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I agree that the audience was important to Richter. In fact, later on in the same interview he goes on to describe the audience in Paris and contrast that with the audience in Germany and how the dynamic affects the recital. So clearly, he's attuned to these kinds of things.

I guess what I'm reading in these assertions is that one philosophy is geared more towards playing based primarily on what one is feeling, while the other is geared towards giving the audience what they seem to want. And given these options, I agree with the former (much as I think Pogorelich stated she does).

It's like the contrast between (Stanislavsky) "method" actors and others. Are you trying to be the character, or do you consciously act so as to convey the character to the audience. According to Chasins, Hofmann was in the second group, feeling that at times one had to "project" more to the audience than you would if you were playing in a small venue (a living room) or for yourself. Artur Rubinstein comments in the first volume of his autobiography that he would choose a person in the audience to play to. Perhaps that puts him in the second group also.

That's all true about the timing of the interview and the memory issue not occuring until 1980, but I think (and this is just my opinion) that Richter was fearing some sort of catastrophe that in fact did happen during that 1980 concert. And yes, most certainly all pianists suffer from performance anxiety. Gould delt with it in his way and Richter in his.

Richter was a powerhouse and a big figure of a man and he knew it, but none of us know what was really going on between his ears. He was also very theatrical when he performed. He'd sit at the piano for what seemed to be minutes and then attacked the keyboard. Maybe just a little showboating? He was VERY aware of the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hOKcdZJJFU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ-NAgDpRVs

I noticed that on that second video he sat on what looked like a bar stool. Very interesting.

To me, there's something smarmy and false about the Cliburn position. Of course, it's just what someone pandering to an audience would say.

Richter's not caring about the audience seems much more real to me, and interestingly, he's the one who had the long career, not Cliburn. And over time, it appears that he played for far far more people than Cliburn ever did, in spite of his "bad" attitude towards audiences.

But I don't think Richter was really anti-audience, it's more that he knew his own standards of performance worked better to get him playing at his absolute best, rather than trying to please "the audience". So playing for himself and not considering the audience was indirectly the way to do his best for the audience.

Pleasing the audience is something of a fantasy anyway, since the audience is really made up of all sorts of individuals who have all sorts of thoughts and ideas about what the music and performance should be and what they want out of it. A performer playing for the audience is really just projecting onto that mass of people some kind of imagined common denominator, which may or may not be close to reality.

Cortot would be in the "playing for self" category and Michelangeli the other. Of course i'm not being serious.

As to playing in public, i thought the audience goes to hear the pianist, and not necessarily that the pianist goes to play for the audience; especially in Richter's case.

+1 When I am playing a Beethoven Sonata, I play best when I feel like I am "channeling Beethoven".

If anything I would say essentially the opposite.

As I said before, I think the answer for most performers is (and should be) somewhere in between. But IMO Richter's is basically full of crap.

Along the lines of what some other people have said, IMO we can be pretty sure that what Richter said was more a compensatory kind of thing (sort of what would sometimes be called "sour grapes") than genuine. Looking at it that way perhaps helped him -- but it wasn't true.

(I think I can predict fairly well how you might reply, and I'm ready.)

As I read I keep thinking "false dichotomy". I doubt I could keep doing this without a healthy does of both attitudes.

I would never be able to learn anything on piano if I didn't love the music itself, enough to organize my life to accomodate hours of solitary practicing. The thought of performing pushes me to prepare as much as possible to cope with nerves and memory slips, and do the best I can of bringing this music to life in front of an audience, so's they can share some of the enjoyment I get out of it.

Disagree with what Mark says. Given the way he thrashes his own performances in his own private journals, I'm pretty sure that when he says he's only satisfied with a concert when he plays to his own standards, he's being genuine.

And to the OP or somewhere: I think the more exact words by Richter were somewhere along the lines of "I don't need the audience", not that he doesn't exactly care about them.

I don't disagree one bit with that.

But while the two things you're talking about (and they are different things) seem to be sort of the same, but they're not. Being satisfied or not satisfied according to the audience isn't the same as whether or not we are influenced by their presence and whether we feel it matters.

I just played a recital yesterday, and I'm not satisfied, for exactly the reason Richter gave: I didn't play to my own standard (although it met most of the audience's standard). I share that with Richter. (Not enough else, unfortunately.)
And there have been a couple of times in competitions that I did meet my own standards but not the judges' standards -- and I felt very satisfied.

But I don't at all share the rest of what Richter said (including how you clarified it), and as per what I said before, I don't believe it was even true for him, although he might have tried to convince himself that it was, and it may have helped him.

Hi all,

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the quote from Cliburn, lifted from the documentary for the 8th Cliburn competition, "Here to Make Music."



I admit, in its entirety it's not such a one-sided assertion. Nevertheless, the emphatic way he declares the last part about playing for the audience and not for oneself still doesn't sit right with me.

I couldn't agree more! Give me a break Van. We all know that audiences are the root of all evil. The only thing good about audiences are ticket sales and Van was very aware of that.

I saw Van play the Tchaik 1 in Philladelphia in 1978(?). Talk about building a career with one piece. He got a lot of mileage out of that one.

Sit right with you?
OK.....What both of these guys actually said isn't as simple as how it was presented here.

But anyway it has made for a nice thread.

Why doesn't it sit right? If you have an audience, particularly a paying one, then you should be playing for them. Otherwise, you are just masturbating in public. That should always be done in private.

When Richter played with a score, though, he sounded like he was reading - he lost his impulsiveness and fiery temperament. I listened to a Prokofiev Second Sonata from his Vienna recital that was drained of any kind of life. He was much more true to the music when he wasn't reading.

Personally, though, I'm much better with a score in front of me.

For what it's worth, y'all check this out: It's from the Cliburn Foundation website, in a "Q & A" by a past-and-possibly-future judge (Carol Leone), giving guidance for the upcoming amateur competition:


What about playing from memory?

At the Cliburn's Amateur competition, memorization isn't required of course, but the most successful pianists typically do play from memory. They're much more free.


Flat-out -- "They're much more free" -- none of "Some people say this and some people say that," or "This is just my opinion."
Just, "They're much more free."

Sure, we could say it's one person's opinion, but it's an opinion widely-enough shared that it's not unreasonable for the Cliburn site to say that. I wouldn't have put it so flat-out but I'm with those who are convinced that other things being equal, it's true, and Jeffrey's post about Richter is right in line with it.

Hi Damon,

Well, speaking for myself (RE: playing in public, NOT "playing with self" in public), I'm just kind of dubious of a performer who plays for the crowd. It brings to mind a circus seal blowing on horns for a fish. Well, to my twisted mind, anyway.

When I think of the mindset of one who plays for the audience, I think of someone who is trying to please as many people as s/he can, and trying to offend as few people as possible. In short, someone who is playing like they're trying to win a competition, or perhaps record something for posterity, which to me is boring. It's like they try to convey the universal by communicating on a universal level--making broad statements and platitudes that everyone can agree on. I'm more interested in someone who communicates something personal which then becomes universal through shared recognition.

And as for the other thing, um, yes. Probably best kept private.

Actually, Richter himself conceded the point. To quote (from S. R. Notebooks and Conversations):



He then goes on for a while talking about the advantages, which some people have already touched on (fidelity to the score, security, breadth of repertoire, etc.).