April 5, 1970

There is a great deal of metaphysical depth in a piano recital by Sviatoslav Richter, an emanation of mystical power which is as palpable as it is invisible. Granitic of manner, he is deficient in or perhaps contemptuous of superficial charm. Should he choose some day to fake a bit of the grandstand histrionics affected by some performers, it would not matter: he certainly possesses everything else which distinguishes a major artist.

His April 5th Carnegie Hall program was lean and almost frugal, as shorn of vain and empty show as was his platform deportment. It built muscular and sonorous splendors one on top of the other with Beethoven works — the Opus 34 Variations on an Original Theme, the Opus 76 D Major Variations, the Opus 35 Eroica Variations— and with Schumann's massive, architectonic, "Beethovenesque"Symphonic Etudes. It was a case of a giant addressing himself to giants, with results that were pianistically and interpretively gigantic. Matched by few if any keyboard virtuosi as a master of the pedal, Mr. Richter alternated percussive explosions with passages of poetic introspection to a degree both arresting and astonishing, particularly in the Eroica Variations and the Schumann. With fingers like his a Steinway can indeed be made to sound like an orchestra, a pianist rival a conductor.