Novosti Press Agency, 1967
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MISSIONARY OF THE BEAUTIFUL
From recitals he comes home dogweary, his shirt and swallowtails wet through with sweat. Physical weariness, though, gives him no worry, he is always glad to have the opportunity of slimming. He sits down to supper. He is not fastidious about his food and is horrified by all the dishes plied upon him at sundry dinners given in his honour. He cannot stand these long formal rituals where people seem desirous merely of killing time. He has no time. Music consumes his every moment. Richter is fond of travelling — that, to him, may mean a journey to Naples or a weekend picnic out of town.
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On his travels and in life generally he keeps more to himself, but not so much as to remain aloof when interference is necessary. One day, he happened to spot a drunk in a railway station buffet pestering the waitress. He caught him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him bodily through the doorway. He gripped him so hard he fractured the tip of a finger. It was a nasty fracture, and it was a miracle that it grew together without untoward consequences. Richter returns from a distant tour of Canada and Europe to spend two months giving recitals in the USSR and then again leave, this time for London. He serves art ever on the go. One person well familiar with Richter told me. "He is a kulturtraeger in the best sense. He definitely has a passion for introducing this and educating that." On March 20, 1967 People's Artist of the USSR Svyatoslav Richter, a Lenin Prize Winner, turned 53. But that doesn't slow him down. As always, every two or three days, he sits down at the piano in one or another concert hall to again create for an entranced audience. It is said Richter has set himself a retirement date. He could not tolerate a Richter who would ever play worse than Richter. However, today he is still at the keys, and again, as yesterday and as tomorrow, people will argue, wondering who he really is, classicist or romanticist, thinker or poet, and who is his composer, Beethoven or Prokofiev. Chuck out the "or", that little word, which shortens the great and insert "and" everywhere instead a man can do nothing. But reality has many faces.
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