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Van Cliburn and Sviatoslav Richter were mutual admirers. Cliburn once described Richter's playing as the most powerful he'd ever heard, and Richter, as a judge in the Tchaikovsky competition directed to score competitors on a scale of 1-10, gave Cliburn 100 and everyone else 0.

But their mindset regarding performance couldn't be more different. Cliburn once said that the pianist must never think of himself when performing because it is always for the audience he is playing, never for himself. Richter, on the other hand, said he always played only for himself and that he never paid any attention to the audience.

So, which do you agree with? Bear in mind, there's no right or wrong answer.

That being said, Richter is right .

VC

If a pianist was listening to himself/herself playing, wouldn't that make him/her also part of the audience? In which case they'd both be right!! Or both wrong...

I love them both, but, here I have to side with Van.

I think that Richter meant that he plays up to his own standards, and very faithfully to the score.

Interesting... so far, the consensus seems more inclined towards Cliburn.

I feel I need to amend the perspective of Richter, which isn't quite so cut and dried as I made it. His specific take is the following:



So apparently, it's not that he didn't care about the audience, and in fact he wanted them to feel "satisfied" with his performance. But as far as how it relates to his playing, the audience just doesn't seem to factor in to it at all.

If one plays only for oneself, why even perform solo recitals in public?

Are you sure Richter said that? I read the recent and only, I think, lengthy bio of Richter and I don't remember reading that.

Hi pianoloverus,

I got the quote from the Autumn 1997 issue of International Piano Quarterly, who in turn got it from a German book called Musiker Im Gespräch: Sviatoslav Richter. According to IPQ, the interviews from this article originally took place in September 1971 and August 1973.

These are just things that people say. When you are performing onstage, in real time, you are too engulfed in the moment and in the music to be conscious of to whom and why you are playing. (off-stage philosophies notwithstanding)

Well.... I think you should play in a way that is honest to yourself, and share that with an audience.

Where does that make me stand?

No, here's the right answer.

It's in between.

The audience is what enables us to find things in ourselves that we never would have -- and that's what we express.

Richter suffered from performance anxiety after an embarrassing memory lapse during a performance. He used to play with the score and just a single light next to the piano shining on the keyboard. The audience couldn't even see his face. I think he did all that to ward off the anxiety. His attitude toward performing was probably a device to deal with his fear.

Hmm, I think Richter just started performing with a score because he said if you were to be absolutely true to the composer you should play with a score; it's impossible to memorize every single detail, and a score gives you the details right there. According to him, it's more honest that way.

I was responding to your OP. Your second post(the quote) clearly shows that the audience was also important to Richter.

That was Richter's official statement, and I dont disagree with him, buy in reality he never trusted his memory after that famous memory lapse. I believe he was playing a well known Bach P&F (it may have even been #1 in C major) and he just kept coming back to the same spot and couldn't remember the next chord.

I agree with neither. Performing is for the composer first and everything else comes second.

I guess I have to side more with Richter on this one, though Cliburn sounds like the more PC statement. I want to hold what I do up to standard with myself, if I don't like what I am hearing myself, how will I convince the audience to like it.

Would Cortot and Michelangeli represent two extreme examples of each argument?

Maybe, but I don't know which categories they'd be in?

Unless someone is playing only for the money or their ego, I can't see why soemone wouldn't care what the audience feels. Why perform in public?

I think some posters are confusing about caring if the audience feels something with who should evaluate the quality of a performance.

Hi Ralph,

Don't *all* pianists suffer from performance anxiety? ;P

At any rate, if I'm not mistaken these interviews took place before the infamous memory slip. And, according to Richter, at least, the thing about playing almost completely in the dark was to allow the audience to focus on the music and not the performer (and, he admitted, there was a kind of theatrical effect to it as well).