"Personal memories" IV by Prof. Lidia Baldecchi Arcuri

part IV


Transl. by L.B.A. from "Sviatoslav Richter in Liguria: 1962 - 1992", Concerti e Ricordi personali, by Guido Sarpero and Lidia Baldecchi Arcuri. Edit. C.G.


Prof. Sarpero reports:

During these years he frequently visited the Ligurean and French Rivieras, and it was from Genoa that he began his1989 tour in Italy; and it is on this occasion that he decides to begin the tour dedicating a concert to his long-time friend, Prof. Lidia Baldecchi Arcuri, to her pupils, and to the Conservatory “N. Paganini” in which she was teaching at the time. This is the chosen program:

As always when the Maestro decided to come my way, Milena Borromeo would call to give me the general details. I had, by then, an organized network of friends and pupils who suggested hotels, pensions or particular corners of the region that could meet his taste, and that…were new to him! This time the choice fell on a lovely hotel in Camogli that belonged to a friend of mine. It was there that we met him for afternoon tea. As always, we spoke of many events, of his health (he wasn’t in the best of shape), of facts in general and music, of course.

I remember one fact in particular because linked to another anecdote which took place shortly afterwards, and because it concerned the old diatribe about good and bad pianos.

A concert had been organized for him at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. The piano he was to play on turned out to be “the worst I had ever touched!”; but a refusal to perform, (which was his immediate reaction), was absolutely unthinkable. Then he turned to me tilting his head in his peculiar way, and with his typical expression (which meant, “really it’s the absolute truth!), he concluded: “It turned out to be one of the best concerts of my life.”

On the same theme, when I brought him to visit the hall and piano at the Conservatory, the Director came to meet him and had the unfortunate idea to excuse himself for the poor piano he had to offer him. I can still see him tilting his head, giving him a querulous and rather haughty look, and saying, “All pianos are good pianos for me!” That was that, and also the end of the story… I also believe that the concert that followed was also one of his best!

This is how it all happened.

Suddenly, out of the blue, the Maestro turned to me, and in his simple, dry style said, “I’ve decided to dedicate a concert to you, to your pupils, in your Conservatory” (I couldn’t believe my ears);but, he continued, “I could play one of two different programs that I believe to be suitable for the occasion: one completely composed of Études ( ! ) and another…the other was the one I chose whispering the answer. I looked at my husband who had remained impassive at the announcement. I translated it as meaning exactly the same thing that had crossed my mind. Many times we may express the wish and the will to do something which in effect we are unable to do for a number of uncontrollable circumstances. So I looked at him, thanked him (..weakly!), conversed for some time still. The next day he left for Tuscany. I no longer dared nurture the idea that the incredible gift he had offered me would actually take place.

After a week, a call from Milena announced that Richter would give the concert the following week, on the 26th of January. I then realized that the Maestro never wasted his breath-

I immediately called the President of the Conservatory and the next day we met with the Director. When he told us that there were no funds to cover the minor costs of hosting such an event, I immediately set out to find them. The bank, Cassa di Risparmio offered the sojourn; Dott. Nicola Costa sent his private driver to pick him up in Tuscany and bring him to Nervi (a new destination to which he will return several times, and where, strangely enough, I now live). I personally took care of the tuner who worked for two days on the piano to make it worthy of the occasion and procured the small spotlight for the piano - (he had now adopted this discreet, almost mysterious type of lighting for his concerts). I then begged the local parish priest not to clang out the bells at Vesper time …and waited for the grand day to arrive.

The Maestro was thrilled with the accomodation and the sea-walk: everything suited him. Turandot was on the billboard and he asked me if tickets were available. I procured them and off he went. The next morning he came but did not practice as I had expected: instead, there he sat at the piano playing and commenting the tempos taken by the conductor in certain passages of the opera! As usual, my husband joined in and they duetted until lunchtime. He wanted to lunch in the kitchen and so we did. I wasn’t aware that he didn’t particularly care for salads and I had prepared a rather complex one; fortunately he commented, “Oh, the first interesting salad of my life!” For Richter, things were “interesting” or “not interesting”. Another example? The first time I saw him pull out of his pocket a conspicuous roll of money-bills, I told him to be careful. He looked at me and said, “Why, is money interesting?”

He asked my opinion on what he should wear for the concert (he was very meticulous on the matter), and went to rest a bit. I arranged that he be accompanied by a pupil of mine, who also was to turn the pages, and went off to the Conservatory for last minute necessities.

A half-hour before the concert, the hall was already completely full and amazingly… silent! I was quite touched by the awareness of all these young people of the uniqueness of the event.

When the programmed time for the beginning of the concert arrived…no Richter! Fifteen minutes of complete anguish on my part, and total silence in the hall followed. Then suddenly my pupil appeared and, amused, told me that the Maestro had seen a deli and had stopped to eat some prosciuttoon a bread stick! I wewnt to greet his arrival, he looked around and ordered, “ Put on all the lights!”. The hall exploded in a prolonged applause with rhythmic calls of Richter, Richter…!

The rest is testified by the raving reviews and a recorded testimonial. It was and remains the most extraordinary gift received in my lifetime."

"After the concert, Richter did something so exceptional for him, that even the newspapers reported it: he sat down at the Director’s desk and autographed all the programs presented by the bubbling, now-noisy students!

During the quarterhour before he opened the door to the invading horde, he took me aside, visibly pleased and smiling said, “ In this program I intended to trace a journey from the Heavens (Schubert) to Earth; but to the licentious, dissolute, lewd Earth of Grosz (Hindemith Suite), Do you know him?” I answered negatively. By now you can guess what he said to me pointing his index: “Investigate.”

I did, and what a discovery it turned out to be!"

"By pure chance, in 1995, I was asked to give some lectures for the coinciding commemorative year of Hindemith’s and Bartok’s birth. My investigation of the period had started shortly after Richter’s (imperative) suggestion to investigate.

The entire process initiated with the audition of a great part of Hindemith’s operatic, symphonic, solo and chamber works. My friend, Mrs. Orlandini, owner of a famous record shop of the time, helped me by lending me everything she had in stock. The link, Hindemith-Grosz introduced me to the entire period of German Expressionism between the two wars and to the extraordinary Medieval Masters by whom they were inspired. This Gothic heritage (not Baroque as I had been taught erroneously!), was often declared by Hindemith himself. The Baumberg Masters were the font of his inspiration and ideals. So I had decided to cover the walls of the Conservatory hall with huge posters of these Medieval painters together with those of Contemporary painters of Hindemith’s period. A truly astounding similarity resulted. One of the posters, representing a wooden Madonna of a Baumberg Master was to be the visual background to a performance of Hindemith’s“Marienleben”, Opus 27 for voice and piano.

As I was kneeled on the floor at home, reinforcing the Madonna poster for its placement on a stand, the phone rang. It was Milena keeping me posted.

“By the way,” she concluded, “the Maestro tells me to tell you how difficult the piano part to the Marienleben lieder is!” (He was to perform them during his Festival at the Grange de Melais, and I knew nothing about it.). By Pure Chance."

"On one of our jaunts dowm the coast, I noticed the Maestro searching for something in the landscape (?) His visual memory was phenominal. Suddenly he exclaimed – happy as a lark – “That’s what I was looking for . There it is!” It was the baroque steeple of the church of a small ex-fishing village; Sori.

He asked me to look for a pied-a-terre for him there. The task was more difficult than it might sound , because he wanted it “right under or in front of the church”.

I had found something, but he later chnaged his mind. Not unusual!"

"I have just recently connected certain readings with certain choices taken by Richter during the last part of his extraordinary artistic career. In the program notes that appeared in the halls, he explained the reason for his determination to play in near darkness. What he never explained though, was the why of his concomitant choice to play only in small environments. From this consideration, I am naturally excluding the argument that small spaces are the dominating feature of numerous aesthetically enticing structures of the past: (for example, the small theaters of Mantova, Sabbioneta, Vicenza, Imperia, etc.). During my literary wanderings I fell upon an interesting conclusion of Peter Brookes, theatrical director, that could coincide with similar intimate needs felt by Richter in his later years.

The book is entitled “The Shifting Point” (“Il Punto in Movimento”). The chapter is subtitled

Richter was a great “connoisseur” of theater and theatrical methods. He knew the techniques and the needs of projection “towards” and “through” space. Could it be that he also, at a certain point, had felt an urgent need to establish a new, a more intimate, a more dynamic rapport with his fellow creatures?

Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t ask him. Now I certainly would."