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Guest post by A Piano Fan

I have no personal reminiscences of getting to hear Richter live or meet him. I don’t even remember how I “got into Richter,” when or where I first heard what, but he’s become my favorite pianist. What stands out to me about Richter’s pianism is the amazing combination of structural control and emotional conviction. From his ability to sustain the narrative of a 25-minute long Schubert sonata movement to his ability to impart so much motion into a flourish that it threatens to fly away – there is always something deeply impressive about his performances. I would say I really learned to appreciate piano performance through listening to him. Even in small details – such as the voicing of secondary lines in chords, as in this moment from Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto: https://youtu.be/uT_ZhhQeudY?t=4m4s , or subtle pedalling in apparently simple music: https://youtu.be/POmD0N9WJ08?t=3m29s

Or in moments of complete apocalyptic piano destruction, as in the coda of his Chopin 4 ballade https://youtu.be/v9Dc2u7P1d4?t=32m35s . I also learned that the piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition is better than any orchestration: https://youtu.be/CitIXrkQfzo?t=26m23s

But what draws me most to his playing is the sense of depth and weight he imparted to so many pieces, as in the mystical adagio of the ‘Hammerklavier’, https://youtu.be/dlwK3IIT6jo?t=53m51s.  And the epic amounts of tension approaching a climax – as in the Liszt Sonata (https://youtu.be/2UFnqYT6DyU?t=3m58s now to me it sounds as though every other pianist rushes that passage). I came to appreciate long structures, even in those meditative, super-slow Schubert sonatas movements https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7_OW2__ZR0 I have no idea know how I used to listen to the piano performance, but Richter transformed my ears – and in such a wide variety of repertoire! These are a just few of the reasons why I consider him the greatest pianist of the 20th century.

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This beautiful and instructive letter was sent by pianist Dinu Lipatti to one of his students. I particularly like his advice that one should “discover the complete emotional content by playing it a great deal in various different ways….” This is sound advice for pianists of all levels, amateur and professional. Too often there is a tendency to focus first on the technical aspects of a piece, without considering the emotional content. I firmly believe that technique should serve the music, enabling us to play with greater expression and emotional depth: playing which exhibits only high-facility technique can be lifeless and mechanical.

Lipatti is considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th-century. He died tragically prematurely from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the age of 33 in December 1950, leaving behind little more than three and a half hours of recordings for EMI’s Columbia label. His long-standing international fame is due almost entirely to the widespread distribution of his recorded output: in the words of his producer Walter Legge, “small in output but of the purest gold.” Pianists today still revere Lipatti and many continue to pay tribute to him in recitals and other homages.

“What can I tell you about interpretation? I really ought to talk to you about it rather than write, as I should need thirty pages. In a very imperfect manner I could recapitulate the method which in stages guides us, as I believe, to the truth.

First, one should try to discover the complete emotional content of a work by playing it a great deal in various different ways before ever starting to play it ‘technically’. When saying ‘playing it a great deal’ I think above all of playing ‘mentally,’ as the work would be played by the most perfect of interpreters. Having lodged in one’s mind an impression of perfect beauty given by this imaginary interpretation — an impression constantly renewed and revivified by repetition of the performance in the silence of the night — we can go on to actual technical work by dissecting each difficulty into a thousand pieces in order to eliminate every physical and technical obstacle; and this process of dissection must not be of the whole work played right through but of every detail taken separately. The work should be done with a clear head and one should beware of injecting any sentiment.

Finally comes the last phase, when the piece, mastered technically throughout, must be built up architecturally into its overall lines and played right through so that it may be viewed from a distance. And the cold, clear-headed and insensitive being who presided over the whole of the preceding work on the material of which the music is made, takes part in this eventual performance as well as the artist full of emotion, of spirit, of life and warmth who has recreated it in his mind and has now discovered a new and greater power of expression.

Forgive me for expressing myself so badly about something so solemn. I hope it will not seem incomprehensible to you.”

Dinu Lipatti

Source: http://www.musicandhealth.co.uk/articles/Lipatti.html