Word: sovietizers
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...recital was televised the same day across Europe and the U.S. and was recorded for possible later broadcast by Soviet television as well. But TV could only begin to suggest what the 1,800 foreign diplomats, Soviet film stars, composers, musicians and ordinary Russians witnessed on an extraordinary afternoon. At 4 p.m. Horowitz emerged from the wings to thunderous applause, cut it short with an impatient gesture, sat down at his personal 9-ft. Steinway, which had been flown in for the occasion, and for two hours held everyone spellbound...
...success, both as a musician and as a cultural ambassador. "I am not a Communist, but I can understand their way of thinking better than most Americans," he declared. "We all know there is good and evil everywhere. I was brought up to seek the good. In the Soviet Union today, the good is the music they produce. I hope that by playing in the Soviet Union, I will make the good better. Music inspires. It does not destroy and kill...
...Soviet officialdom treated the visit with a mixture of politesse and disdain. In the days leading up to the Moscow concert, there was no mention of the Horowitz visit in either Pravda or Izvestiya, only a brief announcement in the newspaper Sovietskaya Kultura. Soviet musical commissars explained the lack of coverage by observing the concert was already sold out. "We think of him as an American pianist," said Tikhon Khrennikov, the all-powerful first secretary of the Soviet composers' union, who nevertheless went to the concert. In response to the American attack on Libya, the Soviets boycotted a dinner...
...thin crust of official coolness often melted, however, notably at the conclusion of a Horowitz press conference at the Conservatory's Rachmaninoff Hall. There, hardened Soviet journalists shouldered one another aside in their frenzy to get autographs. "Sign en Russe," reminded Wanda, overseeing the impromptu session. And when Horowitz emerged from the conference, he was confronted by a horde of fresh-faced music students eager to get a glimpse of the master. "It is very important to us for him to have a big success," said one girl through her tears...
Instead, they are ushered into the Oval Office. "It is wonderful that you are the first to be going to the Soviet Union for us," says the President. "Yes, I think it's just great. I couldn't have selected anyone better than...