“Perfection itself is imperfection.”

One of the most gifted pianists of the 20th century, Vladimir Horowitz (1903–91) entranced audiences with an idiosyncratic repertoire that stretched from Liszt and Rachmaninoff to Scarlatti and Clementi.

He was born in Kyiv, studying at the city’s conservatory from age nine, but fled the political turbulence in 1925 for Berlin and later New York. The neurotic Horowitz retired from performance four times – but crowds flocked to his spectacular comebacks.