Featured titles
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The Witness, a novel by Ilya Mitrofanov (1993)
Rights sold: Germany - Volk und Welt, Italy - Isbn Edizioni, Spain - Lumen, Poland - Claroscuro
"This novel is intensely passionate, and rich in fresh images and patterns..." (Silvia Bambino, The Wanity Fair)
"The Witness" is the first-person narrative of the life story of a simple human being, a barber Fedor Petrovich, whose life's most intense and dramatic period was the incorporation of his native Bessarabia into the Soviet Union in 1940, accompanied by coercion from the new command structure, which affected social relationships and caused enormous suffering due to famine brought on both by prolonged drought and by mistakes in official planning and preparation.
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In the speck on the map called Kotlovina, the entire historical drama, starting with the so-called Soviet liberation from Romanian rule, was played out to its horrible end with very few survivors to live and tell about it.
The novel's success is based on the vivid and laconic presentation of its characters. "The Witness" projects the speech pattern of a simple, uneducated man. This style makes use of down-to-earth expressions, is unafraid of repetitions, takes notice of the simple things in life (of a person's outward appearance, of smells and fragrances, all very appropriate to a barber's profession), is not averse to rudeness in language and behavior, and above all is a stranger to all dissembling and pretense. The events told are viewed through the prism of recollection, which softens their horrible contours somewhat and which allows the theme of brotherhood to emerge and feelings of hatred to dissolve. Honesty and lack of pretense are the author's hallmark, and it is these features which characterize his artistic expression. -
By Richter's Side. Dialogues with Sviatoslav Richter by Yuri Borisov (2003, 2011)
Rights sold: France – ACTES SUD, Japan – ONGAKU NO TOMO, Russia – RUTENA, AZBOOKA, Spain – ACANTILADO
Richter shared with his younger friend the stories of his childhood, and recollections of his meetings with other celebrities (Britten, Fischer-Dieskau, Gavrilov, Michelangeli, Picasso, Prokofiev, Serkin, Sofronitski, Vedernikov, Yudina, etc.). He explained his vision of music, comparing it with other arts: painting (Ernst, Renoir, Schiele, Vermeer, etc..), literature (Balzac, Block, Maeterlinck, Mann, Ostrovsky, Proust, Racine, Rostand, etc..), cinema (Alexandrov, Chaplin, Cocteau, Kurosawa, Pasolini, etc..). Notes taken during or after these extremely interesting conversations Borisov has later converted into a book, thanks to which we can look into the inner world of Sviatoslav Richter, one of the most exciting figures on 20th century musical horizon.
ABOUT SVIATOSLAV RICHTER (1915-1997)
- 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.
- Glenn Gould called Richter one of "the most powerful musical communicators of our time".
- Van Cliburn attended a Richter recital in 1958 in the Soviet Union. He reportedly cried during the recital and, upon returning to the United States, described Richter's playing as "the most powerful piano playing I have ever heard".
- Arthur Rubinstein described his first exposure to Richter as follows: "It really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Then at some point I noticed my eyes growing moist: tears began rolling down my cheeks."
- Heinrich Neuhaus described Richter as follows: "His singular ability to grasp the whole and at the same time miss none of the smallest details of a composition suggests a comparison with an eagle who from his great height can see as far as the horizon and yet single out the tiniest detail of the landscape."
- Dmitri Shostakovich wrote of Richter: "Richter is an extraordinary phenomenon. The enormity of his talent staggers and enraptures. All the phenomena of musical art are accessible to him."
- Vladimir Horowitz said: "Of the Russian pianists, I like only one, Richter"
- 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."
- Gramophone critic Bryce Morrison described Richter as follows: "Idiosyncratic, plain-speaking, heroic, reserved, lyrical, virtuosic and perhaps above all, profoundly enigmatic, Sviatoslav Richter remains one of the greatest recreative artists of all time."
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