"A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF BOY" and "THE MEMOIRS OF ANNA RICHTER"

Sviatoslav Richter’s course of life and art, were almost beyond fantasy. Anna Richter was Sviatoslav mother, with whom he had a most complicated relation, due tragic events in the home of his childhood. Sviatoslav’s warm and close relation to his aunt, Dagmar Reincke, which continued to the end of their lives, stands in strong contrast to the relation to his mother.Dagmar Reincke was a talented artist, drawer and designer but also a lady with full of “joie de vivre”. She nursed the little Sviatoslav, “Svetik” over several of the decisive years of childhood and wrote a set of short charming stories about as now published for first time.

Later Richter’s mother, Anna decided to write her memoirs about the life with her already famous son Sviatoslav, “Slava”. The memoirs, now published for first time, end abruptly in his departure to Moscow with the lines:“This was only the beginning of a long-drawn-out period of sadness for us. The childhood and youth that we had spent together with Svetik had come to an end.  A heavy destiny lay before us, years of cruel suffering through which we must endure.”

The books draw together a dramatic but much expressing and loving picture about the years of childhood and teens of one of the greatest musicians.

The renown English translator Anthony Phillips, who translated these books, writes about Dagmar Reinckes stories:

“(…) the Aunt Mary childhood stories which I still think are
among the most revealing insights into the personality, (sic. of
Richter) I do wish these could be given wider circulation”

And about Anna Richter's memoirs:

“My first impression was that they are not very interesting, terribly
naive and ‘domestic’, but not surprisingly they get much
more interesting when the Revolution and the Civil War start,
not to mention the arrival of Sviatoslav Teofilovich, and then
they are moving and interesting first-hand accounts of life in
these terrible circumstances.”

The books include an extensive foreword by Prof. Walter Moskalew, Richter’s first cousin – and the other of the only two living Richter blood relatives – fulfilling this publication’s unique character.

Dagmar Reincke: "A Very Different Kind of Boy", ISBN: 978-87-92009-00-7

The Memoirs of Anna Richter, ISBN:  978-87-92009-01-7