Hommage à Horowitz

On his PENTATONE debut album Hommage à Horowitz, pianist Maxim Bernard revives Vladimir Horowitz’s legendary 1986 Moscow concert with a programme containing gems by Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Moszkowski, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff. While Horowitz’s wife Wanda Toscanini called the Moscow concert the summit of her husband’s career, Maxim Bernard sees it as “a defining moment of his existence, in which charm, elegance, poetry and bravura are marvellously brought together.” Bernard compares Horowitz’s carefully curated musical programme to the way one prepares a gourmet meal, and aims to give it a second wind, presenting it from a new angle, in light of his own personality.