Huddled against the cold, a frail-looking figure trudges the snow-laden Moscow streets, his steps accompanied by a world-weary but resolute performance of the slow movement of Schubert’s B flat Sonata. Cut to Prokofiev’s Fifth Concerto, filmed in 1958 when Richter was in his physical and pianistic prime.
Bruno Monsaingeon’s wonderful documentary is full of such juxtapositions. It is built around Richter’s own reminiscences, some read out by him, some engagingly off-the-cuff in response to gentle questioning. The 80-year-old’s gaunt features and the sound of his hollowed voice are initially shocking, at least to one who saw him in apparently robust health only six years earlier. Shocking for some, too, will be the candour of his self-assessment as he places his performances in one of three categories – successful, fairly successful and unsuccessful. But in between comes archive footage of simply stupendous piano playing, the instances too numerous to itemize.
All hail to the researchers for unearthing such an extraordinary wealth of material, covering Richter’s career from the 1940s to the 1990s and his solo, concerto and chamber repertoire from Bach and Haydn to Berg and Prokofiev. All sympathy to them too, for having to be so selective. Many of the extracts are indeed maddeningly short. Perhaps the most tantalizing of all is a split-second view of the one and only occasion when Richter conducted – Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante with Rostropovich as soloist. Inevitably we’re left longing for more. Yet none of the clips fails to make a point, and only once does the continuity between interview and musical illustration fall down: when the wrong Rachmaninov Etude-tableau follows Richter’s frail tum-ti-tuming (his point being to illustrate his idea that Prokofiev’s contempt for Rachmaninov belied the latter’s strong influence on the former).
Monsaingeon manages to address most of the obvious and important questions. Richter’s family background, including the “darkest hour” of his father’s death and his mother’s emigration and remarriage, his training under Neuhaus and before, his contact with the greats of Soviet music and with the likes of Fischer-Dieskau and Britten, his attitude to instruments (“take a piano as you take fate”), to interpretation (with almost contradictory statements about freedom and faithfulness to the score), to concert venues, to playing from memory, to practice regimes, and to the music of the composers most closely associated with him, are all covered. Family photos and home videos supply as much precious material as the official film-clips.
Don’t expect any of this to explain the Enigma. Indeed aspects of it, such as Richter’s widely supposed homosexuality, are not touched on at all, and anyone interested in political dimensions will have to piece the picture together from a number of intriguing fragments (in general Richter is scathing about those who would read political protest into any of his actions). No critical commentary on his playing is offered, apart from his own remarks and a few generalizations from his wife, Nina Dorliak, and some brief apercus from Glenn Gould (with dubbed-on voice).
Yet the musical illustrations are so absorbing that it’s difficult to feel any lack. And insights are vouchsafed that I for one haven’t encountered before: that a prime reason for Richter’s move from Odessa to Moscow was to avoid military service; or that before beginning the Liszt Sonata Richter used to count slowly and silently to 30, calculatedly creating tension in the audience; or that Karajan did “unforgivable things” in accompanying not only the Tchaikovsky B flat Concerto but also the famous Beethoven Triple with Oistrakh and Rostropovich.
Such are the protean gifts of the man that his excursions into painting and opera production can only be mentioned in passing. Yet the video would be worth its price just for the clips of Richter acting (rather well!) the part of Liszt in a filmed life of Glinka.
Near the end the wraith-like figure declares, “I don’t like myself”; hollow eyes stare at the interlocutor, the head rests wearily on a crooked hand, and for a moment you’re not sure whether to be frustrated or grateful that this final enigma is left uncommented. Then the credits roll over a life-enhancing performance of the Scherzo from Schubert’s last sonata – the return to life after the appalling slow movement – and you realize that this is the only comment that matters.'