Customer Reviews

Vladimir Horowitz - The Last Romantic

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1983, Vladimir Horowitz retired from the concert stage following a series of disastrous recitals. Rumors about his health from Alzheimer's disease to cancer swept through the music world, and it was generally felt that he would never play again. As it turned out, Horowitz had been taking anti-depressant medication which impaired his memory and coordination. Once the cause of his problems was revealed, he stopped taking the medication cold-turkey and, after battling the trials of withdrawal, eventually returned to normal. Early in 1985, Horowitz told his manager, Peter Gelb, that he wanted to resume musical activity, but didn't yet feel up to the task of public recitals. The documentary contained on this DVD was Horowitz' way of easing into the rigors of concertizing.

This film shows Horowitz trying out pianos in Steinway's famous basement, discussing his life, and performing in his elegantly appointed New York townhouse. Wanda Toscanini Horowitz is ever present, recalling how she lived under the shadow of famous musicians (her father was Artuto Toscanini)and encouraging her husband in his reaquaintance with the piano.

Horowitz, 81 years young at the time, plays very well here--although his performance is not quite on the same level it would be one year later at his legendary Moscow recital (also available on DVD). The Bach-Busoni Chorale, Mozart Sonata, and Schumann Novelette reveal the playing of a grand master in sovereign command of his resources. It must be admited however, some of the more bravura pieces do not match his best playing from earlier years. At one point, Wanda scolds him for neglecting to practice the Schumann Novelette. Horowitz reluctantly waddles to the piano, tries a few passages, and it's obvious his memory of the piece is sketchy. After reading the piece from the printed music, he plays the Novelette as if he has known it his entire life!

The hand held camera work is often too close and shaky--ala Blair Witch Project--and becomes a distraction at times. In a reversal of the norm, the DVD transfer is visually not quite up to the level of my LaserDisc, but is an improvement over the VHS version. Portions of the image look compressed and grainy. No complaints about the sound. The sonic image is clean and well focused, the dynamic range spectacular.

This is a must for all Horowitz fans and those who miss the Golden Age of Pianism.

Like DVD "Horowitz in Moscow", this is another wonderful Horowitz DVD. I have the CD by Deutsche Grammophon for all the same music in this DVD, but this DVD has a lot more than just piano music. It showed a lot of personnalities of this, perhaps, the greatest pianist of all time and it is a piece of vanished history. His facial expressions, interviews and comments to the composors between the pieces are so funny and make him so lovable an old gentleman. Close and different camera angles certainly help you view his unique and unduplicatable playing style. I have to admit that some of pieces with physical passages in this DVD may not match Horowitz's earlier recordings especially the Moszkowski's Etude in F Major which is in the CD but only as a background music for this DVD's production recognition. All the recordings are still excellent and very tastful. If I am asked to recommend DVDs for any piano lovers, I will place this DVD on one of the top list without any hesitation.

This DVD gives us the possibility of approaching the artist and his world as much as possible. We are taken to his home studio with his supporting wife , and get to know Horowitz as a warm person. Horowitz knows very well all the technical aspects of playing the piano. He has done his homework, and while he plays he is concentrated on the projection of what he feels the Composer want us to feel. When Horowitz plays he projects us musical piece as a whole, every note has a meaning in the development and the structure and the movement of the work. His range of expression is very wide, Horowitz as he says, has an angel and a devil inside him. He has an ability of understanding a piece of music and expressing it in his playing that takes us as deep as possible. Horowitz as he says, don't look for inhuman perfection, and that is ok to play in public rehearsal one wrong note. In my opinion Horowitz is interested, as all great artists, in communication, creating something that will last for a long time.

I loved this DVD. It's a documentary, not a concert. Horowitz retired from performing from 1983-85 after suffering from memory lapses and lack of coordination caused by drugs prescribed for the clinical depression that he grappled with his whole life. I think that makes this disk especially moving. Health recovered at no little mental and physical cost, Horowitz again has all the music and finds a deep joy and satisfaction in playing it! Playing for friends in his home was his typical way of tuning up for public performance. And he went on from this to his triumph in Moscow in 1986 and a final concert tour in Europe in 1987. To respond slightly to another reviewer, Horowitz says nothing about the Mozart and that it "was not bad for an old man" after the Schezro. His comment that "I cannot do better" comes after an exquisite rendition of the Rachmaninoff Prelude. Therefore, my take on that comment is different. I don't think he was disatisfied. Quite the contrary, he knew he was one with the music and he was content. In all, this disk gives a wonderful insight into one of the great artists of the 20th century.

Towards the end of his career as a pianist as well as his life, Horowitz's playing reached such peaks of wisdom and beauty that it defies any attempt at description and ultimately renders the human language completely powerless and unable to fully capture and express its vast world of ideas and feelings. On his last recordings he doesn't emerge as an elderly pianist who was sadly past his prime, but rather as a consummate musician who had reached by then the pinnacle of his art and therefore was capable of getting from his piano the most exquisite and profound statements one's able to listen to in the whole piano discography of the 20th century. He imbues his rendition of the famous Chopin's Polonaise Héroïque with so much emotional power and intellectual depth that he turns it into something like a highly condensed philosophical treatise written in poetry. Just see how his wife nods her head slowly when Jack tells him to play the piece - it's as if she knew in advance that he'd deliver an absolutely transfixing performance. As soon as he strikes the ending chords, he stares at his wife full of joy and amazement and says to Jack: "Like in the old days, Jack...". No, it wasn't like in the old days at all; it was much, much better. Don't miss it by any chance.

Okay, I know this film won all sorts of awards and yes, it is a good film, but it's not great. Firstly, I'm afraid I don't agree with the other reviewers: Horowitz's playing was not up to his usual stratospheric standard. The Scherzo is pretty bad in places, I'm sorry to say, particularly in the recapitulation of the main theme. The Mozart sonata is okay but the last movement is too fast and contains a few clinkers (even Horowitz says disconsolately at the end of it "I cannot do better"). Some of the pieces are (dare I say it) uninteresting, for example the Nouvelette and the Consolation (how many more times do we have to hear that piece? The best Horowitz VHS recording of it is on Horowitz in Vienna). Then the picture quality and camera work are not great and, crucially, the sound quality is terrible. The piano sounds very tinny and harsh, maybe because Horowitz had insisted on having it calibrated that way, maybe because the recording equipment was not up to scratch. This makes the Mozart Sonata sound so awful that I can't listen to it.

On the plus side, between each piece Horowitz and his wife talk and discuss music, their life together and the great musicians that he knew. These are the best moments and it is worth having this recording just for that. Be warned: a considerable amount of footage from this tape is used in the Horowitz - A Reminiscence video, so if you have one it's almost not worth buying the other unless you are a real die-hard Horowitz fan. All in all, a wonderful idea for a film spoilt by poor production quality. I find that I watch the other Horowitz videos frequently, but this one only very rarely.

I don't wish to submit a full review of this, other than to say that because of who Horowitz was, this is a valuable document.

I did want to agree with A. Ainley's assessment of the playing. The Scherzo was a shock -- this was a piece that Horowitz ate for breakfast in his prime. His playing here is a pale imitation of his great days; feeble was the first word that came to mind as I listened to this. Sviatoslav Richter noted how bad this performance was in the "Richter the Enigma" video. I am guessing that this was more due to lack of practice, rather than the permanent effects of his age, because the subsequent concert in Moscow was much more like the Horowitz we once knew.

This video also illustrates how even a pianist as great as Horowitz (and perhaps as crazy) could delude himself into thinking he could play Mozart. I suspect that his mentor, Rachmaninoff, would have had some words with him about his work in K.330. It's just not playing that can be taken seriously.

I must say that I was rather dissapointed after watching this award-winning (and hard to get I might add) film.

I was hoping the film would shed some light onto Horowitz's personal life, and focus in part on his early years, his upbringing and his rise to being one of the greatest pianinsts of the 20th Century. However, the film's theme was quite the opposite. Instead, it falls more so into what can be described as a candid home-video of Horowitz playing and recording in his NYC studio apartment, with but a few, brief intermissions where he talks with his wife and the (album producer?).

What struck me as odd is that the movie doesn't even try to portray him as anything more than a pianist. I could hardly connect with him as a human being. The only subject at hand was piano, and nothing more. It made me curious, did Horiwitz have anything else going for him other than the piano? Did he own a telescope and pursue that as an amateur hobby? Did he have an interest in reptiles? A coin collection? Frankly, I was left with a blank image of him. An image of an empty, piano-playing automoton. Maybe my expectations of the movie were drastically different than what it aimed to achieve, but I fail to see the hype and commotion that surrounds this title.