Horowitz's interpretation of this piece changed little over the years - to the extent that his 1965 and his 1968 recordings of the piece are indistinguishable except upon closer inspection. I find that his rubati in the introduction are exaggerated and a little indecisive. His execution of the main theme is, however, flawless. He has a lovely cantabile, which he carries into the section following the short cadenza. The voices appear out of nowhere and disappear softly into the shadows, like smoke rising out of the end of a cigar. The overall effect is rather eerie and leads perfectly into the agitato passage. His interpretation of the second theme is rather unorthodox. He eschews the dotted rhythm in the "answer" section of the theme in favor of a straightforward reading. The result has a modern feel to it and is rather stylish, though not necessarily for that reason my cup of tea. The reprise of the theme in A Major is suitably grand. A lot of pianists fail to reach peak volume in the high A Major chord, but volume has always been Horowitz's forte (huff huff - etymological sleights of hand notwithstanding). Nevertheless, the ritardando seems a little artificial. Horowitz is in top form in the following passages. Light filigree finger work, a controlled tempo, and a sustained tension that doesn't let up until the third and final reprise of the second theme. His execution of the coda is rather unorthodox in terms of pedaling, dynamics, and tempo. It is so unorthodox that Horowitz's interpretation of the coda stands on one side and those of all other pianists stand on the other, their individual differences - otherwise vast - reduced to insignificance in comparison to Horowitz's interpretation. One has to admire his audacity in straying so far off the beaten path that there is no evidence that he had ever been on it, even though his interpretation of the coda is not one that I much care for. All in all, Horowitz's conception of the Ballade is rather fragmentary. There is little underlying unity among the different sections of the piece such as may be found in Rubinstein's defining reading of it, or even in Michelangeli's, which is generally held to fall short of all well-accepted standards of emotion.
It is safe to say that Eileen Joyce, one of the finest pianists of the last century, whose untimely departure from the concert stage and the recording studio sadly deprived her of the enduring fame and recognition that other pianists of the same caliber reaped in copious amounts, rose to prominence because of her studio recording of Paul de Schlozer's Etude in A-flat, about which I've already written at length on this blog. The story goes that Eileen Joyce, then not a professional musician, walked into the recording studio and recorded the de Schlozer etude, simply because she wanted to see how she sounded. She was signed on the spot. The famous recording of the de Schlozer etude was made in one take and went on to become the most celebrated recording of the piece. However, true to today's fashion of deprecating art and exalting pure technical accuracy, it is not uncommon to see people claim that Joyce's playing of the etude is "labored" compared to Geoffrey...
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