MUSIC REVIEW : Horszowski: At 97, a Pianist’s Pianist

Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who played an astonishing recital at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Wednesday, has always been a pianist’s pianist.

He never courted a mass audience. Flash and fuss were never his specialties. For him, the music came first.

While other keyboard heroes zealously cranked public-relations machines, Horszowski went about his more serious business with gentle, almost selfless determination. While his rivals embarked on vast international tours--and on ego trips that reached even farther--Horszowski concentrated on basics.

He stayed fairly close to the East Coast, having moved to New York in 1940. He taught a long parade of accomplished students. He played chamber music, often with the likes of Casals and Szigeti.

He demonstrated a rare concern for such old-fashioned values as classical purity and interpretive integrity. Although his playing always revealed a striking independent character, he steadfastly avoided the traps of exaggeration and distortion.

He offered enlightened surveys, often in unglamorous locales, of the complete sonata repertory of Mozart, and he championed the late keyboard output of Beethoven. As the decades passed, he developed a fiercely devoted following. His name gradually became a household word--but only in the homes of connoisseurs.

Logic would suggest that Horszowski should have stopped playing in public a long time ago. Fortunately, art is not always dictated by anything so mundane as logic.

At the age of 97, he is still venturing strenuous recitals, without apology. He is still giving object lessons in style, in sensitivity and in the communicative force of simplicity.

It would be silly to pretend that his fingers can manage all the things today that came so easily when he was a boy of 87. It would be a disservice to the achievements of Horszowski in his prime to claim that his technique at twilight matches that of high noon.

Any pedant could cite the smudged phrases, the lapses of concentration or the linear approximations that materialized from time to time during his 2-hour marathon at the Music Center. One had a right to expect some lapses. Actually, there were far fewer than one had a right to expect.

Horszowski began the evening crisply, and a bit stiffly, with Bach’s French Suite, No. 6 (BWV 817). Without worrying much about the niceties of Baroque scholarship--that is a problem for another generation--he stressed universal virtues: contrapuntal clarity, rhythmic propulsion and abiding poise.

In Beethoven’s F-major Sonata, Opus 10, No. 2, he introduced the contrast of expressive freedom. Without a hint of emotional indulgence, he allowed the phrases to breathe with poignant fluidity.

After intermission he explored some character pieces of Schumann--the “Arabeske,” Opus 18, and the “Papillons,” Opus 2--painting with brisk strokes, muted colors and reasonably bold accents. In four Chopin miniatures--culminating in the festive, seldom-performed Bolero, Opus 19--Horszowski dealt in rhapsodic images that never cloyed. He made the poetry sound as natural as casual conversation.

At encore time, he generously volunteered the inevitable “Traumerei,” dreamy indeed, plus Chopin’s F-minor Etude, Opus 25, No. 2.

For once, the instant standing-ovation was justified.