This handsomely produced 14-CD boxed set surveys live performances by Sviatoslav Richter in Budapest, recorded by Hungarian Radio from March 1954 up through the pianist’s final Budapest recital devoted entirely to the Grieg Lyric Pieces on November 9, 1993. Collectors may have encountered certain items on various independent labels or via private CDR bootlegs; however, BMC’s transfers purportedly stem from first-generation source material and sound as good as they’ll get.
For example, Pyramid released the Chopin Rondo à la Mazur Op. 5 and Debussy Preludes Book 2, both attributed to an August 16, 1967 concert. However, the identical performances (dated August 28 here) sound far superior via BMC’s transfers, as if gauze has been lifted, with all of the audience coughs and piano-bench noises coming fully into focus.
A West Hill Radio Archives release titled “The Fabled February 9, 1958 Concert” sounds fine in and of itself, yet the Schubert D. 958 sonata and Schumann Toccata boast more ambient bloom and clarity via BMC, making these hair-raising performances all the more more “fabled”! But don’t expect sonic silk purses from sows’ ears. The dry, constricted sound in several Mendelssohn Songs Without Words (1972) only make Richter’s interpretations come off even more sober and charmless, while by contrast the attractive ambient resonance of a 1985 Debussy Preludes Book 1 group does complete justice to the music’s nature and Richter’s still-formidable tonal capabilities.
Yet while the 1954 items are anything but sonic paradigms, they are free of distortion and relatively easy on the ear. They include a pianistically exciting yet orchestrally hard-pressed Schumann concerto, Richter’s earliest recorded performance of the Prokofiev Eighth sonata, and a spacious, hypnotically sustained Brahms E-flat minor Intermezzo (Op. 118 No. 6).
Richter’s 1954 solo Bach ranges from slow and severe (the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 F minor fugue) to vehemently pounded-out, at tempos that even the young Glenn Gould might have found optimistic (the Book 1 F major prelude, the C minor French suite’s Gigue). Richter overshoots the opening Modere of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, but soon settles into more controlled, no less spirited music making, although in 1954 he still played Jeux d’eau too fast, as he did in 1960.
A number of items make a good case in regard to Richter’s preference for live recordings over their studio counterparts. There’s much to be said for the less formalized, more animated phrasing in the outer movements of Beethoven’s Op. 22 (1963), Op. 2 No. 1 (1976), and Op. 10 No. 3 (1976) sonatas, and for the pulverizing drive of the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy’s last section that arguably surpasses the same year’s EMI studio recording.
The way-too-closely-miked 1965 Chopin Scherzi offer more extreme tempo fluctuations and surface excitement when heard alongside the relatively contained 1977 recordings. On the other hand a 1969 Rachmaninov Preludes selection adds up to little more than a footnote next to the earlier DG and later Ariola studio efforts. Although this release ultimately will attract more Richter specialists than general collectors, the care and integrity behind every aspect of BMC’s production cannot be questioned, from the marvelous photos and Márta Papp’s informative annotations to pianist Deszó Ránki’s carefully-considered programming of this set’s entire contents. In fact, I detected just one tiny error: the booklet notes list Richter’s gorgeously layered performance of Chopin’s Op. 70 No. 3 Waltz as Op. 70 No. 1.
