Here is the third and final volume in RCA’s recent series devoted to Vladimir Horowitz’s Carnegie Hall recitals from the 1940s and ’50s that the pianist had privately recorded for study purposes. It opens with a February 2, 1948 account of the Haydn E-flat sonata. The performance’s wide dynamic parameters, astonishingly poised articulation, and occasionally cloying left-hand anticipations are closer to Horowitz’s 1951 Carnegie Hall recording than to his more taut and terse 1932 HMV shellac set.
A March 28, 1945 Beethoven Waldstein sonata provides an interesting counterpart to Horowitz’s 1956 and 1972 studio versions. He bypasses the first-movement exposition repeat, tapers the second subject more garishly than later on, and informs the development section with greater plasticity, drama, and tension. The transitional Introduzione follows 1956’s measured trajectory, but with the right-hand cantabiles sung out with more mystery and tonal variety. I suspect this is a case of Horowitz’s instinct for “playing the acoustics” as well as the music.
He takes the Rondo noticeably faster than he would in the studio, and arguably faster than what Beethoven’s Allegretto moderato implies. As a result, the coda’s basic tempo comes off like a “Più mosso” rather than the prescribed “Prestissimo”. Still, you cannot deny the pianist’s impassioned clarity, as well as his usual sidestepping of Beethoven’s controversial long pedal indications, and playing the glissando octaves in rapid, staccato wrist strokes.
My comment about Horowitz’s acoustic awareness particularly holds true concerning the wider palette of colors and pronounced melody/accompaniment interaction in the first movement of this April 28, 1947 Moonlight sonata, along with a less stilted, more animated reading of the Allegretto than in 1956. However, the Presto Finale falls short of Horowitz’s best. He downplays the accents at the end of the opening arpeggiated patterns, while his own accents and italicized phrasings sometimes stop the music in its tracks. David Dubal’s annotations provide a general and perceptive survey of Horowitz’s recorded repertoire, yet barely touch upon the performances in hand.
