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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Only Part of the Story,
By
This review is from: Vladimir Horowitz - A Reminiscence [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Vladimir Horowitz--A Reminiscence, is aptly named. For Horowitz fans, it will bring back memories of all the familiar moments--the collaborations with Toscanini, the 1965 return to Carnegie Hall, the Moscow concert--but offers little that is new. There is no interview footage with other musicians, collaborators, or members of the Horowitz' inner circle. The only figure shown, aside from Horowitz himself, is the pianist's widow, Wanda Toscanini Horowitz. She recites the usual anecdotes, prompted by an off camera Peter Gelb--Horowitz' manager during the 1980s. Wanda, who arguably knew Horowitz better than anybody, avoids delving into certain aspects of his non-musical life--she is even sketchy as to whether the pianists' 1953 crisis, which brought on a 12-year retirement from public performance, was a nervous breakdown or collitis, or both. Other aspects of Horowitz' life, ranging from his homosexuality to the tragic fate if his Russian family (aside from his sister, no one in Horowitz' immediate family survived Stalin's reign), to his disastrous 1983 concert in Japan are not mentioned at all.Another annoying factor is the almost total reliance on performance footage which has been available for years--the Moscow recital, the London recital, etc. Aside from some grainy home movies and excerpts from an abandoned 1974 documentary, there is nothing new here. It would have been a treat to see excerpts from his 1968 Carnegie Hall recital, the 1978 White House recital, or the 1978 Rachmaninoff Third concerto performance. The pianists' 1983 Tokyo recital was filmed and has wisely never been released. There are a few moments of insight here, but one cannot escape the impression that this material was thrown together for one purpose, to sell records. With an artist of Horowitz' stature, that could well be reason enough--but there could have been so much more. Hopefully, someday someone will put together a real documentary about this elusive figure.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tape quite worth buying, to say the least!,
By "tovarish_krasniy" (New York City, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vladimir Horowitz - A Reminiscence [VHS] (VHS Tape)
OK, Hank Drake, maybe some of us may have seen what's here somewhere else. This is still a great video for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the playing is amazing, and compiled very well from different places. Second, though not comprehensive, it offers a good look at Horowitz's life, soliciting accounts from interviews both with him and his wife. Also, there are three complete performances here which might weel be worth the price of the tape: the Rachmaninoff 2nd Sonata (with better sound quality than the original release of this recital), Scriabin's "Vers La Flamme", and Chopin's Introduction and Rondo. The latter two are from the 1974 footage featured here. The Scriabin is riveting, and the Chopin is brilliant and magical.(An aside - considering the quality of the recording, one could easily say it is much newer than 1974!) There are excerpts from other things he played during that same taping and all are very good - one hopes that this session will be released in full soon. Overall, it's a great video, both for those not so familiar or those already well acquainted with this monumental figure.
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