Television Reviews : PBS Program Presents Horowitz Playing Mozart

Through longevity, if nothing else, Vladimir Horowitz has become an icon, representing the performer as great artist to a large and adoring public. Though an elderly classical pianist might seem an unlikely video darling, Horowitz films threaten to become annual events.

The latest is “Horowitz Plays Mozart,” from Albert Maysles, Susan Froemke, Peter Gelb, and Charlotte Zwerin, producers/film makers whose work--in various combinations--is familiar from previous video treatments of Horowitz, and conductors Herbert von Karajan and Seiji Ozawa.

Presented nationally by KCET-TV with a grant from the Nakamichi Foundation, it airs tonight at 9 on Channels 28, 15 and 24.

The program presents Horowitz recording his first Mozart Concerto, No. 23 in A, K.488, also his first studio concerto recording in 35 years. His chosen collaborators are Carlo Maria Giulini and the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, and the results have been released on a Deutsche Grammophon recording.

Horowitz has not been usually identified with Mozart’s music, but now the pianist says, “I love it most of any music--No. 1!” He also adds, “I understand it not in classic way, but completely free--but in good taste!”

As might be expected then, the performance documented here is not a paragon of informed period practice. But as promised, it is in good taste from the Horowitzian point of view. His choice of the Busoni cadenza--and the naturalness with which it fits into the performance--says much about Horowitz’s interpretation.

Although the film dutifully takes us into the Abanella Studio in Milan, the emphasis is definitely Horowitz himself--happily mugging for camera and orchestra--in virtually a studio concert. The recording process itself is almost invisible, though the pianist listening to a playback of the slow movement and expressing his pleasure and satisfaction to a patient, apparently bemused Giulini is delightful.

The pianist’s admiration for his own playing in the Andante cantabile is certainly justified, for it is both supple in detail and direct in overall logic. The film retains slightly blemished takes of the outer movements, as candid records of the process.

There is a very Old World atmosphere to the program. The performers in the studio and the recording booth are all men, as are the group of critics handpicked to memorialize the event. In conversation with the journalists, Horowitz develops a short list of good orchestras, all European, dismissing the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic--as well as the Carnegie Hall renovations--as not good.

For all the documentary cliches--the star emerging from his car, endless close-ups of Horowitz’s flat, spidery hands in action--and in spite of a certain disingenuousness to the proceedings, an exuberant, boyish personality comes through. That, and a generous offering of fine, personal pianism. Horowitz’s playing certainly isn’t faceless, and neither is the man.