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Title: Your library deserves better
Review: This must be about the 15th reissue of this recording, this time for RCA's 'library' series. Some people like this performance, because it is so 'full of profound feeling'. I don't. There's nothing wrong with showing empathy with the music, but Horowitz sometimes resembles a Tyrannosaurus Rex crying for help--I doubt there's a more histrionic performance available. Apart from that, the deluge of missed notes, a piano that sounds like a nail on a blackboard, a lot of crude piano banging and an uninspired support from Ormandy's NYPhO, make for a performance that is plainly dreadful. Also included: a sonata that sounds more like a Horowitz encore than Rachmaninov. Try Ashkenazy/Fistoulari, Andsnes/Berglund, Weissenberg/Pretre, Gieseking/Mengelberg (with even more wrong notes, but such excitement!) or of course one of Horowitz' earlier performances of the Rachmaninov 3rd.
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