Sviatoslav Richter plays Pictures at an Exhibition (4/4)

Part 4
Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (rec. 1958)
9. The Hut on Hen's Legs (Baba-Yaga)
10. The Bogatyr Gates (in the Capital in Kiev)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• sviatoslav
• richter
• mussorgsky
• pictures
• exhibition
• piano
• classical

[TheZdephinio]

too little expression

[truecrypt]

@TheZdephinio

Not at all!

Rather too much bigotry from some "listeners"...

[devoludo]

Personally I don't like his tempos. Too mechanical.

[truecrypt]

@devoludo

You may not like Richter's tempi but *tempo* can not be "mechanical".

It can be slower or faster though.

[BreuschPagan]

Richter's father was a German.

During WW2 he jokingly remarked "The ruskies said I was german and the germans said I was a rusky. No one would take me"

but that's besides the point..the most powerful rendition of this piece ever, the one performance that rescued the original score from obscurity and further tempering..and thunder calls it unemotional.

[HansVonBulow]

I have this recording on CD. Once I was listening to it while driving and became so absorbed I got into a serious collision.

[lesbianwalrus]

@HansVonBulow

good music can be dangerous

[ToozeTheBard]

@HansVonBulow

I don't know whether I should like or dislike that!

[mmbmbmbmb]

I am an avid and devoted admirer of Sviatoslav Richter ~ but ~ what he is doing to this excellent composition is disturbing by ears. In my opinion, he is totally overdoing the tempo ~ and everything else, for that matter.

To me it sounds just like he forcibly wanted to be different from all the other interpreters. Indeed ~ he did succeed in that. To be different. But certainly not better. Quite honestly I am disappointed!

[ninjaboytellem4]

To clarify, I mean The Hut on Chicken Legs movement.

[ninjaboytellem4]

This was always my favorite movement. Such amazing work.

[OrangeSodaKing]

It took a while, but now I realize that the original piano version is the best way this piece can be played. I love Ravel and what he did with it, but in the end, Mussorgky's original is the best. :) Richter does a great job with it, too.

[SophieMadeleineEve]

Here is an artist who can really paint with the piano. The colours and dynamics are all so rich. Here is an artist that brings sober and delicate colours to the piano turning it into a vehicle of grace and wonder. Thank the Lord almighty for such a mirror into the soul of almightly grace and inspiration.

[antonbrk]

Funny when something that leaves you sobbing and speechless every time you listen to it is characterized by others as lacking sufficient feeling or is too mechanical. It is true Richter takes no prisoners. And his playing here is utterly lacking in pretense, veneer, or self-awareness. Some may find that unpleasing. But this recording is, without question, the most reverent, profound, deeply emotional recording of this work in existance. Incomparable.

[goodwillhart]

I sometimes forget that it is a piano and could swear i hear church bells and other instruments.