In the winter of 1928 a sallow, jittery, 23-year-old Russian pianist named Vladimir Horowitz made a sensational Manhattan debut at a Carnegie Hall concert under the baton of gouty Sir Thomas Beecham. So steely brilliant and ballistically precise was his performance of Tschaikowsky's B Flat Minor Concerto that Manhattan critics hailed him as "the most successful artist to appear before the American public in a decade." For Pianist Horowitz that success was the first swell of a long crescendo. He was soon one of the biggest box-office draws in U. S. music.
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