Realistic Analysis of Richter's lost DG tapes, praised everywhere over the top by everyone
What makes Slava Richter so outstanding for anybody and all times is his approach to the piano. Over his long professional career his playing changed a lot. Moreover, anytime he played the same piece again, he tried to play it considerably better than any time before. Although no other pianist has recorded any Beethoven sonata so often as Slava did --- except, of course, Nos. 2, 5, 13-16, 21, 24-26, which he never recorded --- every recording of any of the remaining 22 sonatas differs from the others considerably and strongly varies in quality of playing, because he typically went very close to his own limits. Therefore, to come across a new recording by Slava Richter, decades after his death, is a wonderful event.
Although this new lost-tapes CD is praised over the top everywhere by everybody and the sound quality is splendid, I do not think that this CD is something you must buy. The reason is simply that none its four Beethoven sonatas on these recordings belongs to his optimal interpretations of the respective sonata and only No. 31 is close to optimal. In the remainder of this critique, I will go into the details of these four sonata recordings.
1. Sonata No. 18 in Es-dur, 1802, op. 31/3, "the hunt": This is Slava Richter's second best recording of this sonata. The best one was made a quarter of a year earlier live at Smetana Hall in Prague, on June 6, 1965, though in mono, whereas the Lucerne recording on the CD here is in stereo. Moreover, while Richter tops any other pianist ever with many of his Beethoven performances, for this No. 18, he is not better than Emil Gilels in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 1981, and my favorite recording is actually the one by Stewart Goodyear in the Glenn Gould studios in Toronto.
2. Sonata No. 27 in e-moll, 1814, op. 90: For the two movements of this sonata, Anton Schindler has reported the titles "fight between head and heart" and "conversation with the loved one". Although these titles may not really have been invented by Beethoven himself, they would mirror the musical context excellently, if music could ever be described by words. This CD recording made in Lucerne is by far not Silva's best one because it is too considerate, too cool-headed; His mind was not centered around one's heart and loved one. Slava's recording of this sonata on June 2, 1965, in Prague, Slava's most beloved place, is by far better. Imho his best recording, however, probably the best one of this sonata by any pianist at any time, was made at Schloss Kleszheim, close to Salzburg, in 1971 (Alto ALC 1158), which is again by magnitudes more heart and loved one than the one from Prague.
3. Sonata No. 28 in A-dur, 1816, op. 101: The first movement is played in a high tempo compared to Richter's other recordings, nevertheless he completely fails the intended character given by Beethoven himself: "Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung". Also the last movement, the fugue, is on the faster side, but Richter does not manage that tempo. Although the fugue is played here with the strong intention to play it well, he fails because of his wrong initial tempo. Choice of the initial tempo was one of his very few true problems, and I do not know why I never saw him with a metronome. Richter must have hated this recording, in particular because he once said that you always must play Beethoven's last sonatas "auf Tod und Leben". One month later in Moscow he managed even to play the fugue as horrible that he must have intended to play it that way. But then, six years later in Ohrid at St. Sophia, in the middle of nowhere, at August 30, 1971, Richter gave the best interpretation of that Beethoven sonata No. 28 ever recorded. If Richter will be remembered for Beethoven interpretations, far out of reach for any other pianist for all times, the sonatas will be his Appassionatas (No. 23) in Prague and New York in 1959/1960 and this No. 28 in Orhid, which is available in mono from Doremi Records, DHR-7718, Richter archives Vol.1, for little money.
4. Sonata No. 31 in As-dur, 1822, op. 110: At first sight, this seems to be a historicizing classicistic irony of Beethoven. Indeed, Artur Schnabel emphasized the irony of this sonata, whereas Emil Gilels tried to hide it; but both interpretations do not result in any interesting music. Joachim Kaiser in his book on Beethoven's sonatas and their interprets is utterly puzzled by this sonata in particular. Richter approaches this sonata pretty naively, not at all pretending to answer any of the many open questions of this sonata. "Just playing the notes" as he used to say, tongue in cheek. The surprising thing is that Richter's non-interpretation results in the most wonderful music going far beyond anything one can say with words. Listen to Richter's recording two dozen times and you will know that Beethoven had to write it exactly the way Richter plays it, even if that knowledge may be not the only possible one. Objectively, however, this is a most interesting music. Its biggest complication is the swapping from harmonic perception to linear perception in the last movement: Harmonic - Fuge - harmonic - Fuge - harmonic. For listening to a fugue you need one process in your mind for each voice line. The tones-at-a-given-time aspect can only be secondary in a fugue. In the harmonic music of the 1st Vienna Classic school, however, harmony comes first in the sense that you listen to chords and move through time in a single process. For instance, Bebop is harmonic, Ornette Coleman is linear and fugal with a counterpoint. Beethoven was the very first to alternate between these two worlds of harmonic and linear music, which somehow appears to be impossible. In this sonata, Beethoven is clearly successful with this. Richter's best recording of this sonata is the live recording of June 2, 1965, in Prague, less than four weeks before the recording on this CD in the medieval barn "La Grange de Meslay" close to Tours, which comes second, but close. The true difference is that the amount of Beethovenness with which he vaccinates the fugues is a bit to high on this CD to let the fugue stay entirely healthy. Clearly the best and most important recording on this CD.
