Brahms Piano Concerto No.2 in B-Flat, Op.83 - Sviatoslav Richter 1960

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Robert L Marchina, cello solo

When Sviatoslav Richter walked on the stage of Orchestra Hall for his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - October 15, 1960 - he was widely suspected of being the dark horse in the pianistic derby. When a tautly mesmerized audience started to shout a split second before he, the orchestra and Erich Leinsdorf put a crashing period to Brahms' Concerto in B-flat, just that many more people knew that he belongs to the winner's circle with the greatest pianists of all time.

When two days later Richter returned to Orchestra Hall to make his first American recording, nothing was changed, but it was amplified. To the audience's reaction, "What a pianist!" was added the orchestra's accolade, "What a pro!"

Since the Soviet stage door had opened to the western world, touring Russian virtuosi kept telling us, "Wait until you hear Richter." It is hard for globe-trotting Americans to understand the wrench, the total displacement it must have been for Richter, who had been outside the Soviet orbit only for a brief trip to Finland, to ship to America at the invitation of impresario S. Hurok and come on to Chicago after a brief stop in New York. Or to find when he arrived that Fritz Reiner, the orchestra's renowned permanent conductor, was hospitalized and unable to conduct. It was only at the last moment that Mr. Leinsdorf worked himself free to Metropolitan Opera rehearsals long enough to take police escort to the airport and rush to the rescue.

At the concert Richter walked onstage, hands held limply before him, looking gentle as a lamb about to be devoured by the Brahmsian bear. Until the began to play. Then his hands grew larger; they were steel or chiffon as he chose. And out of him poured the Brahms Second of a listening lifetime. -Claudia Cassidy (1960)