Post on 16-Oct-2021
Deutsche \ivKiiii tjuphon
Gesvllschaft 138 076 ( ST033 ) SLPM
SVJATOSLAV RICHTER: RACHMANINOFF
Klavierkonzert Nr. 2 in c-molb Piano-Concerto No. 2 in C minor
6 Preludes
GRAND PRIX DU oisauE
PARIS Wi?
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
A-SEITE
2. Konzert fiir Klavier und Orchester c-moll op. 18 1. Satz: Moderato • 2. Satz: Adagio sostenuto
B-SEITE
3. Satz: Allegro scherzando
Svjatoslav Richter, Piano
Sinfonie-Orchester der Nationalen Philharmonie Warschau
Dirigent: Stanislaw Wislocki
6 Preludes Nr. 12 C-dur op. 32 Nr. 1 ■ Nr. 13 b-moll op. 32 Nr. 2
Nr. 3 B-dur op. 23 Nr. 2 • Nr. 5 D-dur op. 23 Nr. 4
Nr. 6 g-moll op. 23 Nr. 5 • Nr. 8 c-moll op. 23 Nr. 7
Svjatoslav Richter, Piano
STANISLAW WISLOCKI
Foto: Paul Moor, Berlin
SVJATOSLAV RICHTER
Der russische Pianist Svjatoslav Richter zahlt
heute zu den prominentesten Kiinstlern der
Gegenwart. Er wurde 1915 in Shitomir in
der Ukraine geboren und entstammt einer
Musikerfamilie deutscher Abstammung.
Der Vater, am Wiener Konversatorium
ausgebildet, war ein geschatzter Pianist und
Musiklehrer, der sich auch im Komponieren
versuchte; die Mutter eine gebildete Musik-
dilettantin. Die kiinstlerische Atmosphare
dieses Elternhauses hatte entscheidenden
Einfluss auf die Entwicklung des begabten
Jungen, der schon mit acht Jahren ein aus-
gezeichneter Klavierspieler war. Der Neun-
zehnjahrige gab seinen ersten Klavierabend
in Odessa, wo er voriibergehend als Korre-
petitor beschaftigt war, ging aber drei Jahre
spater nach Moskau und vervollstandigte
seine Ausbildung bei einem der fiihrenden
Klavierpadagogen Russlands, Heinrich
Neuhaus. Viele Jahre hindurch erstreckte
sich die Tatigkeit des Pianisten ausschliess-
lich auf Russland und Osteuropa. Seit 1959
kam der Kunstler fiber Helsinki erstmalig
auch nach Westeuropa, wo einige wenige
Schallplatten bereits eine Legende um
seinen Namen gebildet hatten. Seine
Konzerte bildeten monatelang die Sensation
der westlichen Welt, und seine grossten
Triumphe feierte der Kunstler bei seiner
USA-Tournee 1960, die ihn bis nach
Los Angeles und San Francisco fiihrte.
SVIATOSLAV RICHTER
The Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter is now
regarded as one of the most outstanding
artists of the present day. He was born in
1915 at Zhitomir in the Ukraine, the son of a
musical family of German extraction. His
father, who had been trained at the Vienna
Conservatoire, was a highly regarded
pianist and music teacher, who also did
some composing; his mother was a gifted
amateur musician. The artistic atmosphere
of the family house had a decisive influence
on the development of the brilliant boy,
who was an excellent pianist by the time he
had reached the age of eight. Ten years later,
he gave his first piano recital in Odessa,
where he worked for a time as a chorus
repetiteur. At the age of 22, he went to
Moscow, where he completed his training
under one of Russia’s foremost piano
teachers, Heinrich Neuhaus. For many
years Richter confined his activities as a
piano soloist to Russia and eastern Europe.
In 1959, however, he travelled by way of
Helsinki to western Europe, where a few
recordings had already made his name a
legend. His concerts in the western world
were sensational successes whose reper¬
cussions were felt for months afterwards,
and he celebrated his greatest triumphs of
all during his tour of the U.S.A. in 1960,
travelling right across the continent to
Los Angeles and San Francisco.
SVJATOSLAV RICHTER
Le pianiste russe Svjatoslav Richter compte
aujourd’hui parmi les artistes les plus
eminents de notre temps. II est ne en 1915 a
Shitomir en Ukraine dans une famille de
musiciens d’origine allemande. Son pere
forme au Conservatoire de Vienne etait lui-
meme un pianiste et pedagogue estimes qui
s’etait aussi essaye dans la composition; sa
mere etait une femme cultivee et musicienne
a ses heures. L’atmosphere artistique du
foyer paternel eut une influence decisive sur
le developpement du jeune gar£on qui, des
l’age de huit ans, etait un excellent pianiste.
C’est a dix-neuf ans que le jeune Richter
donna son premier recital de piano a
Odessa ou pendant quelque temps il
remplit les fonctions de repetiteur des
choeurs, mais trois ans plus tard il se rendait
a Moscou pour y parfaire sa formation
pianistique avec Heinrich Neuhaus, l’un des
premiers professeurs de piano de Russie.
Pendant de longues annees son champ
d’activite de pianiste se limita exclusivement
a la Russie et a l’Europe orientale. C’est en
1959 seulement que l’artiste, en passant par
Helsinki, vint pour la premiere fois aussi en
Europe occidentale ou quelques rates
enregistrements avaient deja fait naitre une
veritable legende autour de son nom. Ses
concerts furent pendant de longs mois la
grande attraction du monde musical occi¬
dental et ce fut au cours de sa tournee aux
U.S.A. en 1960, qui le conduisit jusqu’a
Los Angeles et San Francisco, que l’artiste
sovietique remporta ses plus grands triom-
phes.
Printed in Germany • Imprime en Allemagne • Impreso en Alemania 3/66
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
SIDE A:
Concerto No. 2
for Piano and Orchestra in C minor.
Op. 18 1. Moderato • 2. Adagio sostenuto
SIDE B :
3. Allegro scherzando
Svjatoslav Richter, Piano
Symphony Orchestra of The National Philharmonia Warsaw
Cond. Stanislaw Wislocki
6 Preludes No. 12 in C major, Op. 32 No. 1 • No. 13 in B flat minor. Op. 32 No. 2
No. 3 in B flat major. Op. 23 No. 2 • No. 5 in D major, Op. 23 No. 4
No. 6 in G minor, Op. 23 No. 5 • No. 8 in C minor, Op. 23 No. 7
Svjatoslav Richter, Piano
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2
in C minor, Op. 18
6 PRELUDES from Op. 23 and Op. 32
Sergei Wassiliewitsch Rachmaninoff was born on the 1st April 1873 at Onega—to the north¬ east of what was then St. Petersburg on the shores of the White Sea—the son of a landowner. Young Sergei soon showed unusual enthusiasm and talent for music, a talent which developed during his training at the two greatest musical
establishments in the country, the conservatoires of St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) and Moscow. In St. Petersburg he studied principally the piano, from 1882 until 1885, under Damjanski;
in Moscow he continued his studies under Alexander Siloti, a distinguished pupil of Liszt. At the same time he learned composition from Taneiev and Arensky. Sergei Taneiev had been
a pupil of Tschaikowsky, and succeeded him in his position at the Moscow Conservatoire. Anton Arensky, although coming from the
school of Rimsky-Korsakoff, may also be
Photo: Paul Moor, Berlin
considered an enthusiastic follower of Tschai¬ kowsky.
The direction which his teachers’ interests thus took was to be of great significance in its influence on the development of Rachmaninoff the composer. First he won success as a pianist, but soon also made a name for himself with works of his own. In 1912 Rachmaninoff, who had lived for several years in his favourite town Dresden, became conductor at Mamontow and later at the Court Opera in Moscow. The October Revolution of 1917 drove him from his native land. He fled, almost penniless, through Scandinavia to the United States, which he had earlier visited during his world-wide concert tours.
There he laid the foundations of a new career, soon becoming one of the most sought-after concert pianists, particularly renowned for his playing of Chopin and Liszt. As a composer he wrote in many forms, his most important works, however, being those for piano. His Prelude
in C minor. Op. 3 No. 2, in particular, soon became famous all over the world.Also often performed are his popular piano concertos,
although his operas have never achieved any lasting success. He lived near Hollywood toward the end of his life, and there he died after a short
illness in 1943.
Rachmaninoff was one of the last of the romantic artists who were at the same time successful as creative and as interpretive musicians. Chopin and Liszt were the most eminent of these
composer-virtuosi, among whom is also to be numbered the Russian Anton Rubinstein, founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire and teacher of Tschaikowsky. Rubinstein’s fame as a pianist, when at the height of his career, was little less than that of the great Liszt. As a composer he remained untouched by changing trends in western European musical styles. His
many-sided creative activity was to be the point of departure for the so-called “New Russian” school of Rimsky-Korsakoff, Borodin and Moussorgsky, with their nationalistic aspirations which differentiated their music strongly from that of western Europe.
By far the most important personality among the Russian composers was Rubinstein’s great pupil Tschaikowsky, who was destined, by virtue of his mixed Slav and Romanic blood, to act as an artistic bridge between the Russian and western styles. Rachmaninoff followed in his footsteps. In Rachmaninoff’s music, too, heterogeneous elements are mixed, but the specifically Russian element is seldom the most prominent. Nevertheless the Slav accent is generally unmistakable in the background. The examples of Rachmaninoff’s shorter piano works such as the Preludes, 24 in all, published under the opus numbers 23 and 32, are referred to particularly in Alexander von Andreevsky’s
description of his fellow-countryman’s music: “All Rachmaninoff’s works have about them the elegiac tone of romantic nostalgia, the swan¬ song of the doomed Russian upper classes at the end of the nineteenth century, with echoes of Chopin’s poetic pathos”. Heavy sorrow and virtuistic brilliance are the contrasting charac¬ teristics of his music, which has more of dark-
toned, elegiac lyricism than of dramatic conflict about it. It is no mere chance that so many of his works are in minor keys: his three best-
138076 @@ SLPM
known piano concertos are in F minor, C minor and D minor; the most popular of these is No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, composed in 1901.
The first movement (Moderato) is preceded by an eight-bar Introduction, a succession of deep chords of menacing and increasing power. The principal subject, characteristic of Rachmaninoff with its emphasis on near intervals and relentless melodic flow, is then played by the strings against bravura passage work of the soloist. The second subject is introduced by the soloist alone; this is a calm, lyrical melody which increases in strength but which then relaxes. The return of these themes after the mighty climax of the Development is highly original: the principal subject appears as a splendid triumphant march (“Alla marcia maestoso”),
the second subject lyrically transfigured, played by the solo horn against string tremoli.
The second movement (Adagio sostenuto), an extended, lyrical intermezzo, is also preceded by a few bars’ introduction, whose mixed colouring of string, woodwind and horn tone is to exercise a considerable influence on the music which follows. The elegiac principal subject is played first by the flute, is then taken over by the clarinet, and finally given to the soloist in dialogue with the orchestra. A second theme, as a counter-subject to the piano’s melody, appears in the bassoon. This movement, full of atmosphere, is rounded off by a cadenza of the soloist and by a short coda.
The third movement (Allegro scherzando) is constructed round a temperamental, high- spirited dance theme of pronouncedly Russian colour, which appears in various widely different guises during the course of the movement. A contrasting, gentle subsidiary subject, first played by the oboe, alternates with the dance theme, and reappears toward the end of this colourful movement full of contrasting elements in a noble, hymnlike form. A last energetic episode brings the work to a brilliant conclusion.
Svjatoslav Richter was born in 1915 in the Ukrainian town of Shitomir, the son of a musical family. His father, who had been trained at the
Vienna Conservatoire, was a respected music teacher and pianist, who also did some com¬ posing. The mother, who had excellent musical taste, was one of the first people in remote Shitomir to appreciate the music of Debussy and Scriabin. The atmosphere of the family house had a significant influence on the develop¬ ment of the highly gifted young artist, who was already an excellent pianist at the age of eight, with an extraordinary ability in playing at sight. The opera house in Odessa engaged him as chorus repetiteur, and he soon won fame as an outstanding accompanist and master of the art of improvisation. At the age of nineteen he gave his first piano recital at Odessa, playing a Chopin programme. Three years later Richter went to Moscow, and completed his training at the Musical Academy there under Heinrich Neu-
haus. He began his sensationally successful career in 1942, and has come to be regarded, in the West as well as in his native land, as one of the world’s foremost pianists of our time.
Printed in Germany • Imprime en Allemagne • Impreso en Alemania
l«*U
CK
>.V
6RM
IEU
/|va
.
^sew**- 2 Satr^AlJ Moderate
’ S Z: Ada9»° sosfenufo
r-: Stan,slaw VV,'slack; ^
Sa3aNoS3a-3lw0lHr
B I E M j r
SLPm
^E
aB
^M
OP
hO
NH
^
v ‘9
Nn
i31
WU
3A
'W0
0'
Sihamnwpnvn
SLPM 138 076 B AUFNAHME MIlVoLSKIE NAGRANIA, WARSCHAU (Polen)
Sergei Rachmaninoff 2. Konzert fiir Klavier und Orchester
c-moll op. 18 3. Satz: Allegro scherzando
6 Preludes fc> Nr. 12 C-dur op. 32 Nr. 1 / Nr. 13 b-moll op. 32 Nr. 2
Nr. 3 B-dur op. 23 Nr. 2 / Nr. 5 D-dur op. 23 Nr. 4 S' j » o; Nr. 6 g-moll op. 23 Nr. 5/Nr. 8 c-moll op. 23 Nr.7 £ ^ ^ Svjatoslav Richter, Klavier WV ^ Sinfome-Orchester der Nationalen
Sf)*) Philharmonie Warschau s-\y a Dir.: Stanislaw Wisloc&iy.O'**
^^^/a«3a*«3om°s30
S("
)8«»h N
OH
dOn*
*'*'
)t)