a small two-story house, one of the apartments in which the 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 mistress of the house herself recognized him.
“My bewilderment was cleared,” Paul Moore recalled, “when she informed 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: “Since we saw her, we have been praying all the time to meet you. We had not 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 also told the American about the circumstances of her departure from the Soviet Union: “Father Slava was arrested along with about six thousand other Odessans who bore German surnames. Such 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 got involved in politics. 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 a lot with me, but I took everything I could, connected with the memories of Glory. After leaving Odessa, we lived in Romania, in Hungary, then in Poland, then in Germany.”
That meeting between Moore and Anna Pavlovna did not last long.
“Frau Richter basically tried to get out of me any, the most insignificant news about Glory, or, as she sometimes called him, Svetik, which means “little light” in translation. At the same time, Anna Pavlovna sent a short note to her son through a journalist, which began with the words “Mein uber alles Geliebter!” (“My most beloved!”) and ended with “Deine Dich liebende Anna” (“Anna who loves you”). Through a mutual friend, Paul Moore managed to send a note to Richter in Moscow.
And the pianist's first meeting with his mother took place in the autumn of 1960 in New York, where the impresario Solomon Yurok arranged a Richter concert.
Anna Pavlovna later recalled that it took her so long to prove to Yurok that she was Richter's mother, that she felt like she was being interrogated by the police. At the same time, Richter was asked if he was going to seek the rehabilitation of his father. To which Richter replied: “How can an innocent person be rehabilitated?”
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, invited her son to visit. This visit became possible two years later.
Paul Moore left a detailed account of that meeting, which he also attended. “A modest two-room apartment, in fact, turned out to be a museum of Svyatoslav Richter. All the walls were covered with his photographs from childhood to adulthood. On one of them, he was depicted in disguise as Franz Liszt, whose role he once played in a Soviet film about Mikhail Glinka. There were also colored watercolors of Richter's houses in Zhytomyr and Odessa, as well as the corner in the Odessa house where his bed stood.
One of the pictures of the 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 hostess of the house said that Russian, Polish, German, Swedish and Hungarian blood is mixed in her son ...
Frau Richter took her son around the apartment and showed him the paintings she had saved from their old nest in Odessa. Richter looked at a pencil drawing of his old house in Zhytomyr and another in Odessa with an absent-minded gaze.
Along with Richter in Germany was his wife, Nina Lvovna Dorliak. Their train arrived from Paris. Paul Moore met Richter and Dorliac at the train station. “The couple arrived on time, carrying a lot of luggage with them, including a cardboard box, in which, as Nina Dorliak explained with a grin, an excellent top hat was resting, 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 drag with her from London to Moscow via Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna and Bucharest.
They stayed in Germany for a total of several days.
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 non-stop 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, answered: "Yes."
“Oh-oh-oh, that's good! The contented old man laughed. “But the next time you come to Germany, you must definitely have a German name, like Helmut, or something like that.” Richter smiled condescendingly, but, secretly exchanging glances with his wife, he resolutely said: "The name Svyatoslav suits me perfectly."
At the station, while waiting for the train, everyone decided to have tea and cakes. Sat at the table and ordered. But Richter at the last moment changed his 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 on her son how important it was for her to receive news from him. But I doubted the effectiveness of her requests: Nina once told me with a laugh that for all these years that they knew each other, Slava sent her many telegrams, but never wrote a single letter, not even a postcard.
What was the very last conversation between mother and son, Paul Moore does not know, as he deliberately left them alone. He approached Frau Richter only when the train started moving. “Frau Richter, smiling sadly, whispered, as if to herself: “Well, my dream is over.”
“MOM DEAD LONG FOR ME”
“When Svetik returned and I asked him how the meeting went,” says Vera Ivanovna, “he replied: “Mom is not there, instead of her there is a mask.”
I tried to ask him about the details, because so many years had passed. “Kondratiev never left us for a minute,” Slava said. - And instead of mom - a mask. We were not alone for a single moment. But I didn't want to. We kissed and that's it."
Nina Dorliak tried to distract Anna Pavlovna's husband by coming up with all sorts of tricks, for example, asking to see the house. But he didn't 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 the fee to the state then caused a big scandal. He learned about the death of his mother from Kondratiev a few minutes before the start of his concert in Vienna. This was his only unsuccessful performance. “The end of the 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..."
