The role of an interpreter

The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer’s intentions to the letter. He doesn’t add anything that isn’t already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn’t dominate the music, but should dissolve into it.

— Sviatoslav Richter

B. Monsaingeon, trans. S. Spencer, Notebooks and Conversations, London, Faber and Faber, 2001, p.153

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