Sviatoslav Richter plays Schubert Impromptu Op. 90 #4

Schubert Impromptu Op. 90 No. 4 A flat major (D.899)
Live recording, 1958

Category:

Music

Tags:

• sviatoslav
• richter
• schubert
• impromptu
• piano

[TheHanslick]

If anyone wishes to hear the ideal performance listen to Friedrich Gulda Amadeo recording. Richter is jumping, it simply doesn¨t flow. These Russians can never play

German music (to say nothing about Viennese!)

[truecrypt]

@TheHanslick

Well... "these Russians" sounds kind of depreciatingly... Not to mention Richter (German by origin) played Schubert quite well - to say the least.

[weikko79]

Amazing! Where does this performance come from?

[truecrypt]

Sofia, 1958.

[kpunkt]

you find *this* too dramatic? do you know the Lieder (Songs) of Schubert? There is nothing more dramatic than Schubert.

[jeffg2020]

If TheHanslick were right, only Germans should play German music (and Austrian), only Russians should play russian music, only the French should play Debussy and Ravel - and I guess Americans should only play Copland and Ives. A ridiculous notion.

[ragudicarne]

Dear truecrypt, whoever you are (and we're wondering my best friend and I who the hell you are since we have listened your' Pictures at an esibithion and the Symphonic Etudes which they are both more than excellent!), I hope you will survive to the age and TIME for us who love music as you! Greets form Napoli

[vova47]

@TheHanslick You could not be more wrong about Russians and German music.Listen to Benno Moiseiwitch's Schumann, Maria Grinberg's Beethoven, Neuhaus's Brahms just to name a few. This doesn't take anything away from Gulda, whom I love or other great Schubertians like Demus or Badura-Skoda. Richter is up there with the best of Schubert interpreters of all time.

[Sdiehl50]

No one plays Schubert like Richter. He's amazing

[TheHanslick]

@johnnyzing

[TheHanslick]

@johnnyzing So, have you checked Gulda yet? There are more recordings: one an older disc Amadeo

(Guldaś first recordings), the other on Paradise recording "Gulda plays Schubert". Both are absolutely perfect,

I recommend to all who disagree with my comments to take one of these and compare it with Richter.

It even may not need too much experience in listening. But do it !!!!! You will discover who F. Gulda was.

[TheHanslick]

@Bret6464 I know their recordings, Rachmaninoff is great, but still, my choice #1remains Gulda and probably Buchbinder. As far as The Russians go, I have also Maria Yudina - simply terrible !! Richter was a great pianist, of course, but he should hav recorded all Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Scriabin. Similarly, Gulda should have recorded all the Schubert Sonatas instead of jazz. Richter does not have good feeling for the right tempos - he plays everything either too fast or too slow.

[TheHanslick]

@truecrypt Sorry for soooo late reaction. I didn´t mean to depreciate pianists because they are Russians.

(On the contrary, I adore many of them, esp. those old ones- Lhévinne, Rachmaninov, Barere .. and many of those young). What i am saying is, that their interpreation o German music is rarely capturing the German spirit.

(I listened to "your" Symph. Etudes and they are superb!!!!!). Of course this works vice versa.

[Bret6464]

@TheHanslick OK you don't like Richter's interpretation. But Rachmaninoff, Horowitz and Gilels also performed this - surely one of them would be to your liking :-))

[TheHanslick]

I wouldn´t say inferior. From the strictly pianistic look it is, of course excelent.

(The same goes with Richter). What I am talking about is the viennese "spirit"

(or "mood") which the composer was inevitably exposed to. That is why competitors at the Chopin competition have to play Mazurkas, to show they understand Chopin. Their pianistic abilities (in this narrow sense) have nothing to do with that. Of course, this would be too long discussion for this place.