SVIATOSLAV RICHTER PLAYS BRAHM

Surging passion and great nobility from the grand old man of the keyboard - a must for Richter fans. Now that Arrau, Serkin and Kempff are gone, the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter has suddenly become a grand old man of the keyboard and we realize that he is coming up for 80, having been born in 1915 and made his debut as long ago as 1934. As it happens, Brahms's three piano sonatas were the work of a very young man (he was still under 21 when he composed the Third) and Richter here plays the first of them which, while not up to the standard of No. 3, is still a better piece than the rather grandiloquent Second. And very good his playing is. The tempo of the initial Allegro is so deliberate as perhaps to seem cautious, but there's nothing uncertain about Richter's playing technically (in his seventies it is still secure) or, for that matter, tonally. The recording, from a 1988 live recital in Germany, is short of richness, but at least it is clear. Indeed, there is much to