In Hamburg in 1925, a young Russian pianist was given 45 minutes' notice to deputise for a sick soloist.

Running to the concert hall, he gave a performance of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto that left the conductor staring and the audience erupting with enthusiasm.

Vladimir Horowitz, keyboard phenomenon, had arrived.

After Horowitz's US debut in 1928, Rachmaninov declared: "Until I met him, I did not realise the possibilities of the piano."

The two Russian exiles became friends. Horowitz played Rachmaninov's taxing third concerto with all the virtuosity and power the composer had envisaged.

Yet, despite his unapproachable technique, Horowitz's career was never easy.

In many ways, he was the antithesis of his main rival, Artur Rubinstein.

Where Rubinstein was an extrovert who never cancelled a concert and whose understated playing somehow went to the music's heart, Horowitz was an introvert, dogged by nervous problems that caused lengthy retirements, whose playing mixed fireworks with distortions.

In 1986, 61 years after leaving his homeland, Horowitz returned in triumph to play at the Moscow Conservatory.

The live global audience was probably the largest yet to hear a piano recital.

The recording of that occasion says it all. At 82, his power, passion, technical control, thunderous sonority and scarifying spontaneity were intact.

-Roger Moodiman, Marine Parade, Brighton