witz’s background. He shows its strengthrnin validating Horowitz’s individuahty asrnsuch performers as Battistini, Rachmaninoff,rnFriedman, and Kreisler (andrnthe musical culture they represented)rnpassed away, leaving Horowitz very nearlyrn”The Last Romantic,” as his publicistsrnclaimed. However, I also believernSchonberg lets a paradox escape him.rnUntil 1961, Horowitz had always appearedrnin the West as a “modernizer”—rnthe young sa’age of the late 20’s with thernclose-cropped hair. Then in Americarnhe was a Red Seal artist with Toscaninirnand Heifetz—streamlining, even reductionistrnvehicles of the repudiation of Romanticism.rnWas it “Romantic” to playrnlike a machine? Horowitz was sometimesrna voice of industrialism and a destroyerrnof nostalgia in the 1940’s andrn1950’s. Schonberg lets this point go, forrnexample, in considering the 1932 landmarkrnrecording of Liszt’s Sonata in Brnminor.rnThen, too, he has changed his evaluationsrnof certain recordings—what werernonce deemed as flawed in various waysrnare now subsumed in the glory of Horowitz’srnbest work. And I think Schonbergrnis just plain wrong about Horowitz’s interiockingrnoctaves at the end of Chopin’srnScherzo in B minor. The point is notrnthat his effect can be justified, but thatrnthe unison scales Chopin wrote are harderrnto bring off: Horowitz’s “effect” is anrnevasion of difficulty that can hardly bernclassified as “virtuosity”—”inappropriaterncheap stunt” would be more like it,rnthough a stunt at the highest level, to bernsure.rnFurthermore, since music is such a vitalrnpart of culture, the testimony ofrnHorowitz’s few pupils shows not howrnmuch but how little he connected withrnthem. Horowitz performed, but herndidn’t do much to pass on what he knew,rnas other great pianists such as Schnabel,rnCortot, and Serkin did pedagogically andrnin print. Horowitz’s narcissism was a cripplingrnlimitation.rnBut never mind—the man was a herornof the keyboard. Schonberg’s is a stirringrnand convincing book, and he is right thatrnHorowitz was the greatest pianist of thernsecond half of the 20th century. He isrnright that Horowitz had a demonic qualityrnthat actually scared people. He isrnright that Horowitz had an uncanny abilityrnto control sound, to weave textures,rnand to fill the biggest hall with uniquernsonorities. And he has a point in callingrnfor a reassessment of even Horowitz’srnMozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.rnSchonberg’s Horowitz transcends itsrnsubject, even as Horowitz’s recorded performancesrnare more than individualrnstatements. The recreative freedom,rnlyric-dramatic projection, and sustainedrnline of Horowitz’s best work remind us ofrnhow much we have lost in disconnectingrnourselves from the past. And that gap, arnfissure running back to the outburst ofrnmodernism and the First World War,rnhas swallowed up more than our musicalrnheritage.rn/.O. Tate is a professor of English atrnDowling College on Long Island.rnlIlLAllLlVVUildrnby Charles Edward EatonrnSummer goes again, and you release its fable—rnTanned swimmers in blue pools, blue seas, the specters of fading roses.rnThe glistening lust for life, the predator at table.rnAll the lovers, all the grapes and melons that you knew—rnI kissed the girl, ate the fruit with her.rnAnd fantasized that melon rind offered voyages of love in its canoe.rnThe thing we like the most is just the thing that keeps on coming after—rnThe caressive sun on skin made stringent by the pool.rnThe comic songs from sentimental ones, from those romantic tears thernsparkling laughter.rnThis is what the fable says, this is what it does for us:rnPears come after peaches, melons. The hammock, packed with power.rnSways and sways—a basket for late pathos.rnOr so it was, to me, in early June related.rnSuch relatives that came to picnic on my lawn!—rnThe muscled one looked like Apollo, the predator was never sated.rnStill, in moonlight, comes a time for one last, rueful kiss:rnGold figures folded in the pool, blue worlds we fully occupied—rnThe afterthought is asking now if tales of autumn hold anything like this.rnlULY 1993/41rnrnrn