Anecdotes
- Richter usually refused to play piano transcriptions in concert, although on occasion he would perform opera transcriptions for his friends. In the 1940s, he apparently performed his own transcription of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for a group of friends in one sitting. Similarly, after being a witness at Riccardo Muti's wedding, Richter played from memory the entire first act of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for a small group of wedding guests.
- Born in 1915 to a father of German extraction and a Russian noble mother, Richter recounts how he told Herbert von Karajan that he (Richter) was "a German, too", and Karajan replied "then I am a Chinese". Richter commented on Karajan's reaction by saying, "How do you like that?" (Karajan was of part-Greek and Slovenian descent.)
Read more about this topic: Sviatoslav Richter
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