Customer Reviews

Vladimir Horowitz II: Great Pianists of the 20th Century, Vol. 48

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This album can be seen not as a celebration of Horowitz, but as a celebration of the piano, and pianism in general.

The first disc contains a set of Liszt. All of the works are performed superbly, and quite romanticly. Bravo to Phillips for selecting the particular recordings that they did. While all of the Liszt performances are great, a couple of pieces do stand out from the rest. First off, the Sonata in B Minor is fantastic. This is one of the rare recordings of this work (it might be the only one) where someone can naviagate its challeneges with such a quick pace (under 30 minutes), while still capturing and communicating all of the musical ideas contained within. Secondly, words cannot describe Horowitz' performance of the 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. It needs to be heard. His trascription of the Friss stems back to the 19th century when it was commonplace to make a work one's own. Horowitz takes the immense difficulties of this piece and uses them as a musical pool where he BEGINS his exploration. The end result is a transcription where TWO of the musical themes are played simultaneously (In a similar vein to Godowsky and his studies on Chopin Etudes, yeow!). Its enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

The second disc is rock-solid. Particular praise needs given to Horowitz' performance of Scriabin's Sonata No. 5 for piano. This is an electrifying work that perfectly suited the neurotic performances of Horowitz. It almost seems like this was composed for him. From the opening bars with Horowitz powerful bass declaration, to the middle sections of blinding heat, Horowitz makes this work his own. Another benefit to this recording was that it was recorded a little bit later in his life, during a time when he had the hammers filed down on the piano, to create an even bighter sound. While this effect doesn't work for some things, it benefits the latter music of Scriabin.

Don't miss this album as many of the recordings here (especially on the first disc) were released on LP and this is the only time they have been remastered to CD. 5 Stars!!!

This may in fact be one of the best piano music albums ever released, as far as the featured genres go. If you haven't heard Vladimir Horowitz play Liszt (which accounts for the first 80 minutes of this collection) you're missing an incredible experience. These are among Liszt's greatest works, coupled with some of Horowitz's best performances! (If that's not convincing, I don't know what is.) The Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and the rest of the second disc are also superb. Bravo to Phillips for compiling this outstanding album.