Poor quality production betrays Horowitz's memory
This six DVD set gathers most, but not all, of Vladimir Horowitz's filmed and videotaped performances. The timeline for these performances is brief: 1982-1987 - along with a few snippets of Horowitz playing in 1974 for an abandoned documentary. So, we only see Horowitz in the late stages of his career.
Paradoxically, the earliest of these is the weakest. Horowitz's May 22, 1982 recital from London's Royal Festival Hall (billed as A Royal Concert), is little short of a regal disaster. Horowitz had recently begun taking the anti-depressants that would suspend his career in 1983, and it shows. The Scarlatti Sonatas are lacking the grace he usually brought to these gems. Both Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie and G minor Ballade are fragmented, incoherent, and technically sub-par - the Ballade's coda is just plain banged. There's little sense of childhood - even a memory of childhood - in the Kinderszenen, with fussed phrasing and drawn out ritardandos that border on the...
Fan of Horowitz
I have enjoyed every minute of it. I don't care about technicalities. i just love to see him playing and I lo ve learning more about his personality and character. What a great pianist!
Thanks for the technology of our age!
No doubt Horowitz was one of the incredible artists of all times. It is our luck that technology permits us to see and hear him. If we only could see or at least hear Liszt!!!
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