A Letter from the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

TIME Music Writer and Critic Michael Walsh is constantly reminded that the scope of his job is "at least national, and often international." Indeed, the peripatetic Walsh, accompanied by New York Correspondent Dean Brelis, traveled to Moscow two weeks ago to write this week's cover story on Pianist and Returned Russian Exile Vladimir Horowitz. Since joining the magazine in 1981, Walsh has logged some 50,000 miles a year covering musical events and personalities. In the past 14 months he has visited San Francisco, Japan, London, Paris, Austria, West Germany--and even East Germany, for the opening of Dresden's restored Semper Opera House. "We look for the unusual," says Walsh, "new music of international significance and productions of older music that work especially well or have a special cachet. The only way to keep abreast is to be there, and that means having the stamina of an ox, durable carry-on luggage and a tolerance for jet lag."

For Brelis, reporting Horowitz's triumphant and poignant return to Moscow capped 20 hours of interviews and conversation with the virtuoso and his wife Wanda. It was by far the longest stretch of time Horowitz has ever agreed to spend with a journalist. "I usually cover wars, politics and disasters," says Brelis, "so this was a very different kind of assignment. Horowitz was pleased that I was not a musician. 'We can discuss politics,' he said. And we did. He has a remarkable, nimble mind. The hours with him and Wanda were like reliving not only the history of music in this century but also reviewing the spectacle of war and peace from the Russian Revolution to the agony over Nicaragua and Libya."

In Moscow, Brelis discovered the genesis of Horowitz's remarkably wide intellectual interests. Visiting the Scriabin Museum, the master pianist recalled that his parents had been advised by Scriabin to make sure that their son "knows art and literature, history and philosophy. To be a great artist he must know more than music." Then he said to Brelis, "Without a broad knowledge, I should never have known the clear thoughts and feelings I experience playing the piano."

The cover portrait of Horowitz is the work of American Artist R.B. Kitaj. Though Kitaj admits he is "not a very spontaneous artist," he completed the pastel drawing in just a few days to meet TIME's deadlines. His previous work for the magazine includes the 1983 cover of George Orwell.

Richard B. Thomas