The year 1888 was the halfway point in Richter's forty-seven-year professional career from 1865 to 1912. It was also the busiest year of his life; he never again had simultaneous associations with so many organisations or held so many positions. In that year he had his four posts in Vienna, his London season, his return to Bayreuth, his first engagement at the Lower Rhine Music Festival and his second Birmingham Triennial Festival. Between 1888 and his departure from Vienna in the New Year of 1900 to reside in Manchester as Hallé's successor there were no new commitments, only new works, new artists and new composers. On 23 December 1888, at the fourth Vienna Philharmonic concert, he conducted his two thousandth performance; his first thousand had been completed on 9 January 1881, the third would take place on 17 November 1895 and the fourth on 14 May 1906. With his annual schedule firmly established by the end of the 1880s, an overview of Richter's life in the 1890s covering all aspects of his musical life now follows, with an emphasis on special occasions or events during the decade.

At the Vienna Opera the Jahn–Richter duo held sway until 1897, the year of Mahler's arrival. Jahn's great achievements in his last years were the staging of Verdi's Otello and Falstaff and Massenet's Manon and Werther, neither of which concerned Richter who only conducted the less successful Le Cid. Both were vehicles for van Dyck and Marie Renard. They were two of the new generation of singers about to replace those who had reigned supreme during the previous two decades but they maintained the golden era with wonderful performances of their own. Amalie Materna sang her last Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung under Richter on 30 December 1894 and retired in 1897. Lilli Lehmann took on the mantle of that role, whilst Paula Mark's fame grew with her portrayal of Nedda in Pagliacci. The American contralto Edyth Walker made her Viennese debut as Azucena in Il trovatore on 11 May 1895 under Richter and remained a member of the company well into Mahler's era. Marie Wilt and Rosa Papier completed Jahn's most successful female singers, whilst among the men were Karl Sommer, Josef Ritter and Scaria's heir, Karl Grengg. They all sang under Richter and many were recommended by him to Cosima Wagner at Bayreuth.