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Editorial Reviews

This attractive ten-CD set presents nine of Vladimir Horowitz's albums -- complete with miniature facsimiles of the original jackets -- from one of the legendary pianist's most productive periods. In 1962, Horowitz signed with CBS Masterworks (with whom he remained until 1973, when he returned to RCA) and in the ensuing years produced a series of notable recordings, by general consensus his best -- from 1962's Columbia Records Presents Vladimir Horowitz to Horowitz Plays Scriabin ten years later. The first few are mixed-bag collections, focusing -- naturally -- on the Romantic repertoire. The later albums, though, concentrate on individual composers, beginning with the celebrated Horowitz Plays Scarlatti from 1964 and continuing with programs of works by Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and the 1972 Scriabin disc that completes the set. Horowitz's best-known album from the period, however, was surely the live recording of his sensational return to Carnegie Hall after a 12-year performing hiatus -- the hottest ticket of 1965. That performance is the stuff of legend, made all the more vivid by the story of Horowitz's wife, Wanda, daughter of Arturo Toscanini, buying coffee for the crowd waiting eagerly outside the hall through a damp and blustery New York night, rock-concert-style, to snatch up the available tickets. At the onset of the recital, thunderous applause gives way in an instant to hushed, reverential silence as Horowitz launches into an arch-Romantic account of a Bach/Busoni Toccata. It's not a flawless performance, but that is utterly beside the point. This was an event. Indeed, there is a time-capsule feeling to this collection: Few pianists today capture the public's imagination as Horowitz did (Martha Argerich comes closest), and by re-creating the original "artifacts," this collection offers a taste of a time when virtuoso pianists seemed more of the essence. An earlier 13-disc set, released by Sony in 1993, assembled Horowitz's complete CBS Masterworks recordings, but it didn't present them with the same degree of authenticity. You'll get more music with that collection, but this one -- at half the price and with an accompanying book that includes the original liner notes -- is the set to savor. EJ Johnson, Barnes & Noble

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