A pianist
in chronological order,
a newer version is this: (I think it's the same performance)
Then his Moscow performance:
This is one particular piece that I think Horowitz owns. So far I haven't listened to anyone who come close! There's a potentially fatal mistake in the Moscow one that Horowitz somehow got out of (around 1:55). And overall, his hands are more "unstable" at the older age, with more ''looseness'' in his rubato and balance. especially in the thick parts. But in the slow part at least, there seems to me to be more a richer orchestration and tone color he gets out of in Moscow.
It's fascinating to watch his fingers move so loosely, like spagetti. Equally important to being loose is that his motions are very smooth. And with such graceful moves he made this originally challenging but party-like music sound so colorful and beautiful, as if it wasn't played on a piano! The transparency of his sound, while lacking the ''singing'' quality while playing a single line (as in many Chopin pieces), sound very dreamy and other-worldly when phrased in his way.
I think the "nervousness' and unpredictability of his phrasing, his orchectration, is what makes his playing so charming, so different from normal "'singing'' type sound most other pianists seek. It is thus for the same reason that some people think (unfairly) that Horowitz is not that musical, not that ''deep''.
Here the ''wrong'' sound he creates are so convincing that as I listen to other players play it (including Rachmaninov himself!!), they sound ''wrong'' and too simple!