First off. I'm a Richter zealot. I own 200+ recordings of Richter. I went out of my way to acquire a collection of Japanese laserdiscs of Richter performances. Richter's performance of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto is for me a celestial performance. So...what about this book? I think unless you are pretty hardcore, this book will be a disappointment. It is not a biography. While I found Richter's ruminations on performances and recordings interesting, it is inconceivable to me that the average music lover would want to snuggle up with this book the way they might with a truly well-researched biography. Richter's life is fascinating, but I don't think it really comes across in this book. The author is honest in not portraying the book as a biography. And there's a great reference list of works that Richter has performed in public. What he didn't perform is almost as interesting as what he did -- e.g. he never performed Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto or Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven. I'd recommend waiting a year or so till someone does a great bio on this artist. In the meantime, watch the video that this book is based on. While everyone else seems to be giving rave reviews, I just can't see that. I gave my copy away.

I recommend this book, whether or not you've seen the companion documentary. However, as the film's title states, Richter is an enigma, and he still will be after you've read this book (or seen the film). With every page you get the impression he's keeping out as much as he's letting us know--and that's certainly his right. I'm not saying I'm looking for a "tell all" book about SR and frankly wouldn't want one. But there are times he stays frustratingly superficial about things: he denies he likes smaller venues for performing (I think it's kind of obvious he does), says repeatedly he does not like America "because everything's so standardized." Am I to believe that there's less variaty from Los Angeles to Maine than there is from Moscow to Odessa? He never really explains his beef with America or Americans, yet says being here made him "nauseous." His relationship to his wife and, of course, his homosexuality remain undiscussed. That's fine, except there's a lot of footage in the film where you find yourself wondering who took pictures of Richter that way, and why. (The scene of him wrapped in bedsheets running about is particularly interesting and humorous.)

The potential reader should also be forewarned that he reveals virtually nothing about his own art and insights. Anyone who enjoyed Joseph Horowitz's Conversations With Arrau and is looking for something similar will be disappointed. It very well may be that Richter was incapable of explaining or comprehending his talent. Or perhaps it was pretty much as he said, that it was pretty obvious to him how a piece should go because "all one has to do is read the score." He summed himself up with Kurt Sanderling's remark about him, "Not only can he play the piano, he can read notes too." To many such as myself who have been at times overwhelmed by Richter's mastery, that may seem too simplistic, and even like a veiled statement (deliberately simplistic, in other words), but that's what he says. And listening again to some of his greatest recordings, maybe it really was as simple as that.

He also clearly became a sadder and sadder man as life went on. There is some discussion in the foreward of health troubles and lengthy hospital stays, but this too is not really talked about in any detail, and we are left with a very incomplete picture. So if you buy this book you will have a fuller picture of Richter, but we are still seeing him through a veil, and I have a feeling the author wants it that way to protect some things he may not want to reveal, or that Richter may have asked him not to reveal before consenting with his cooperation. At any rate Richter is still an enigma after this book and the video, but a fascinating enigma nonetheless!

I've enjoyed this book enormously and don't mind that, as Monsaingeon tells us in the introduction, this is not exactly a biography- the title of the book also makes that clear.
The style and tone of the book are wonderfully simple and direct, and many passages are very humourous. I especially liked Richter's description of Maria Yudina and the accompanying photo's (in the second photo she looks like a tramp in sporting shoes). It tells also of the eccentricity and powerful personalities (especially Yudina) that today would, I'm afraid, be ridiculed. The whole atmosphere of Russia, despite it's enormous injustice, seems ages ago from today's streamlined concerts, planned a year or more in advance, where pianists receive enormous salaries.
There was some discussion in Holland when the documentary came out about the title (the enigma). The original title in French was "l'insoumis", which, according to a French friend, means somebody (especially a soldier) not obeying the rules and following his own path (the dictionary gives the translation "unsubdued"). I think the original title is more in line with the book also.