Here is some more valuable
live Horszowski material from a compact
two-year period. The rewards are considerable
though not invariably uniform and the
recording quality, whilst uneven, is
very listenable. Arbiter has shown a
consistently enlightened attitude to
his legacy, not least in their series
of Mozart sonata recordings made during
the same decade. An especially important
feature of the performances enshrined
in this disc is that they are, apparently,
otherwise new to the pianist’s never-huge
discography.
The Bach Concerto featured
Horszowski with Frederic Waldman and
his Musica Aeterna forces. The unexpected
bounty from these performances can also
be heard in Erica Morini concerto performances
with Waldman – how fortunate it was
that so many were privately recorded.
There are some acetate clicks here but
nothing too troubling. Waldman is a
direct, rather emphatic conductor of
Bach and his strings sound a touch thin
here and there but the austerity of
the slow movement is well conveyed and
Horszowski never ceased being a Bach
performer of imagination and insight,
as any of us lucky enough to have heard
him in concert will well remember.
He plays the Schubert
Moments Musicaux with lyric grace (the
A flat) and a rightness of sonority,
not least the perky rhythmic brio of
the F minor [No.3] and the powerfully
communicative later F minor [No.5].
The concluding A flat has a serene nobility
of utterance. It’s even more valuable
to have his performance of the Four
Impromptus, though here the sound can
break up somewhat in fortes and the
fourth of the set is unfortunately incomplete
(the tape ran out). Nevertheless these
are tonally impressive documents.
The B flat Sonata is
subject to a slightly pallid recording
quality, one that emphasises a certain
clanginess in the piano spectrum, allied
to which there is some persistent ambient
noise and hum. Despite this the ear
soon focuses on the music making and
to his slow way with the opening but
rather more to the sense of internal
contrasts Horszowski explores, both
expressively and metrically. The emotional
temperature of the slow movement is
a good one, neither too brittle nor
aloof, nor too expansive and unbridled.
There’s plenty of amplitude at climaxes
and the finger slips here (and elsewhere)
are of little account.
The programme is framed
by the two concertos, the second of
which is Mozart’s C minor K491. This
receives a powerfully strong-minded
performance, as strong on undercurrents
as on the lyric impulses that inform
it. This is particularly the case in
the opening movement, which his long-term
colleague Schneider directs with power.
There is some noteworthy playing from
the principal clarinet throughout and
good passagework from the soloist who
plays Denis Mathews’ first movement
cadenza written for Myra Hess and vests
the slow movement with considerable
if restrained lyricism. The recording
is apt to be a touch bass-boomy.
A fine survey of live
Horszowski then, in otherwise commercially
unrecorded performances. The programme
is judiciously balanced between solo
and concerto outings and the minor travails
of the original tapings are negligible
when set against so much fine music
making. Pleasurable notes complete this
recommendable two disc slim-line double
set.
Jonathan Woolf
Mieczyslaw Horszowski (piano) 
