The recordings Vladimir Horowitz made for Deutsche Grammophon during the last four years of his life contain some of the legendary pianist’s most singing and poetic performances. There are little of the mannered, unsettled qualities that figured in some of Horowitz’s late 1970s/early 1980s RCA sessions. He may not have thundered as he did in his prime, yet the demonic side to Horowitz’s art had yielded to a simpler, more lyrical style, together with a wider palette of colors, shadings, and nuances. “The Magic of Horowitz” offers a generous cross-section from the pianist’s DG catalog, along with three previously unreleased selections. Avid Horowitz fans certainly will be curious about the latter.
Mozart’s A minor Rondo K. 511 originally was intended for the 1989 “Horowitz at Home” Mozart and Schubert recital. According to producer Thomas Frost, Horowitz ultimately chose not to include it in order to avoid a preponderance of Mozart. I also suspect Horowitz may not have been completely satisfied with the performance. Granted, his fast tempos are preferable to the heavy deliberation he disparages in a snippet of studio banter. Still, Mozart’s melodic elaborations and ornaments seem unduly rushed, with little time to breathe despite all the pianist’s alluring half-pedalings and ravishingly controlled diminuendos. By contrast, Horowitz is completely at home, stylistically and pianistically speaking, with Liszt’s Ehemals (No. 10 from the Weihnachtsbaum). His textual emendations give the music a sense of fullness and tactile immediacy not easily achieved via Liszt’s sparser original. The third unreleased track, Schubert’s F minor Moment Musical, stems from the pianist’s final concert, and it moves quicker and more directly than its relatively garish counterpart on “Horowitz at Home”.
The collection’s remaining titles never have been out of the catalog since they first appeared, and they need little introduction at this late date. Highlights include the pianist’s imaginatively wrought Schumann Kreisleriana, an inspired and feathery Schubert B-flat Impromptu, enchanting Rachmaninov Preludes and Scriabin Etudes, Chopin’s A minor (Op. 17 No. 4) and C-sharp minor (Op. 30 No. 4) Mazurkas, and the most exquisite Schubert-Liszt Ständchen in captivity. Horowitz’s personal stamp informs every bar of Mozart’s A major K. 488 concerto, with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting, from his brisk, Siciliano tempo in the slow movement to the inclusion of Busoni’s rarely heard first-movement cadenza.
A bonus DVD contains the Maysels Brothers film documenting this concerto’s recording sessions. We see the 83-year-old pianist joking with interviewers and making astute asides (verbal and bodily) during playbacks. The camerawork allows you to study Horowitz’s unconventional flat-fingered technique at close, detailed range. Horowitz manages to be utterly self-absorbed and charming at the same time, claiming that he doesn’t care what critics say about him while brooding over and over again about the journalist who likes his bow tie better than his playing! [10/18/2003]
