Sviatoslav Richter

His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872–1941), was a pianist, organist and composer born to German expatriates, who from 1893 to 1900 studied at the Vienna Conservatory.

His mother, Anna Pavlovna Richter (née Moskaleva; 1893–1963), came from a noble Russian landowning family, and at one point she studied under her future husband.

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (March 20 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian classical pianist.

He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time, and has been praised for the "depth of his interpretations, his virtuoso technique, and his vast repertoire".

Richter was born in Zhytomyr, Volhynian Governorate, in the Russian Empire (modern-day Ukraine), the hometown of his parents.

In 1918, when Richter's parents were in Odessa, the Civil War separated them from their son, and Richter moved in with his aunt Tamara.

He lived with her from 1918 to 1921, and it was then that his interest in art first manifested itself: he first became interested in painting, which his aunt taught him.

In the early 1920s Richter became interested in music (as well as other art forms such as cinema, literature, and theatre) and started studying piano.

Unusually, he was largely self-taught.

His father gave him only a basic education in music, as did one of his father's pupils, a Czech harpist.

Even at an early age, Richter was an excellent sight-reader and regularly practised with local opera and ballet companies.

He developed a lifelong passion for opera, vocal and chamber music that found its full expression in the festivals he established in La Grange de Meslay, France, and in Moscow at the Pushkin Museum.

At age 15, he started to work at the Odessa Opera, where he accompanied the rehearsals.

In 1921 the family was reunited, and the Richters moved to Odessa, where Teofil taught at the Odessa Conservatory and, briefly, worked as organist of a Lutheran church.

On March 19, 1934, Richter gave his first recital, at the Engineers' Club of Odessa; but he did not formally start studying piano until three years later, when he decided to seek out Heinrich Neuhaus, a pianist and piano teacher, at the Moscow Conservatory.

During Richter's audition for Neuhaus (at which he performed Chopin's Ballade No. 4), Neuhaus apparently whispered to a fellow student, "This man's a genius."

Although Neuhaus taught many pianists, including Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, it is said that he considered Richter to be "the genius pupil, for whom he had been waiting all his life", while acknowledging that he taught Richter "almost nothing".

Early in his career, Richter also tried composition, and it even appears that he played some of his works during his audition for Neuhaus.

He gave up composition shortly after moving to Moscow.

Years later, Richter explained this decision as follows: "Perhaps the best way I can put it is that I see no point in adding to all the bad music in the world".

By the beginning of World War II, Richter's parents' marriage had failed and his mother had fallen in love with another man.

Because Richter's father was a German, he was under suspicion by the authorities and a plan was made for the family to flee the country.

Due to her romantic involvement, his mother did not want to leave and so they remained in Odessa.

In August 1941, his father was arrested and later found guilty of espionage, being sentenced to death on October 6, 1941.

Richter did not speak to his mother again until shortly before her death nearly 20 years later in connection with his first US tour.

In 1943, Richter met Nina Dorliak (1908–1998), an operatic soprano.

He noticed Dorliak during the memorial service for Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, caught up with her at the street and suggested to accompany her in recital.

They remained living companions from around 1945 until Richter's death; they had no children.

Dorliak accompanied Richter both in his complex private life and career.

In 1949, Richter won the Stalin Prize, which led to extensive concert tours in Russia, Eastern Europe and China.

He gave his first concerts outside the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia in 1950.

In 1952, Richter was invited to play Franz Liszt in a film based on the life of Mikhail Glinka, called The Composer Glinka (remake of the 1946 film Glinka).

The title role was played by Boris Smirnov.

On February 18, 1952, Richter made his sole appearance as a conductor in the world premiere of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor, with Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist.

In April 1958, Richter was on the jury of the first Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

It is often alleged that they married around this time, but in fact Dorliak only obtained a marriage certificate a few months after Richter's death in 1997.

She supported him in his final illness, and died herself less than a year later, on May 17, 1998.

Since his death it has been reported that Richter was homosexual and that having a female companion provided a social front for his true sexual orientation, because homosexuality was widely taboo at that time and could result in legal repercussions.

Richter was an intensely private person and was usually quiet and withdrawn, and refused to give interviews.

He never publicly discussed his personal life until the last year of his life when filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon convinced him to be interviewed for a documentary.