Polish pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski was born in 1892, began performing in 1901, knew Fauré, and had a career that lasted until shortly before his death in 1993. Perhaps more than any other pianist widely recorded in modern times, he had artistic roots in the nineteenth century. Legend is an overused word, but by the time these live recordings were made in Britain in 1984 and 1987 (the later set two days before the pianists 95th birthday) Horszowski certainly merited the word. His fingers had slowed down by this time, but the shapes of his interpretations, which depended on a sweeping sense of large line combined with great flexibility in local texture and detail, were intact. Consider the opening movement of the Mozart Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332 (track 7), in which Horszowski takes the repeat. His reading of the exposition has such a sense of controlled waywardness that the opening theme, taken in deadpan neutrality, feels like a train dragged back onto the track when its repeat comes along; you cant