“In Mieczysław Horszowski’s playing, what initially strikes the listener is the loveliness of his sound – a sound that is no longer heard today … In his playing, everything seems supple and effortless, as if playing a piano were as easy as uttering speech.”Murray Perahia 

The Polish pianist Mieczysław Horszowski was three weeks away from his 99th birthday when he gave this recital, recorded live at Wigmore Hall in June 1991. It was the last recital he ever gave in the UK, followed only by a concert in Lucerne and another in his home town of Philhadelphia, some four months later. This marked the end of a career which had begun with his official Viennese debut in 1902, with a programme that included Schumann’s Arabesque, which features in this programme, 90 years later. 

The recording also features Mozart’s Sonata in B flat K. 570, Beethoven’s Sonata in D minor Op. 31 No. 2 ‘The Tempest’, and works by Chopin . As a boy, Horszowski was taught by his mother, an amateur pianist who had studied with Karol Mikuli, himself a pupil of Chopin – and it was in Chopin that Horszowski was greatly in his element. As András Schiff remarked: “It’s as though he had written the music himself. It’s unbelievably unpredictable, and yet it’s completely natural, and comes from within the composition.” 

The recital ends with Schumann’s ‘Traumerei’, one of the composer’s most famous melodies, and something of a signature work for Horszowski in his last years.