Although he grew up in Kiev, and claimed that was the city of his birth, it is possible that Horowitz’s birthplace was actually Berdichev, situated southwest of Kiev. Horowitz was born into a well-to-do, cultured family and he received his first piano lessons from his mother. At the age of nine he entered the Kiev Conservatory where he studied with Vladimir Puchalsky, then with Sergei Tarnowsky; both had been pupils of Theodor Leschetizky. From 1919 Horowitz studied with Felix Blumenfeld, a pupil of Anton Rubinstein. Although never a performing child prodigy, Horowitz was always the centre of attention as a child and adolescent due to his extraordinary talent at the keyboard, and this environment moulded his personality as an adult.

Horowitz made...