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Concept
Sviatoslav Richter
Summary
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter ( – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian classical pianist. He is frequently regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time, and has been praised for the "depth of his interpretations, his virtuoso technique, and his vast repertoire".
Richter was born in Zhytomyr, Volhynian Governorate, in the Russian Empire (modern-day Ukraine), the hometown of his parents. His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872–1941), was a pianist, organist and composer born to German expatriates, who from 1893 to 1900 studied at the Vienna Conservatory. His mother, Anna Pavlovna Richter (née Moskaleva; 1893–1963), came from a noble Russian landowning family, and at one point she studied under her future husband. In 1918, when Richter's parents were in Odessa, the Civil War separated them from their son, and Richter moved in with his aunt Tamara. He lived with her from 1918 to 1921, and it was then that his interest in art first manifested itself: he first became interested in painting, which his aunt taught him.
In 1921 the family was reunited, and the Richters moved to Odessa, where Teofil taught at the Odessa Conservatory and, briefly, worked as organist of a Lutheran church. In the early 1920s Richter became interested in music (as well as other art forms such as cinema, literature, and theatre) and started studying piano. Unusually, he was largely self-taught. His father gave him only a basic education in music, as did one of his father's pupils, a Czech harpist.
Even at an early age, Richter was an excellent sight-reader and regularly practised with local opera and ballet companies. He developed a lifelong passion for opera, vocal and chamber music that found its full expression in the festivals he established in La Grange de Meslay, France, and in Moscow at the Pushkin Museum. At age 15, he started to work at the Odessa Opera, where he accompanied the rehearsals.
On March 19, 1934, Richter gave his first recital, at the Engineers' Club of Odessa; but he did not formally start studying piano until three years later, when he decided to seek out Heinrich Neuhaus, a pianist and piano teacher, at the Moscow Conservatory.
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