All attempts to find a rational key to the enigma of genius are pointless: we shall never find the mould for talent... He is more than a pianist, his problems are on a higher level... they arise and are solved at the meeting point of art, science and philosophy, the point where a single universal, allembracing truth is expressed.
Alfred Schnittke

His archive contains some large notebooks with resumes of operatic scenes and lines by the main characters written in felt tip in his large handwriting. He knew the operatic repertoire well and introduced his friends and close acquaintances to this favourite musical genre of his. He would invite people to the apartment on Bolshaya Bronnaya to listen to an opera after first reading the libretto and he himself would play the leitmotifs and add the necessary commentaries. For example, the invitations to a hearing of Wagner’s tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelungs stated «Four evenings. One opera each evening.» Then «If you can’t come to each of the evenings, please don’t bother to come at all.» Concerts, private views and theatre performances were a long-standing tradition in the Richter household. Friends remember New Year at his place: a Christmas tree up to the ceiling, candelabra, candles, glitterering silver strands, and under the tree a Swiss musical box he had brought back with him that played a delightful forgotten melody by the German romantic composer Humperdinck.

At Christmas they would listen to the Bach Christmas Oratorio and at Easter to the Bach Passion. Either in full or in part. And sometimes twice over. Richter loved painting Easter eggs. He would buy as many as two hundred eggs and paint them with Russian folk motifs, or in art nouveau or abstract style. Eggshells containing a little water were hung from the chandelier, with a tiny bunch of snowdrops in each of them. Richter disliked wasting time on trifles. For him anything showy, petty or purely formal was a trifle. The meetings on Bolshaya Bronnaya, like the concert programmes, always had a special significance and required careful directing and preparation. He never begrudged time spent on this, either at home or on the stage. The museum seeks to preserve the musical and family traditions established by the hosts of this hospitable home.

On 20 March, 2002, Sviatoslav Richter’s birth. day, the Borodin Quartet gave the first performance of a work entitled Life by Richter’s father, Teofil Danilovich, in the Memorial Apartment. This work was subsequently performed at the December Evenings festival and during European tours. Each excursion in the Memorial Apartment is accompanied by audio or video recordings. There are also concerts and musical-literary evenings by famous artistes and talented young performers, and Christmas is always celebrated, as are other special dates including the birthdays of Sviatoslav Teofilovich and Nina Lvovna.

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