Sviatoslav Richter was born in Zhitomir, Russia but grew up in Odessa. Unusually, he was largely self-taught although his organist father provided him with a basic education in music. Even at an early age, Richter was an excellent sight-reader, and regularly practiced with local opera and ballet companies.
He developed a lifelong passion for opera, vocal and chamber music that found its full expression in the festival he established in Grange de Meslay, France. He later started to work at the Odessa Conservatory where he accompanied the opera rehearsals.
Richter gave his first recital in 1934 at the engineer club of Odessa but did not formally study piano until three years later, when he enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory, which waived the entrance exam for the young prodigy.
He studied with Heinrich Neuhaus who also taught Emil Gilels, and who claimed Richter to be “the genius pupil, for whom he had been waiting all his life”.
In 1940, while still a student, Sviatoslav Richter gave the world premiere of the Sonata No. 6 by Sergei Prokofiev, a composer with whose works he was ever after associated.
Here is Sviatoslav Richter in a wonderful recital of Beethoven’s music:
