Sviatoslav's Daddy's String Quartet!

THEOPHIL RICHTER (1872-1941): String Quartet in F, FELIX BLUMENFELD (1863-1931): String Quartet in F, Op. 26 (World Premiere Recordings).

Description: Now what self-respecting, crazed, obsessed collector of the most obscure repertoire would not want to have a work by Sviatoslav Richter's father? The latter was a piano tuner by trade and, later, a teacher and an orchestral musician and he was arrested by the NKVD and shot in October 1941 as a spy, likely because, before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, he had taught the children of the German consul in Odessa. The only work of his to survive except for a few piano pieces, it was preserved by his son and is now missing, this performance having used photocopies of the manuscript. No date, but we can tell you that it's a very relaxed, lyrical piece with only one really quick movement, a lively rondo finale. Piano virtuoso Blumenfeld's 1898 quartet is Richter's opposite - three fast movements bursting with energy and high spirits with an Andantino which seems to want to be a charging race horse as well but is behaving itself. This quartet has a rightful place among the better late Romantic Russian works of the genre. Odessa String Quartet.