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Posted by Steve Luciani on August 11, 2025, 1:42 am, in reply to "Re: Janis, Horowitz and Lim in the Rachmaninoff Third"
Horowitz told David Dubal in an interview they only had an hour and a half to record that! Still pretty remarkable, though, considering the time restraint, IMO. It's definitely the most lyrical of the three recordings of his I've heard, at least to my ears. 
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Hi, Steve,
It's been decades since I listened to the Horowitz/Coates recording - I should try that YouTube restoration to which you refer! OTOH, there are a couple of aspects of that recording which are problematical to me, which won't be affected by how good the latest restoration is: one is that Horowitz takes even more cuts than Janis (or Horowitz himself in the 1950's) did; and the other is that, owing to the absence of editing, one hears a fair number of mistakes in the solo part. Of course, if those mistakes didn't bother Rachmaninoff, then they shouldn't bother me - but they do. I can't help it.
OTOH, I will say that there is one pre-WW2 Horowitz recording which I love, despite the fact that a bit of the performance is missing. And that's the Brahms First Concerto with Bruno Walter and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Even though the sound is awful, the performance is absolutely terrific! And this performance also originated from the era before Walter started "melting" when he came to something beautiful! ;-) Previous Message
For whatever it's worth, Rachmaninoff was said to be an admirer of the 1930 Horowitz/Coates recording. I just listened to it and to my ears, it's less frenetic and more lyrical than any of the above.
If you're not familiar with it, there's a pretty good restoration available on YouTube.
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