Some readers may have already heard and seen this Kinderszenen, for it comes from a recital given by the 83-year-old Horowitz in Vienna in 1987 which was subsequently issued on Laserdisc and VHS (L 072 121-1GH; VHS (Cassette) 072 121-3GH). Yes, the coughers in the audience are very tiresome. But what a small price to pay for a reading so richly savoured yet so unforced, so self-effacingly relaxed. Kinderszenen was always a work close to this artist's heart, and here again he reminds us of his—sometimes questioned—ability to delight in simple things. Just once I would even have welcomed a little more playing for effect: surely the eeriness of ''Frightening'' (No. 11) would have been enhanced by swifter response to the schneller marking over those two brief (i.e. four-bar) shudders after the recurrent main theme. The rest is pure delight, no less for his robust yet never exaggerated response to the sforzando darts of ''Blindman's-buff'' (No. 3), to the rhythmic verve of ''Knight of the hobby-horse'' (No. 9) and the pomp (so artfully dispelled at the end) of ''An important event'' (No. 6) than for so much that is so warmly and eloquently sung—by the left hand as well as the right—elsewhere in these evergreen recollections of childhood.
Though a New York studio recording made way back in the early months of 1986, the Schubert sonata has never been released before. Here, Horowitz's point-making struck me as a little more self-conscious, as if in determination to leave no note unturned in a search for hidden innuendos—often in inner or under parts. Sometimes detail is allowed to obtrude rather than being perfectly integrated into the whole, and he once or twice over-reacts to dynamic markings—such as his fortissimo response to Schubert's requested forte at the first recall of the work's opening theme in bar 36 (track 1 at 1'27'') and equally on its subsequent returns. His resolution in the central A major section of the slow movement also grows just a shade aggressive. Though this Andante sostenuto is surely marginally too fast for the full desolation of the main theme to tell, I prefer his more flowing tempo for the sonata's opening movement to the extreme slowness we often hear from Richter in the concert hall, especially since Horowitz, too, repeats the exposition. In sum, not perhaps a reading that I would recommend any young aspirant to emulate, nor one that will displace rivals like Curzon (Decca), Brendel (Philips), Kovacevich (Hyperion) or Pollini (DG) from my own library. Yet as an octogenarian's farewell to a work about which he obviously cared deeply, I still found the performance of quite exceptional interest. And no complaints about the recording.'