Vladimir Horowitz in the News Part 1: Recital in Moscow (April 1986)

Horowitz’s return to Russia after an absence of 61 years was the major news event of his career. His dazzling European and North American debuts in the 1920s, his 1933 marriage to the daughter of Arturo Toscanini, his return to the stage in 1965 after an absence of 12 years, and the 1978 golden jubilee of his American debut were all duly reported by the press, but his journey to Moscow and his recital there on 21 April 1986 captured the world’s imagination more than anything previously ever had. Here are samples of what was reported in the United States and Canada in the days surrounding Horowitz’s Moscow recital: 19 April 1986 0:00- CBS Evening News story about moving Horowitz’s piano from New York to Moscow, including comments from Franz Mohr and footage of Horowitz’s dress rehearsal for his Moscow recital 20 April 1986 5:24- CBS Evening News report about Horowitz’s recital, including footage from the performance, an excerpt from Charles Kuralt’s interview at Horowitz’s home in New York (including a question put to Horowitz by his wife Wanda that I’ve not seen in any other footage – see 7:21). 9:33- ABC World News Tonight report about Horowitz’s recital, including footage from the performance, comments from audience members (including the great Russian piano pedagogue Sergei Dorensky at 11:26) 24 April 1986 11:57- An expansive report on the ABC news program 20/20, including footage of the Moscow dress rehearsal (12:11), a press conference (15:41), an interview from earlier in the month in New York (16:00), listening to Mikhail Pletnev play on Tchaikovsky’s piano (16:27), playing Rachmaninoff on Tchaikovsky’s piano (16:37), and an long excerpt from Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat major at the Moscow rehearsal (17:40) = = = = = Classical musicians are rarely the topic of reporting on nightly national television newscasts. However, during the last 3½ years of his life, Vladimir Horowitz was so featured at least four times: (1) in April 1986 when he returned to Russia after an absence of 61 years; (2) in May 1986 when he performed a recital at the White House after which Nancy Reagan fell off a small stage in the East Room - ; (3) in December 1986 when he performed at the re-opening concert at Carnegie Hall following its restoration - ; and (4) in November 1989 when he died - Capturing fleeting and often brief reports that aired virtually simultaneously on various networks in Canada and the US required deft channel-surfing, so taping a complete report from the very start was a challenge I was unable to accomplish most of the time. Videotape quality also varied between network TV and pay TV, which seemed to have an aspect of copy-guard that rendered off-the-air video much darker than what was broadcast. Nevertheless, these fragments of reports from 1986 ago provide contemporaneous glimpses of the magnitude of Horowitz’s Russian journey. =