Sviatoslav Richter: The Master, Vol. 8: Bach

This is a 2-CD set that feature Richter playing several of each of the French and English suites, plus a few other pieces thrown in. They’re live performances in decent enough sound.So much for the prosaic part of the comments. UPSHOT: This is a terrific introduction to Richter and Bach. No matter how many other versions of these suites I have (a lot), I return to Richter’s versions often, much as I do to his wonderful renditions of the Well-tempered clavier.Why? Insights, insights, insights. One just hears so many different points of emphasis with Richter than with others. It isn’t that other performers don’t have tremendous insights into these pieces...they do. But Richter’s are more searching.In a review of his revered set of “well-tempered clavier”, one writer opined that they were “as much Richter as Bach.” He meant this as a warning about what he perceived as Richter’s interpretations idiosyncrasies. To which I’d respond: “guilty as charged, and your point is?” That’s what makes Richter’s so unique. The man himself was a bit of a walking enigma, and each time I hear one of his performances I am reminded of this. But they are beautiful, searching enigmas.Well worth the time.

These two discs contain truly wonderful Bach playing. In laying out these performances it's as if Richter (if he ever needed to) had come to terms with himself. No willfulness/idiosyncrasies here. My personal choice of the pieces here would be the French Suite No. 4. In fact I think Richter's performance of the Allemande (2nd Movement, see play list # 8, mislabelled here as French Suite # 6) of this Suite on Disc 2 is one of the most sublime moments of recorded Bach that I've heard. Another reviewer (Mr. Saemann) also high-lighted this Suite as a favorite on this set. My only other comment would be to compare what Gould does to this same movement. Fast? Yes. Sublime? No.

i've listened to wonderful performances of these works from glenn gould, rosalyn tureck, murray perahia, and andras schiff. you have got to listen to sviatoslav richter's amazing performances here - they are absolutely superb!

These performances were recorded live in 1991, late in Richter's career. My first exposure to Richter's Bach was the first keyboard concerto on a monaural Italian LP, with Kurt Sanderling. That was a reading of steely brilliance. The playing on the current CDs is more relaxed, even gentle. Richter's tone is confiding and intimate, even as he surmounts the technical hurdles of the English Suites. I think the best performances on the set are of the fourth and sixth French Suites and the popular Fantasia. The readings of these works combine intimacy and virtuosity in a wholly satisfying way. I am not sure that I prefer these performances to Glenn Gould's, although the Tocattas are better than Angela Hewitt's. Still, this is eminently listenable Bach, and welcome for its insight into an interpretive world of Richter's that is quite different from his approach to the Romantic repetoire.

If you want to recomand the Bach expert, most of all will recommand Clenn Gould, and including me, it's so pupular to own Gould music as our collection. Althought Richter was a one of the great pianists in last century, but seldome put him in Bach expert list. I must say that I had changed my views since listenning this disc. Whatever English or French suits, even the short piece Fantasia, we could find Richter dominate Bach music easily, and deliver deep and artistic conception to listenners.From this disc, I strongly recommand to all reviewers, even you are Richter lover or Bach lover, you should get it to touch.

I adore old clocks - and the more moribund the better. If one is lucky, they might be somewhat aligned to Greenwich Mean Time. Chronos is a tyrannous, sadistic deity; accordingly, they always seem older and more weathered than whatever time has elapsed since the date of their manufacture. Yes, such specimens are in the here and now but one senses they are addressing a realm beyond the merely temporal as they chase down the hours.The aged Sviatoslav Richter in Bach is an old clock. If you're looking for clean, precise, articulate fingerwork, you may be left unsatisfied. Those among us who yap for the most primitive of keyboards in this repertoire will surely gnash their fangs when Richter buddies up with a Steinway to fathom out these works like few others. And yet, like an old clock, there is an air of indifference to these performances. I am not sure they're meant for our ears.Tick, tock, tick, tock - tick.

It seems quite ironic that one of the main virtues that featured Sviatoslav Richter as pianist, resided in the fact U.R.S.S. ` cultural isolation respect the Western Hemisphere, due froze practically preserved missing visions of the seminal seed of the dying musical Romanticism.However, something inside the mind and soul of this legendary interpreter began to grow and expand by itself. He conjugated the best of both worlds (his birthplace and his genealogical origins) , these circumstances blended, permeated, consolidated and affianced his impressive musical landscapes and the way he got the coveted approach around every little score he played.That's why his sound may result cosmopolitan or unfaithfully bounded to any specific style. For some purists this may be a scandal, but for others this flexibility may be the most praised device to create atmospheres so dissimilar (Debussy's pianissimos, Schumann's fevered poetry, Dvorak's extraordinary expressiveness or Prokoviev's hammering staccatos).But this cultural isolation in good part, allowed him to create and explore - like Nikolayeva or Yudina did it - new and vast territories of the master Bach.He is part of the legend. Don't miss this album.

Sviatoslav Richter n'aimait pas enregistrer des intégrales.Les quelques suites françaises et anglaises qu'il joue ici en concert,sont sans doute ce qu'il a fait de plus beau dans Bach. En outre la qualité du son est tellement meilleure que celle des disques du clavier bien tempéré.