Search - Franz Joseph Haydn, Muzio Clementi, Vladimir Horowitz :: Horowitz Plays Haydn

Delightful

D. Jack Elliot | Omaha, Nebraska | 09/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Horowitz's Haydn performances are masterworks, hands down. He brings extraordinary control and subtle nuance to his shaping of the ebb and flow of Haydn's lines, and reveals the genius of a master fully the equal of Beethoven in his own early writing (something for which Haydn is so often, and unjustly, denied recognition). This is not simplistic or emotionally trite music, as we are sometimes prone to assume of the strict Classical style. Rather, the style so carefully balances subject against object that subtle idiosyncracies and asymmetries within each piece carry powerful expressive effect. Vladimir Horowitz, the peerless virtuoso who could outplay almost anyone in Liszt and Rachmaninoff, brought his awesome skill to just as great an effect in this most understated and sophisticated of styles. Look forward especially to Sonata no. 49 in C. You will count this disc one of the most valuable of your collection."