even Horowitz couldn't play the g minor ballade perfectly under those conditions

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2003)

I have heard Rubinstein, Ashkenazy, Serkin, Horowitz and Gilels play at the height of their powers, in well-heated concert halls, well fed and surrounded by love and support -- and not one of them ever played, or need to have played, a completely note-perfect concert. It is absolutely not possible that anybody, after four years of not practicing, in air so cold you could see their breath, starving and frightened, hands curled in pain and exhaustion, could play a note perfect rendition of Chopin's G Minor ballade. The scene would have been far more moving if he had given a moving performance in spite of mistakes and slurs and missed passages. But this movie, literal and plodding, did not have the imagination to make that crucial moment into a real scene. Unfortunate.