Richter the Master, Volume 2: Mozart

Status of copy at Case Memorial Library
Bernard Holland wrote in the New York Times: "In the Soviet era piano classes were in part international competition factories manufacturing faster, louder musicians capable of crushing opposition and waving the Red flag above cultural as well as political ground. Few students have had the personality to separate themselves. … Hovering over all of this is Sviatoslav Richter, who died 10 years ago at 82. Decca has produced three two-CD reissues of his recordings: one all Mozart, another all Beethoven and the third a collection of 20th-century Russians. They are in a different category. Richter did and did not belong to the era in which he lived. No teacher ruined him because he largely taught himself and did not pursue organized piano studies until his 20s. Turn first to the Mozart, all live recordings, to hear how good he was. Not much happens in the slow movement of the early Sonata in F (K. 280), and Richter makes doing almost nothing into an act of supreme musical mastery. Keeping the tempo in the first movement of the B flat Sonata (K. 333) becomes not an act of pedantry but a manifestation of good health" (5/20/07).