Full transcript
0:01I've always believed that it's possible
0:03to divide musical performers into two
0:05categories those who seek to exploit the
0:08instrument they use and those who do
0:10not in the first category if we believe
0:13the history books one can find a place
0:15for such legendary characters as list
0:17and Paganini as well as any number of a
0:19allegedly demonic virtuosi of more
0:21recent
0:22vintage that category belongs
0:25essentially to musicians who are
0:27determined to make us aware of their
0:29relationship with their instrument
0:30whatever it happens to be they allow
0:32that relationship to become the focus of
0:34attention uh the second category on the
0:36other hand includes musicians who try to
0:39bypass the whole question of Performing
0:42mechanism to create the illusion at any
0:45rate of a direct link between themselves
0:47and a particular musical score and
0:49therefore Help The Listener to achieve a
0:52sense of involvement not with the
0:54performance per se but rather with the
0:56music itself and I think that in our
0:59time there is no better example of that
1:01second kind of musician than SWAT richer
1:06[Music]
2:23[Music]
2:29[Music]
3:00[Music]
3:04what swatl richer does in fact is insert
3:08between the listener and the composer
3:09his own enormously powerful personality
3:11as a kind of conduit and as he does this
3:15we gain the impression that we're
3:16discovering the work a new and very
3:18often from a quite different perspective
3:20than that to which we're accustomed
3:27[Music]
3:30l
3:43[Music]
4:35zapis
4:47bolog so
4:52[Music]
5:00l
5:01[Music]
5:26[Music]
5:43spee
6:12the first time I heard him play was at
6:15the Moscow Conservatory in uh May
6:181957 and he opened his program with the
6:21last of Schubert sonatas uh Sonata in B
6:24flat major it's a very long Sonata one
6:26of the longest ever written in fact and
6:28richer played did at what I believe to
6:31be the slowest Tempo I've ever heard
6:33thereby making it a good deal longer
6:35needless to say I think at this point
6:37it's appropriate to confess two things
6:41the first is that heretical though it
6:42may be I'm not really addicted to most
6:44of Schubert's music I find myself
6:47usually unable to come to terms with the
6:49repetitive structures involved and I
6:51find that I get very restless and squirm
6:52a great deal when I have to sit through
6:54one of the longer schuber essays well
6:57what happened in fact was that for the
6:59next hour I was in a state that I can
7:01only compare to a hypnotic
7:12trance all of my prejudices about
7:15Schubert's repetitive structures were
7:17forgotten musical details which I
7:20previously considered to be ornamental
7:21were given the appearance of organic
7:23elements in fact I can remember many of
7:25those details to this day and it seemed
7:28to me that I was witnessing a union of
7:30two supposedly irreconcilable qualities
7:33intense analytical calculation revealed
7:35through a spontaneity equivalent to
7:37improvisation and I realized at that
7:39moment as I have on many subsequent
7:41occasions while listening to Rich's
7:42recordings that I was in the presence of
7:44one of the most powerful communicators
7:46the world of music has produced in our
7:48time
7:50[Music]
8:34[Music]