Added: 5 years ago
From: phpjunkie
Views: 139,248
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (231)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • I love the way he walked off the stage. Almost like saying I don't need your applause, I preform for myself.

  • I don't agree that all you need are practice and determination, if anything, they will make you frustrated if you don't have the hands and the talent. I know, after playing for some 5 years, for the rest of my life (I'm quite old) t I could no longer improve no matter how much I practiced. Could you be a rhytmic gymnast or a coloratura soprano performing Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto if you practiced for years?

  • Free Dictionary?

  • oh yeah, and Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 is a good one too

  • Best PIECES, not songs

  • "bravo to this guy" ?? LOL, is Sviatoslav Richter!!!

  • I've fought my way through op 10 no 4, the C#m, but can't get too far with the op 25 no 11!! It's getting the thing up to speed, not least the scale passage in unison to finish. Richter is amazing, really amazing.

  • I have played op.10 no.4 and am currently working on this one! So far, op.10 no.4 is harder, yet you can't compare both pieces because the technical aspects required for each differ greatly! While 10/4 demands a completely relaxed hand and amazing finger dexterity (not to mention having to hit those random high octave notes in the second section... ugh), this etude requires more tone coloring and more rhythmic control! For sheer technical difficulty, 10/4 wins, but overall this etude is harder!

  • Davvero magnifico... a parte il pezzo, l'esecuzione è stupenda!!!!lo consiglio a tutti coloro che amano questo studio!!!

  • After how many years of piano playing could I expect to play that piece?

  • it depends on how hard you work really :)

  • yeah but normaly?

  • hmm maybe 10 years, if you are v.good

  • It really does depend on how much you practice and if your determined. I've been playing for a year & 1/2 and I could play this if I worked at it.

  • 2 b honest i doubt it for 1 year and a half well age does matter 2 how old r u

  • Ist9162, check out Analxixen's entry below. Also, I don't think Richter smiled much at all.

  • Why isn't he smiling? that performance was mind-blowing!

  • :O

    OMG

  • greatest....hardest....

  • Why do you think he hated this performance, chrish? BTW, I received yesterday a new CD, where Richter plays this etude about 30 years earlier (I never knew such recording existed) and clocks it at about 30(!) sec. faster. I like this performance too, but the earlier one is awesome, the likes you never heard before.

  • I was lucky enough to be in the second row at this recital in London from 1988 and it was a transcendent experience. In the second half Richter was in a foul mood, the atmosphere electric as he raced through 12 Etudes of Chopin as though the KGB were waiting in the wings. This was the last offering, the winter wind, never so icy as here, after the thunderous final chords and the brief bow you see at the end, he was long gone into the night, our tumultous bravos and applause unheard by the Master

  • he hated this performance.... hard to believe why

  • I do not think many could equal him, but when he was really old, his hands were probably not as "mighty" any longer as in his youth. Before his death he suffered from brain / auditive pitch alteration that is what he recounts. It's a kind of professional disorder due to "overtraining", I know there are people who worked for too long in choir singing they suffer from that ("higher pitch" they say)

  • he made mistakes but i dont care... thats why this interpretation is unique.... and of all the iterpretation i´ve heard of this piece this is my favorite 1, too much power.... and listen the final A octave... i mean... damn.....

  • A fantastic pianist, a huge virtuoso,my favourite pianist (and I don´t say that abuot anybody xD), and maybe (not maybe but obiusly) the best pianist of all in 20th century

    Even better than Horowitz

    (But not better than me) xDDD!!!!!!

  • did anyone else notice the very very faint sound of the cascading melody at 00:27 just before it is played at 00:30? what's going on there?

  • q mal toca yo conoci a un stripper q tocaba el piano con el pene y lo hacia mejor.

  • oye, richter si se equivocó, lo admito, pero considera tres cosas antes de decir lo q estás diciendo:

    1. Richter estaba ya viejo y desgastado, como ya han dicho, en este video Richter ya no es lo que era antes.

    2. La leyera o no, estaba pendiente de la partitura y eso te distrae, quieras o no de la música.

    3. Se nota que jamás has escuchado una grabación de Richter de cuendo era joven, digamos 1939, después de escucharlo tocar los "Trascendental Etudes" de Liszt vas a cambiar tu opinión sobre él

  • umh the hardest 1 is theop 10 no 4.... believe me :P

  • mmm...can you play at a fast pace the tenths in the op. 10 Nº1 etude?

  • OMFG

  • wow fantastic interpretation......tempo is so balanced and full of feeling of cold winter. perhaps for this piece this YAMAHA works better than Steinway; Just love the clear sharp sound of the piano

  • Wunderschön...

    dieses Stück ist einer von meinen Günstlingen... ich glaube, den Wind zu fühlen...

    Und Richter...

    Danke

  • I would not say it is the most difficult etude. #4 op. 10 is definitely more complicated... personally, I just started studying this one, and I'm not finding it that hard (the quick notes are all a matter of rotation of the hand)... it's just a bit harder than op.10 #12, which I just completed.

    I do love this etude because it gives huge satisfaction to the pianist who plays it.. it's just so loud and impressive!

  • I'm pretty weak on fast reading, but I find this etude definitely harder to put in place than #4 op 10. #4 op 10 does have great 'local' difficulties but (in my opinion at least) globally easier.

  • The most difficult Chopin Etude! So many notes and combinations. It's a huge problem just to read all the notes!

  • Oh no, when I read those silly comments and all the mistakes :

    1. Richter ALMOST "stopped" playing virtually before his death. And he died aged 82. Apart from that he had photographic memory and had absolute pitch.

    2. Richter ' s one of or may be the best interpreter of Chopin, at least emotionally.

    3. His mother never was involved with any "uncle" This is nonsense told by some German site : the tragic story of betrayal was linked to a collegue of Richter 's father Theophil.

  • P.S. "Richter the Enigma" is a film made shortly before Richter 's death. It is of greatest interest, but apparently, from what I have seen, it sometimes offers a somewhat distorted image of Richter 's exceptional personality. I do not know if it reflects that fact the Richter was a man who knew how to have a great time with friends (but when he was old and very ill, surely he could be depressed) or the fact that he was an "avid" reader and knew a huge lot about art, etc.

  • Oh no, when I read those silly comments and all the mistakes :

    1. Richter ALMOST "stopped" playing virtually before his death. And he died aged 82. Apart from that he had photographic memory and had absolute pitch.

    2. Richter ' s one of or may be the best interpreter of Chopin, at least emotionally.

    3. His mother never was involved with any "uncle" This is nonsense told by some German site : the tragic story of betrayal was linked to a collegue of Richter 's father Theophil.

  • Poor you.

  • absolutely fantastic

  • Inspiring.

  • Interpretation is required since not all the dynamics are there... Richter's interpretation could have been different, but it's his talent, not yours to judge. You think he couldn't do it? Of course he could start making a lot more stuff than on the sheets. I bet you know how Chopin wanted his pieces played, but didnt' want to write it down at all, to cause flustration and doubt :P

  • this is the best performance i've ever seen...

  • wtf are talking about , stupid moron

  • man chopin composed this well and ritcher played well u stupid fuck

  • This is beautiful beyond doubt; but listen also to Alexander Brailowsky playing in Paris in the 1920's (?) and based upon comments from Chopin's remaining students ... ! The record is here on YTube.

  • A master playing a master's composition. What power, rancor, and winter gales. Richter was undoubtedly among the very greatest pianist of the 20th Century, better than Horowitz in my opinion for Richter's philosophy was that you should convey the composer's intent at all costs and never did things like skip repeats.

  • Did you know that there is an emotion called anger. Emotions doesn't necessarily mean plating in a romantically sloppy style. Richter father was killed and betrayed by his uncle and the soviet union. His mother later betrayed her husband, and went with the uncle - so we can't expect him to play in a sloppy wishy- washy manner.

  • Well he chose to be a pianist (luckily for us) and he left a huge mark on piano tradition, along with an inspirational treasure of live and studio recordings, which gave the opportunity for attention-seekers to criticize such a giant. I'd be thankful if I were you :)

  • Why do you hate all Richter performances?  He is one of the greatest in my mind (along with Cziffra =P).

  • I do not hate all performances of richter, only those where he does not play with his heart but only with his fingers, and most of his performances are this way... see "enigma",there he admits that he played most of the time not good... only at the end of his live I had a feeling that he was a musician... but that was at the end of his life. He even say that: "i began to play more freely and took attention for my tone..."

  • Richter always played with his heart. For me he has been the pianist of the 20th entury, no doubt. I recommend you stop listening him playing and re-try when you grow 15 years older than now. You´ll never find excess or magic tricks in him, which for me makes music more and more interesting. He is like Brahms or Mozart, the emotions are hiden, never obvious but insinuated, it is music for either old people or old music lovers. Regards.

  • People have criticizing Richter for playing 10/10 technique and 0/10 with soul, which is of course a lie. Especially when he plays one of the chopin etudes. Let me ask you a question, if you were playing chopin at lightspeeed, would you be able to have time to pause for the 'lyrical, melodic' qualities of music?

  • Richter beleived you are to follow the score exactly, which you may find unoriginal, but it how he played. However, he still, i think, played with heart and a commanding tone. For his etudes, chopins tempo marking were very fast, hence the speed here

  • SHUT UP DEGENERATES you realize that tempos have changed over time. Life is goes at a much quicker pace now. a Presto in Bach's time is not the same as a Presto today so shut up about him speeding up all of you. His tempo is perfect and so is his portrayal of the cahracter of this piece go study then come back and for now keep your tongues behind your teeth animals.

  • Dear Marcel;

    So, how long did you study? ;)

  • Dear Marcel;

    I think you are wrong on your first assuption (about "studying and thinking") and correct about about the rest.

    As a pianist and musician you should hold yourself to a higher standard.

  • you mortal how dare you judge this GOD i'd like to see you climb mount olympus. in other words you have nothing on richter please give it up he is accepted world wide as one of the greatest pianists in the history of mankind so please keep your stupidity to yourself

  • DISGRACE: richter is respected world-wide as one of the greatest pianists in the history of piano. Heinrich Nehaus calls him a genius and you stand here and unload your uneducated filth-worthless. You are worthless go listen to something simpler like The Beatles this kind of music is not for you.

  • maybe its because all you do is watching the video. next time, try to LISTEN to the music, then maybe ull hear it.

  • Lets see you play better than this. You're just like all the other big gobbed people. You have no right to criticize maestro richter.

  • What is the Chopin tradition really? Carried on by such pupils too, who very likely were only able to play the easier nocturnes, preludes and such - on a modest level of skill and talent. He must have had some real virtuoso level pupils too. I don't know. Chopin-Liszt-Cortot,there is a link for sure.

  • does anyone know where to get the full recital on video?

  • No.

  • What a genius!!!

  • What a great pianist. He's is a mankind's patrimonium!!!!!

  • matthew that's foour words:D

  • would someone please do me - or maybe us - a big favor and summarize a translation for what he says in the beginning?

  • This is from the "Enigma" movie. There are sub-titles there. Richter complains about deteriorating pitch and that he practically stopped playing because of that. But it has nothing to do with this performance, which took place 7 years earlier.

  • absolutely amazing, favoriting NOW

  • OK OK OK OK wait listen to musicgolod's fucking video the kid has a lot of promise and people fucking ripped him up! ?????????? IDK y they do that to the kid! MUSICGOLOD is his name

  • it's not the kid himself it's someone publicizing for the kid and will be eating the kid's money later. i've also seen a myspace profile commercialing for a "special child" like this one. i think the only advertising a pianist should need would be done by his/her performance because believe me; if the kid's good enough, people WILL be talking about him.

  • i understand that the heartful people within the financial liberty of contributing to the kid's path noticing the kid is a positive thing to happen, but the shady and cruel system of marketing forces the desire to question the whole structure every time.

  • rachmaninoff and liszt xD

    maaan chopin is just freakin amazing. and richter plays this just awesome. plays everything awesome really......... especially chopin etude op10 no4 =O

  • I would say Mozart and Rachmaninoff

  • Oh My God...! Frederick Chopin, you are one of maybe three people from the past that I'd like to meet.

  • I shall pass that message on my next time travel. He will be thrilled, I am sure. Who are the other two (just in case if I run into them by some chance)? :-)

  • Listen to "Elegy" composed and performed by Grant Foster. It is such a moving piece of music. The emotioms are so well displayed.

  • meraviglioso!

  • Superb! I gave an AWESOME!

  • superb. Just brilliant

  • one of the best pieces of chopin

  • Of course it's not fair. No all of us have as much talent as this guy.

    Just like a guy with IQ of 60 working really hard while a guy with 160 is slacking off, wasting his HIGH IQ abilities that the IQ 60 clearly deserves more.

  • *rubbish what has IQ to say to anything? a non academic may be a GENIUS at fixing your car

    *no one deserves anything

    *you get what you get

    **practise helps you improve!

  • I love this piece!!!

    Wish that I could play like that....

    Its NOT FAIR!!!!

  • Just love it, he plays very articulate. Bravo!

  • that's right, real passion for something you want to do really well!!!!!

  • @rolandonavarro : yeah both richter and horowitz

    @ marcelmombeekeigen : DUDE.... i'd love to see what you consider awesome =) perhaps your own playing? If so i would so love to see you play.

    great piece and the way he brought out the chords using his left hand was great

  • did you know that if richter played with notes it was just because of his lover sitting next to him

  • It is unproven rumor, FYI, eomrsami. Not that there is anything wrong with it:-)

  • I LISTENED AND IT WAS FANTASTIC.......Thanks for posting=]....dont let people bring you down! just remember three words in any situation of life....PEACE LOVE AND MUSIC

  • WTF look at the left hand how wide the fingers are stretched what the hell I don't think I can even reach all the notes in those stupid chords!

  • Well... Consider this is Chopin =P I'm playing one of these studies, in which I have to play a Do with my fifth finger and then a La b with my fourth finger... my hand hurts after that =P

    BTW It's lovely the way this Richter guy plays the left hand, you can hear it's melody properly =D

  • if you can't reach all the notes of a chord.. doesnt mean you can't play the piece.;. all you do is play one note at a time real fast.. like arpeggios in a way.. thats what my amazing teacher does because she has small hands

  • Alicia de Larrocha is a good example of a great and famous pianist... who had small hands!

  • I wrote the previous comment for

    DesireeFatso

  • The greatest of all 20th Century pianists.

  • so exciting a playing! so lively like fire! I wish I had a chance to be in one of richter's concert

  • Instead of winter storm,it should be retitled here

    "Winter Execution in lieu of Mechanical boredom."

    Another totally modern & abstractly unoriginal

    version of this.If we're not going to make any attempt

    to play within the bounds of the living Chopin tradition,the least we could do is come up with something musical & human!

  • beautiful...great pianist!!!

  • Check out the Love Theme from Grant Foster's "War; Peace; Love" performed by Mirra Yevtich with the New Russia Orchestra. It is really something

  • who the heck talks when somebody is playing piano wtf?

  • SkiddyBlade:  LOL!

  • It certainly takes a pianist to appreciate this kind of playing,because "pianism"is all that's offered.

    If you're a musician of another instrument,a writer,a painter,or just a good old-fashioned feeling music-lover it's very unlikely you are to appreciate

    this spiritually and emotionally fossilized exoskeleton.

  • a performer is not the sum of there parts but instead they are to be adored for the many fine examples of musicianship they've produced over their

    lifetime. emotionally fossilized for this performance maybe though it sounds cruel and inhumane. you must be an angry wannabe. richter's body of work is quite remarkable. He's an old man now. Lighten up Mr. Perfect

  • Smithsherman ' s obssession (infatuation ? or infatuation with Gavrilov ?) with the great Richter is a medical case

  • richter is considered by most of the pianists of my generaton inluding ivo pogorelich ,late arthur rubinstein as a one of the greatest ,this was the best perfpormans of the 'winter storm" that i ever heard!

  • i think richter was not satisfied with his performance too.

  • Interesting comment. Going bankrupt with ShitMusicFox Dot com, that you need to post these kind of advertorials everywhere? Hopefully YouTube is sending you a royal bill.

  • agreed.

  • shut up, your just jealous.

  • how esoteric  please

  • Oh God it doesn't look too fun to learn this piece...

    but man awsome to see him play so well.

  • he was the giant under the universalists of 20 century in classical music at all. and believe me, he was one of the greatest pianists of all times also. i remember not good, but was as a child sometimes when he was playing in moscow, once i was sitting and listening to a concert of another pianist next to him, and i remember it was for me like sitting next to god

    i love many pianists, like horowitz or rubinstein, like gould or affanasiev, like gilels or lipatti. but richter is still my idol

  • but what can i say about a pianist who play all barock until modern classic on this really extrem high level. he played bach and händel ( do not forget: many people prefer his "wohltemperiertes klavier"), beethoven, mozart, schubert(!), schumann(!!!), brahms(!), haydn (!), all russian romantic and twenty century music, french music ( you know another not spcialist who play 3 concerts from saint-saens ?), all slavish music and a lot, really a lot of chamber music...and ..and ...and

  • sorry for my terrible enlish

    sure, richter was not a chopin specialist, but his chopin is allways extremly in a very strange way.

  • I had the privilege of seeing Richter in concert back in 1993. Although his performances of baroque music left a lot to be desired he was a supreme artist when it came to the romantic repertoire.

    This can be clearly seen in this Chopin etude.

  • Lucky you, since by then he was already winding up with his concerts. But what baroque music did he play, other than Bach? All his Bach recordings that I heard from that time, such as English and French suites, are superb.

  • Brilliant, can someone tell me how old he was, wen he played it???

  • 73.

  • This piece sucks to learn! I think it's the most difficult of all the etudes.

  • Can somebody please translate what the heck that guy was saying at the beginning?

  • wonderful!!!

  • This is like right hand excercise right?

  • not at 1:50!

  • Wonderful!

  • I bet people who plays this piece would agree that your hands really really hurts when playing this... Takes a lot of practice.

  • how are we supposed to know?

  • look at his hands they're so huge! how many notes can he reach?

  • I learned the first 20 bars of this and then gave up. Now I can see why. He seems to have huge hands, though that's not necessarily an advantage in this piece. Chopin's hands were quite small - a cast of them can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery.

  • I struggled with this etude and never performed it. I'm gald to see that Richter also seems to find it challenging. These videos are incredibly important. We see wonderful but imperfect performances, everybody out there keep practicing, reaching...

  • I love this Etude, I have to learn it after I'm done with the pieces I'm currently working on...

  • Richter is fabulous! And this etude so beautyful!

  • üstad süpersin dessem yanlış olur çok süpersin

  • mr pianoboyo

    I m still looking for tools to measure art

    play better ? bad ?

    all of them are good and nobody is as Chopin or Scarlatti or Rachmaninof

    If you open your eyes you will see nothing but performers

    Very sad

  • There are many 'real' talents these days..but they dont sound the same as the talents of yesteryear...its odd that some people expect them to. Times have changed, people change but good music making is eternal. One has to listen with an open and attentive eye. Certainly there is a greater emphasis on accuracy and control than was common in Richters day but there are many truely great 'thinkers' and 'poets' of the keyboard out there... you just have to listen out for them.

  • Thanks for your advice, pianoboyo. I guess listening with an open eye should do the trick.

  • I still find it odd that piano players unswervingly idolize Richter. Ok he was a great pianist..yes at his best he was one of the top pianists of his era.  its also true to say when he was bad he was BAD. We were always taught in conservatory 'a pianist is only as good as his last performance' , I have no pianistic idol - attempt I learn from all..there are many college students who give as good and better performances of this study.

  • I imagine that, like Horowitz, 'you had to be there.' There is so much more to an enthralling performance than the music. There is history, atmostphere, electricity, emotion and of course sound. I suspect Richter had a 'sound' that had to be heard live to be fully appreciated.

  • try to find a real talent nowadays

  • what a genious.

    he was at 74 years old at this recording. if you watch the legendary documentary of bruno monsangeon (a violonist and director, whom mostly worked with glenn gould) called "richter the enigma" you saw that

    richter told his retirement story with this piece.

    he said at the end of enigma " i have lost sense of my pitch, i am retired now" and listened a version of this etude he said "i am not making up". after this explanation we watched this video, what a sinematic efect.

  • It's interesting how my teacher(Juliard phd btw) told me how Richter didn't necessarily have great technique, but playing from 'heart' to cover it up. Same goes for Rubinstein.. Then she told me on the other hand Ashkenazy and Pollini were PERFECT.

  • your teacher from JUILLIARD was on crack :)

  • Ashkenazy and Pollini having better technique than Richter? What joint was your Julliard teacher snorting?

  • She's actually retired, got her doctorate degree and was a teaching faculty at Juliard. I love Richter's playing, but I agree with my teacher's view.

  • Crap, keep misspelling JULLIARD

  • JUILLIARD come on

  • Sometimes Richter lapsed into a historic style of

    playing that was prevalent before the rise of the

    Anti-Expressionist Conservatory Originalist movement

    told pianists to play only dryly and perfectly...

    but not expressively or with interest...When

    Richter has an antique relapse I like him.However

    I prefer Pachmann,Godowsky's,and Rosenthal's recordings of this.

  • brilliant, I'm speechless...

  • wasn't he wearing glasses during the performance and then they dissapeared after he got up and bowed.

  • you can see him taking them off as he took the sheetmusic off the stands

  • oh..

  • keep in mind, volodos is young, only been playing since '87... he's got plenty of time to catch up... and surpass.

  • In my estimate he needs about a thousand years to surpass Richter, so let's wish him long and happy life.

  • That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard!

  • i just got the Same Etude and ll try learn it like Richter, he is Amazing

  • Amazing!

    <