Unreleased Chopin by Vladimir Horowitz

Greg Bottini says:

In this recording, Horowitz is on full display: occasional lovely passages interspersed with missed notes, smeared runs, a hard hammering touch, and odd rubato.
What I “marvel” at is his exalted reputation.
Nota bene, commenters: this is my own personal opinion.

A.L. says:

Phenomenal playing. How is it that no one, no matter how gifted (and there is no scarcity of tremendously gifted pianists), can play with such abandon any longer?

Edgar Self says:

Hearty thanks to the contributor. I can’t remember hearing Horowitz play these two etudes, but I think there is a later “Revolutionary” for Sony. This is vintage Horowitz and makes a nice group. Op. 22 is one of the “other” polonaises, including the posthumous B-flat, D minor, and one for cello, and is one of the longest with Op. 44 in F-sharp minor, which contains a mazurka, and which Horowitz plays marvelously.

There is fine filigree in this Op. 22, and some blue notes, if not quite the elegance that Michelangeli, Rubinstein, and Cortot brought to it. I’have never seen it played live in either solo piano or orchestral versions. Two more good mazurkas complete the set. The live audience sounds small and not especially enthusiastic. They were spoiled then.

augusta says:

quelle finesse incroyable…
thank you for posting this!

Edgar Self says:

In mentioning Chopin’s longer polonaises I forgot the Polonaise-Faintasie in A-flat, Op. 61.

There are surprisingly few other well-known examples: two by Prince Oginski; three by Beethoven including one for solo piano; two by Liszt; a grand orchestral polonaise in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”; and Scriabin’s Polonaise in B-flat minor, Op. 21, with an awkward octave trill, recorded by Vladimir Sofronitzki and twice by Igor Zhukov. Bach’s polonaises are very different.