By Elijah Ho
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them, Sviatoslav Richter came and lived in the apartment of a famous Georgian painter 1]. My mother decided it was important for me to listen to him practice, and so we went. I sat in a nearby room and listened to him, for an entire hour, as he practiced nothing but one trill! (laughs) I remember he played The Well-Tempered Clavier at the following concert. Richter’s was very, very passionate playing, and the piano was always moving away from him somehow. This must have been in 1944 or so.
1] Ketevana Magalashvili or Elena Dmitrievna Akhvlediani
November 26, 2013
from an interview with pianist Marina Mdivani
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During the Second World War, many musicians were evacuated from Moscow to Tbilisi, and among
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| Milstein with Richter |
In 1955, I entered the Moscow Conservatory and was part of the same entrance competition as Vladimir Ashkenazy. We became very good friends and studied together for many years. It's a shame many of our classmates have passed away. In any case, Ashkenazy studied with Lev Oborin, and I was supposed to study with Heinrich Neuhaus, but something happened.
I was planning to get married, you see, and when Neuhaus heard of this, he said, “she will never become a pianist,”. At the time, I was a very different person, and I said, “If Neuhaus thinks this, I will not study with him!’. Neuhaus was a very popular teacher. He was a highly educated person, very cultured, and very interesting. He spoke of art, of life experiences, etc., and his classes were always very crowded. But I went to study with Yakov Milstein, who made editions of Scriabin, wrote lots of books about Liszt, was part of the Liszt Society, etc.
1] Ketevana Magalashvili or Elena Dmitrievna Akhvlediani
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