Guest
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major Op. 83, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. NOT the well-known studio 1940 recording from May 9. This is an earlier live broadcast from May 6. “Horowitz’s May 6, 1940 performance of the B-Flat Concerto in New York was a sensation. The event was an all-Brahms charity concert at Carnegie Hall with Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. New York Times’ critic Olin Downes wrote that “Mr. Horowitz played what is probably the greatest of piano concertos with all the sincerity, the virility and fire of his young heart, and the abundant virtuosity and power which are phenomenally at his command, ventures to say that this was playing of a breadth, a masculinity, a poetry and withal a heroic spirit which would have satisfied the composer.“ Downes reported the audience to have applauded each movement and cheered at the end. On May 9 he recorded the concerto for RCA Victor studios.
