He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time,[1][2][3][4] and has been praised for the "depth of his interpretations, his virtuoso technique, and his vast repertoire".

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

His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter [de] (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.

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.

[8] 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.

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

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.

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

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.

[19] Having received the Stalin and Lenin prizes and become People's Artist of the RSFSR, he gave his first tour concerts in the US in 1960, and in England and France in 1961.

In 1959, Richter made another successful recording of Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon label.

[26] In 1963, after searching in the Loire Valley, France, for a venue suitable for a music festival, Richter discovered La Grange de Meslay, several kilometres north of Tours.

In 1986, Richter embarked on a six-month tour of Siberia with his beloved Yamaha piano, giving perhaps 150 recitals, at times performing in small towns that did not even have a concert hall.

[32] As late as 1995, Richter continued to perform some of the most demanding pieces in the pianistic repertoire, including Ravel's Miroirs cycle, Prokofiev's Second Sonata and Chopin's études, Ballade No.

[33][34] Richter's last recorded orchestral performance was of three Mozart concerti in 1994 with the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra conducted by his old friend Rudolf Barshai.

The program consisted of two Haydn sonatas and Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Beethoven, a piece for two pianos, which Richter performed with pianist Andreas Lucewicz.

"[38] His repertoire ranged from Handel and Bach to Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Szymanowski, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Britten, and Gershwin.

For instance, in the late 1980s, he learned Brahms's Paganini and Handel Variations, and in the 1990s, several of Debussy's études and pieces by Gershwin, and works by Bach and Mozart that he had not previously included in his programs.

Apart from his solo career, he also performed chamber music with partners such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Rudolf Barshai, David Oistrakh, Oleg Kagan, Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman, Zoltán Kocsis, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Benjamin Britten and members of the Borodin Quartet.

Richter also often accompanied singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Schreier, Galina Pisarenko and his wife and long-time artistic companion Nina Dorliak.

[citation needed] Richter explained his approach to performance as follows: "The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer's intentions to the letter.

Life unfolds for me like a theatre presenting a sequence of somewhat unreal sentiments; while the things of art are real to me and go straight to my heart.

Thus, his live recitals from Moscow (1948), Warsaw (1954 and 1972), Sofia (1958), New York City (1960), Leipzig (1963), Aldeburgh (multiple years), la Grange de Meslay near Tours (multiple years), Prague (multiple years), Salzburg (1977) and Amsterdam (1986), are considered among the finest documents of his playing, as are other live recordings issued during his lifetime and since his death on labels including Music & Arts, BBC Legends, Philips, Russia Revelation, Parnassus, and Ankh Productions.

This "complete" Richter project did not come to fruition, however, although twelve LPs worth of recordings were made between 1970 and 1973 and were subsequently reissued (in CD format) by Olympia (various composers, 10 CDs) and RCA Victor (Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier).

In 1961, Richter's RCA Victor recording with Erich Leinsdorf and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of the Brahms Piano Concerto No.

The Italian critic Piero Rattalino has asserted that the only pianists comparable to Richter in the history of piano performance were Franz Liszt and Ferruccio Busoni.

"[63] Pierre Boulez wrote of Richter: "His personality was greater than the possibilities offered to him by the piano, broader than the very concept of complete mastery of the instrument.

"[67] On picking small venues for performance: "Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop in a pretty place where there is a good church; unload the piano and tell the residents; give a concert; offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend; leave again.