Vladimir Horowitz • Horowitz at Carnegie Hall
It took him a year-and-a-half to get to a decision to perform, others urging, prodding, cajoling along the way. To close associates he mused: “a whole generation of young musicians has never heard me, but what if I don’t live up to my reputation; others say I owe it to the concert world and I could make a lot of money, but I hate committing myself to a date so far in advance and the pressure is too much.”
It may have been music critic Howard Klein who finally convinced him after listening in on the secret Carnegie practice sessions Horowitz undertook in January of 1965: “I’ve heard your records Maestro. In person, you play completely differently. You are like another pianist.”
An amazing performance. H did make several mistakes - he hit a real clinker right at the outset - but powered through them all. The music is challenging, the interpretations true genius. Mistakes weren't unusual for him at most of his succeeding concerts, but nobody cared. For the album at hand several mistakes were edited out, replaced by practice session snippets. There was something of a flap about that at the time. But in the end he sold a lot of records and nobody but critics and record execs cared about the edits. An unedited version is available through Sony on CD.
If you want a representative of classic piano playing in your collection, this is a great place to imprint.
It took him a year-and-a-half to get to a decision to perform, others urging, prodding, cajoling along the way. To close associates he mused: “a whole generation of young musicians has never heard me, but what if I don’t live up to my reputation; others say I owe it to the concert world and I could make a lot of money, but I hate committing myself to a date so far in advance and the pressure is too much.”
It may have been music critic Howard Klein who finally convinced him after listening in on the secret Carnegie practice sessions Horowitz undertook in January of 1965: “I’ve heard your records Maestro. In person, you play completely differently. You are like another pianist.”
An amazing performance. H did make several mistakes - he hit a real clinker right at the outset - but powered through them all. The music is challenging, the interpretations true genius. Mistakes weren't unusual for him at most of his succeeding concerts, but nobody cared. For the album at hand several mistakes were edited out, replaced by practice session snippets. There was something of a flap about that at the time. But in the end he sold a lot of records and nobody but critics and record execs cared about the edits. An unedited version is available through Sony on CD.
If you want a representative of classic piano playing in your collection, this is a great place to imprint.
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