The aura of Karl Richter, experienced by so many who witnessed his performances, is not something easily comprehended these days. To some he was a saviour, bringing baroque music out of the mainstream towards a culture of specialism, to others the revered last frontier before terra authentica became the promised land – a transformation which Karl Schumann cynically describes as elevating performance practice to an article of faith. The importance of Teldec’s significant Karl Richter Edition, which covers the early years of the conductor, harpsichordist and organist, is that the debates of the 1970s and 1980s were still in the embryonic stages: Richter is simply Richter and this is where the aura begins and ends. This is also consistent with the splendid cantata reissues from Archiv (3/94, 7/94 and 1/95), where again the earlier recordings in particular reveal an artist whose passionate, vital and profoundly committed performances are often treasures of the catalogue. DG was to become Richter’s Alma Mater as soon as the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra became firmly established in 1958, but he continued recording for Telefunken (as it then was) for several more years.
If Bach was understandably to dominate Richter’s career, this set demonstrates that his interests spanned the whole of the eighteenth century (incidentally, he made his debut as a conductor with Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony). Whilst the qualities we most readily associate with Richter’s concentrated, muscular and intense approach seem wedded to Lutheran spirituality and Bach, his way with Mozart is not as unforgiving as one might expect. Certainly, the A major Symphony is one of the most lugubrious and Teutonic post-war readings, humourless and lacking the sparkle he brings to C. P. E. Bach’s D major Symphony, but the Requiem is a real discovery. It may seem that for Richter life was an unremittingly serious business – though this is not quite true, as one discovers in his robust and sensitive accompaniments to Aurele Nicolet’s animated and lovingly radiant playing in the flute concertos – but the Requiem is, at gut level at least, Richter country. By 1961, his Munich forces were distinctly impressive (this is the year he recorded his majestic account of the Mass in B minor – DG, 12/61) and one marvels here at the discipline and strength of the choral singing in the more contrapuntal movements and at the audibility of words whilst maintaining an absolute direction of line. As so often with Richter, the phrasing is short on ebb and flow but the conviction of intent, within an intractable articulation (especially in the granite-like “Quam olim Abrahae”) results in a remarkably distinctive and powerful perspective of the work.
Pulsating and genuine fervour of that type is really only found again in the disc containing three cantatas dating from 1959/60. I reviewed this in May 1993 and was mesmerized by the honesty of the performances, as well as several notable contributions, not least Sir Peter Pears’s invigorating singing in No. 67 and Kieth Engen’s deeply moving ‘vox Christi’ in the same work. This was one of my “Critics’ choices” of 1993. Before the majority of Richter’s 80-odd cantatas for DG, he had already recorded a handful of others for Telefunken of which only No. 4 appears (interminable and not as good as the later recording, 7/94). There are also fine performances of Nos. 137 and 140 (which also appeared on Decca Eclipse, 12/73 – nla); the latter of these far outshines the grim dirge of his 1978 reading (1/95). Their omission is bewildering in such a major retrospective, especially as Teldec have risked including two other Bach recordings which stand short alongside Richter’s later readings: the Brandenburg Concertos of 1958 sound demonstrably like a trial run for the formation of a group which within two or three years had become a chamber orchestra par excellence, the Munich Bach Orchestra; Richter’s solid and technically accomplished accounts of 1967 are in a different league. The same can be said of the Christmas Oratorio, which for 1958 (mistakenly listed as three years earlier) is a disappointment – especially in matters of tempo – given that in the same year Richter recorded his first and legendary account of the St Matthew Passion (Archiv, 5/59) and notwithstanding that his 1965 version for DG of the Christmas Oratorio with Janowitz, Ludwig and Wunderlich is once again, for Richter, a case of once bitten twice smitten.
If posterity remembers Richter more as a director than a formidable virtuoso of the organ and harpsichord, then that is perhaps because we tend to be less tolerant of old performance practices on instruments, particularly the harpsichord, where research and developments in reconstruction have opened our eyes to new possibilities. Consequently, we are left with some pretty uncompromising and Gothic performances here: Richter’s overbearing gravity and some perplexing registral changes are about all one remembers of the Goldberg Variations. The six Partitas are rather unmalleable but more fleet-of-foot, with a balletic spring which reaches into the soul of the music, especially in Partitas Nos. 1 and 5. As a soloist-director in harpsichord and organ concertos, Richter’s performances have a more endearing and enduring quality. A disc of harpsichord concertos, the earliest performances, recorded at the Ansbach Bach Festival in 1955, is fresh and buoyant, conveying something of that unique vitality which characterizes the best of his early choral recordings. The complete set of Handel Organ Concertos, Opp. 4 and 7 is in scale and conception intermittently absurd but deeply impressive at the same time and well recorded. Richter was unquestionably one of the most notable post-war organists; not surprisingly he sits far more comfortably on record as an organist than as a clavier player. There is a more joyous bravura at the console, and an awesome authority too. Perhaps the idea of his conducting Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is less surprising when one witnesses the extraordinarily skilful pacing of the Dorian Fugue in the second of two discs of Bach organ works. I hope DG follow suit with their rich pickings of Richter’s Bach performances.
How does one sum up such a varied and fascinating document? Those under the spell of Richter’s flawed but driven and dedicated musicianship will want this collection; the photo archive provides the material for a satisfying presentation despite inadequate information on performances and a lack of texts in some discs. For non-Richterians, the many delights of this set are also available on single discs. A mixed bag, yes, but a crucial one in gaining a more refined perspective on a potent and much-misunderstood figure.'