RCA's new Toscanini Collection has on the whole been pretty well organized, but the same cannot be said about their Horowitz Collection. These discs from that series are both badly compiled, with brief works by different composers thrown together without any coherent sequence. Worse still is the fact that recordings of vastly different vintages and origins are juxtaposed, and live performances, with coughs and highly distracting applause, are set in the middle of studio items.
Each disc starts, however, with a major work. I reviewed Horowitz's live 1951 Pictures at an Exhibition last January. Both this and the 1947 version listed above employ the pianist's own modifications of Mussorgsky's original score. In the event these changes are not very substantial and do little harm. As one would expect, the studio performance is rather more deliberate, more considered than the one captured in front of an audience. Once more, the pianism is outstanding in its effortless virtuosity and attention to detail, but again I find the performance as a whole somewhat uninvolved—Horowitz does not paint the pictures so vividly as Richter (Philips, 6/88—nla), for example. His Scriabin, on the other hand, is extraordinarily poetic, while Tchaikovsky's Dumka is also played in a wonderfully imaginative fashion. Horowitz's own little piece and his two arrangements are all harmless fun, but I don't care for the way he pulls Debussy's piece out of shape in the early 1928 recording.
On the second disc Schumann's Kinderszenen receive pleasantly straightforward performances on the whole, though the pianist does not capture the essential feeling of youthful innocence in these pieces, and ''Traumerei'' is bedevilled by unwanted, over-expressive phrasing. The Liszt items are both commandingly played, and the Mendelssohn and Brahms trifles show plenty of charm. However, Horowitz rattles through the Faure in bewildering fashion, and while he treats Debussy's doll with more respect in this later version, he shows little sympathy for Schumann's Clara Wieck Variations. His Chopin is, as ever, highly individual and played in pungent fashion, and the Liszt/Busoni is brilliantly brought off.
What a strange and variable artist Horowitz was; capable of the most breathtaking poetry and brilliance, but also sometimes guilty of perverse distortions. Most sides of his musical personality are to be found here. With so many diverse origins it is difficult to comment on the overall sound, but generally speaking the engineering has been well carried out.'