An award winning performance, live in Carnegie Hall 1978, by Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz did the first recording of the same work already in 1930. This record got a Grammy, but I don’t like it. I cannot speak of its performance, but I just don’t like the quality of the recording: it is a bit flat. Probably because of the live event.
Horowitz however is considered one of the greatest pianists of all time. He played mostly in America and Europe, and his performances incited a great deal of enthusiasm in the crowd. He was born in 1903 in Kiev, then part of Russia. He defected in 1925 to America, carrying dollars and pounds in his shoes for his first concerts.
In 1928 Horowitz had his American debut in Carnegie Hall. This was Tchaikovsky’s concerto no 1, under Thomas Beecham. It was a tremendous success, though Horowitz and Beecham didn’t agree on the tempo of the piece, and they were battling it out on the stage. It was picked up by the reviewers, but it was also noted that Horowitz playing was brilliant.
So the concert here on record is fifty years later, the same place.