COMPOSERS: Chopin,D Scarlatti,Liszt & Rachmaninoff
LABELS: RCA High Performance
ALBUM TITLE: Collection: Horowitz at the Met
WORKS: Works
PERFORMER: Vladimir Horowitz (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 9026 63314 2 Reissue (1981)
A strange programme, and less than 50 minutes’ playing time, but well worth having. Horowitz was a magician. On good form (as here) he was often a sorcerer – though the dividing line between poetry and narcissism was sometimes perilously fine (some may find his Chopin F minor Ballade here repellently coy at times), but my goodness how the man could play! Scarlatti tended to bring out the best in him, though his approach was highly Romantic – plenty of pedal and a prismatic tonal palette – and his account of Liszt’s B minor Ballade is simply astonishing. Jeremy Siepmann
D Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt & Rachmaninoff
A strange programme, and less than 50 minutes’ playing time, but well worth having. Horowitz was a magician. On good form (as here) he was often a sorcerer – though the dividing line between poetry and narcissism was sometimes perilously fine (some may find his Chopin F minor Ballade here repellently coy at times), but my goodness how the man could play! Scarlatti tended to bring out the best in him, though his approach was highly Romantic – plenty of pedal and a prismatic tonal palette – and his account of Liszt’s B minor Ballade is simply astonishing. Jeremy Siepmann
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:20 pm