Customer Reviews

Vladimir Horowitz: The Complete Masterworks Recordings, Volume II - The Celebrated Scarlatti Recordings

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Horowitz caused sensation and consternation throughout his glorious and mercurial career. He recording Clementi sonatas when no one was even remembering them and made a compelling case for keeping some of them in the repertoire.

He did even more for Domenico Scarlatti. Scarlatti was a favorite in the harpsichord revivalist crowd, but when Horowitz showed how it could sound on the piano people were polarized. Purists hated it and said it would be like re-painting the Mona Lisa in day-glo paints. Others loved and raved about the music and felt it was perfectly natural music for the piano.

While there are certainly some who hold on to the orthodox faith of Scarlatti on any keyboard but the piano, the majority know their Scarlatti from pianists such as Horowitz and nowadays MANY MANY others.

But there is still, for me, something special about the way Horowitz plays this music. I was fortunate enough to hear him play three times in live performance. The one thing that struck me most about his playing was how incredibly soft he could play and still fill the hall. And he had more gradations of tone than any other of the hundreds of pianists I have ever heard. By a long shot.

This tonal subtlety is heard in these recordings. Compare his Scarlatti with anyone else's and you will have to admit there is more color in Horowitz's interpretation than in any other. You may not like it, but it is there.

I love it. And so do most others who hear it.

You owe it to yourself to have this disk in your collection.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) wrote some 550 sonata's for harpsichord. These pieces were very advanced harmonically and rhythmically and are truly ground breaking for their time. In these legendary recordings, Horowitz reveals the wonderful musicality found in these works, playing with a pure sense of discovery, taste and profound finesse. The charming performances on this recording were responsible for introducing Scarlatti's creative works to a public that had long since forgotten his music. While written for the harpsichord, these wonderful keyboard pieces, when played with the refined taste displayed here, transform beautifully into piano miniatures. Horowitz never falters in his taste and attack on this solid sounding set. With 19 sonata's and 72 minutes of well conceived music, this is a purchase you will enjoy.

After collecting Horowitz for years, this is probably my favorite album. None of the pyrotechnics of the Carmen Variations here, just a watchmaker's precision alloyed with a painterly eye. These colourful pieces are a real highlights selection from the ~550 keyboard sonatas that Scarlatti wrote.

Volume Two of Sony's reissue of the Complete Columbia Masterworks Recordings of Vladimir Horowitz contains the pianist's legendary all Domenico Scarlatti album, his fourth recording for Columbia. His first three Columbia LPs (Volume One) had been mixed composer recitals, and were strong sellers. By 1964, Horowitz had enough clout to record whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Although Columbia marketing executives weren't thrilled with the prospect of promoting an all-Scarlatti record, Horowitz's producer, Tom Frost, asserted (rightly) that "Horowitz could play the C-major scale and it would sell."

Horowitz had recorded Scarlatti before, beginning with the Scarlatti-Tausig Cappriccio in 1928. But, by the 1960s, Horowitz was increasingly concerned about the authenticity of printed editions of Scarlatti's music. He was well aware that the printed editions he (and everyone else) had been using for decades had been altered by Alessandro Longo, who changed dynamics and ornamentation. So, he consulted with scholar Ralph Kirkpatrick (whose book on Scarlatti is considered by many to be the "Bible" on the Italian composer) and spent a great deal of time researching the correct performing style for Scarlatti.

Regardless of the printed edition he was using, the hallmarks of Horowitz's Scarlatti were always there: perfect transference of Scarlatti's sound world onto the modern piano; infinite grades of detachment and color; careful use of the sustaining pedal; flawless judgment of dynamics--from soft-softer-softest on the lower end, yet never pushing the piano too far into the forte range.

To give himself maximum selection, Horowitz recorded over twenty Sonatas in seven recording sessions, but only twelve contrasting pieces were originally issued on LP. For this CD reissue, Sony has released an additional six Sonatas, also from the original sessions at Columbia's 30th Street Studio.

The microphones for these sessions were placed a bit closer to the piano than for his previous Columbia recordings, so there is less ambiance. The impression is as if one were listening to Horowitz play in one's home. The remastering has opened up the dynamics, and brought forth a fuller, more natural piano sound, reducing noise without overly capping the high-frequencies. Tape edits, which were clearly audible in an earlier CD version(a botched job with a purple cover, avoid it), have been smoothed over here.

I am not in general a huge fan of Horowitz -- many of his performances are, in my opinion, excessive and too free-form -- but he was inspired when he made these Scarlatti recordings.

Scarlatti's sublime Baroque miniatures are perfectly served by Horowitz's tasteful yet idiosyncratic playing. Horowitz does not apologize for using a piano (this in spite of some musicians' opinions -- among them Alfred Brendel -- that Scarlatti should only be played on a harpsichord); he does not play the piano as if it were a harpsichord. He takes advantage of the range of touch and sonority in the instrument, and he uses the pedal. Throughout the recordings, Horowitz walks a delicate tightrope between musical restraint and worldly sensuality. His colossal piano technique never gets to show off -- there are no stormy octave passages in this music -- but experienced pianists know Scarlatti's music is some of the most difficult ever written, and Horowitz makes it all sound like the easiest thing in the world.

Whether you are familiar with Scarlatti, or Horowitz, or Baroque piano music, or not -- get this CD. You won't regret it.

I generally avoid Horowitz in other repertoire because his capriciousness with respect to dynamics, rubato, and (at times) tempo tends to cripple the music that he plays. In this recording, however, it seems that Horowitz magically freed himself from all of his usual self-conscious mannerisms for over an hour. He plays with great imagination and exuberance, applying "color" in subtle doses to wonderful effect. This is some of the most masterful piano playing on record, without qualification.

I must admit Horowitz is not one of my favorite classical pianists. However, these recordings of Scarlatti are suberb. Not only are these great recordings, they are the benchmark for Scarlatti in my opinion.

I can't imagine that anyone wouldn't enjoy these. I can't fully put it into words, but something of the best of Horowitz comes through here that isn't present in a lot of his other albums.

I don't think that anyone would argue that Horowitz had great technique. He also had great breadth. However, he really hit the mark with interpreting these recordings with great feeling AND marvelous technique. This is a MUST own album for any Scarlatti or Baroque keyboard fan!

Hear this disc and realize that no one else has ever been able to touch Horowitz for Scarlatti. All the rest are amateurs, or rather, all the rest are professionals but Horowitz is supernatural. If you love Scarlatti don't settle for anyone else.

I have long been a devoted fan of Scarlatti's wonderful sonatas, and a great admirer of Horowitz, but I've only recently become the grateful owner of this magnificent disk. I can't imagine why I never knew of it before. The playing is simply exquisite; the faster pieces are played brilliantly, the slower ones with delicacy. There isn't a muddy, slurred or unclear note in the whole collection, and the selection of pieces is marvelous. Thank you, Horowitz! Thank you, Sony!

Vladimir Horowitz's "Celebrated Scarlatti Recordings" may be well-loved now, but they were not when first recorded four decades ago. First of all, Scarlatti was neither well-known nor well-respected by the few who did know of his work. Second of all, he had composed for the harpsichord, not the piano (which essentially didn't even exist until the last couple of centuries). Horowitz took his own fame and respect and laid them on the line in the name of Scarlatti, proving to the world that this nimble and inventive composer was worthy of consideration.

The forcefulness of Horowitz's playing is what transfixes the listener. His commanding fingerwork, while never heavy, urges you to sit and drink in the music. It's like an aural glass of champagne. The braiding together of Scarlatti's crystalline compositions with Horowitz's supremely confident renderings, is a marriage made in musical heaven. Opening with the fleet and lovely "Sonata in D Major" and moving on to such multi-faceted wonders as Scarlatti's "Sonata in A Minor" and "Sonata in G Major" (which for all the world sounds like birds trilling in the trees in some wondrously sunlit Italian woodland), Horowitz compelling, insistently makes the case for this too-long-neglected composer. By the end, you are a witness to the combined genius of these two ferociously talented men.

"Sonata in D Major" may be the one Scarlatti composition most people would recognize without much pushing, and Horowitz gives it his careful attention here. It becomes a rushing waterfall of sound, interspersed with delicately mincing marching sections. It's a thrillingly vigorous performance of a superb composition, and utterly in keeping with the rest of the pieces on this amazing album.