It Would Have To Be...Clementi Sonatas (RCA). Because it shows what a remarkable thing it is when a super-virtuoso lavishes his attention on worthy, little-known repertoire.
Muzio Clementi lived round the corner from me in London and once, when I was young, I drunkenly sang one of his sonatinas in front of his house. Fortunately he was no longer around to hear it. Great choice! One of my favourite Horowitz recordings is that live Rach 3 with Barbirolli which is so insanely fast you can't believe it (wouldn't be anyone's first choice for the work, shocking sound, but It has to be heard). Also, despite being a Brit, I adore Horowitz's electrifying setting of The Stars and Stripes Forever. And his Scriabin...
Thank you for including Vladimir Horowitz in your discussions. I was lucky enough to hear him in concert. It was an experience I'll never forget. My choice would be his first recording of Chopin's Funeral Sonata op 35 (RCA 1950), for the simple reason that it was the first recording of his I ever heard. That was almost fifty years ago. In all that time my admiration hasn't waned. He is still one of my very favourite musicans. Yes, some of today's pianists may play more accurately and faster but I can't think of any pianist past or present who was as electrifying. (One should also add that Horowitz's tempi weren't always that fast.)
I have to admit, this recording was off my radar. You can guess what I'll be doing this evening. Of the Horowitz recordings that I know, the one I would never part with is the Carnegie Hall recital "An Historic Return". It is not perfectly played, but it is so characterful, and it covers so many different things Horowitz did well: Bach-Busoni, Schumann, Scriabin, Chopin, Debussy... It really represents what Horowitz was all about, "warts and all".
Thank you, David. What a wonderfully astute choice. I'll never forget hearing Horowitz play the Clementi Sonata Quasi Concerto in C Major (Op 33} in Fisher Hall. I never heard a piano sound like that before or since. And you're right of course about the other stuff. The Liszt Sonata from the thirties, The all Rach album, the Rach 3 (All of them, but especially with Barbirolli), The Scarlatti album, The Schumann Concerto Without Orchestra, all the different Chopins from different recitals, et al.
I'm very glad you choose this one. Clementi deserves to ber better known, he is a major piano-composer. He outlived the Viennese classics His first Sonatas are Scarlatti-like, his last ones are often romantic in style. An immense creative and innovative composer. And many of his etudes are marvellous and important for the genre.
Not an obvious choice, but I admit that Horowitz's playing of these fairly obscure works by Clementi is exquisite. Horowitz was a miniaturist and a colorist above all. On the evidence of his many recordings of standard pianistic repertoire, it's clear that he was uncomfortable with "big" works that require long-term thinking )for example his clumsy rendering of Beethoven's Sonata 28). I also appreciated your point about the super-virtuosos of today showing up the great virtuosos of the past, at least when it comes to technical acrobatics. The various "unedited" recordings of Horowitz in concert reveal all too clearly his technical fallibility. Now for a suggestion for this series: Glenn Gould (who greatly admired Horowitz) never made a more stunning Bach recording than his reading of that composer's "French Ouverture," revealing it to be perhaps the greatest of Bach's keyboard suites. I would place this ahead of either of his Goldbergs, justly famous though they are.
I'm sure Horowitz would have been quite happy with your choice, as he kind of 'rediscovered' Clementi and put him on the map. But by God, to choose among his many brilliant recordings, that's certainly a difficult task! I know my top choice to some might seem to be a bit of the road, too, but one of the Horowitz recordings, I couldn't live without, is his Beethoven 5th Piano Concerto with Reiner: Beethoven in excelsis, pure Apollonian joy - perfection without a iota of sterility by two, in the outset, very different artistic personalities, though, here united in a likeminded and very sensitive realisation of a score, so obviously dear to both of them! But so much other great stuff, you leave out by having to choose one and only one recording of his - it feels like tearing off one's limbs, one by one: the Scarlatti and Clementi, mentioned by David; the romantic Russians and among them his friend Rachmaninov, who himself felt that Horowitz mastered his 3rd Piano Concerto better than he did himself; his unbeatable Scriabin - 'Vers la flame' to mention but one of his many precious recordings of that composer; his wonderful Schuman; and a gem from his latter years on DG: the Schubert-Liszt Ständchen, where you really hear the much bespoken romantic freedom: the two hands play within the same basic pulse, but not necessarily metronomically corresponding, and with the most exquisite echo effects, played in offset time, sounding as if the piece were played by two different pianists at the same time, and making the piece sound strangely modern; and...and...and....
This I am sure is for sentimental reasons, but my favorite Horowitz recording is one of the first I ever purchased -- the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto which he played at Carnegie Hall with Ormandy and the New York Philharmonic on January 6, 1978. The reason it is sentimental is that when he played this in Ann Arbor that May with the Philadelphia Orchestra, it was the first classical concert that I attended. It was never officially recorded but can be heard on RU-vid. Horowitz loved coming to perform in Ann Arbor -- and hanging out in the disco in town afterwards (as did Bernstein) where he was idolized by the students, particularly those in the Music School (which included Madonna at the time). I remember a good friend studying piano who was invited to visit Wanda Toscanini and himself in his apartment diagnolly opposite from Carnegie Hall on 7th Avenue where some top artists lived.
This is a really intelligent choice, and it wouldn’t have immediately occurred to me. But it makes sense because Horowitz championed this repertoire with genuine seriousness and made the most compelling case for it when almost no one else was doing so. If anything, Clementi was the Horowitz of his day.
What an interesting choice. Clementi's sonatinas were among the first things I learned to play back when I took piano lessons as a kid, so I always sort of thought of his music as kids music. Seeing Horowitz include him in his programs and CDs definitely made me take a closer listen, and obviously, hearing the sonatas played so expertly and beautifully made me better appreciate the composer. If I had to pick one of his recordings, though, I would go with his live recording of the Rach 3 with NYP/Ormandy. Filled with mistakes up and down the three movements, but still such an exciting listen.
Excellently argued, Dave. I don’t know how easy it is to get Horowitz boxes these days, but if you had a chance and the inclination, the “Horowitz at Carnegie Hall” box is surely a great case of ripe for reissue. Yes, warts and all, but really the whole range of what he was capable of and in music where he was really “on” there’s abundant evidence for that special intensity that is in the end more important than the virtuosity for his enduring appeal. Not everyone will like the fact that he sounds like he’s about to destroy the piano in the finale of Prokofiev’s seventh sonata, but man is it exciting, and the recovery of poise in the final bars is really quite remarkable!
Schubert Impromptu op. 90 No. 3 in G♭ major at Vienna’s Musikverein 1987. Horowitz gives a truly transcendental performance in tandem with faint church bells tolling outside the hall - cheeky bit of evidence of higher power I say!
Excellent and thoughtful choice. I wholeheartedly agree about the value of having one of the greatest legends of the piano bring to our attention wonderful music of a somewhat underrated composer. Beethoven might have agreed: he thought highly of Clementi, played his sonatas, and recommended the sets of etudes Gradus ad Parnassum. It has been argued that Clementi's piano music foreshadowed Beethoven's. My ears concur.
Horowitz’s Chopin Ballade No 1 is unbelievable. He plays the iconic coda on an octave lower than what Chopin had written and it’s so passionate and cool
@loganfruchtman953 I agree about the Chopin Ballade, and agree with previous comment re: Pictures an an Exhibition, capturing the power of the modern piano like no other version I have heard. That said, few players of the grand piano could treat Scarlatti and Clementi with VH's sensitivity, considering the anachronism of the instrument.
Great choice! If you'll allow me to add an honorable mention, it would be Pictures at an Exhibition. I'd take that recording over any of the orchestral versions.
I agree. I first heard "Pictures at an Exhibition" on Horowitz's late-1940's RCA Victor recording. I loved it, especially the "Baba Yaga" movement (which I played over and over). Then I heard Ravel's orchestration and I couldn't stand it. I still can't; I love Mussorgsky and I love Ravel, but their sound worlds are too different to mesh well.
Agree too. I instantly thought of his Pictures at An Exhibition when I saw the title of this talk. Absolutely astoundingly vivid, transcendent interpretation.
I remember listening to Clementi's sonatas (in a recording by Shelley) and I was extremely underwhelmed, bored actually. Maybe it was the recording, maybe I was in the wrong mood or maybe I didn't get it. I love the sonatas by Scarlatti, CPE Bach, Haydn and Mozart so I really don't know. Maybe I should give them another try.
Horowitz was a fantastic pianist. Great choice, too! Clementi is not nearly well known enough! His disc of Mozart’s 23rd and a sonata is fantastic too!
