***, this is haertbreaking to watch. He was drugged by what? Alcohol, medicaments,...?
This was really a recital in front of a public? So weird and sad.
This is even worse:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=S5M5hYS-X3s
==> Watch how the people adore him, even after this terrible concert.
It's my understanding that he was on an antidepressant that was a precursor to Zoloft, and removed from use because it did this to people. Evidently under it's influence he beagan smoking and drinking regularly for the first time since the 1930's, and believed he could do no wrong at the keyboard. The smoking and drinking is a rumour, don't know if that's true or not.
I heard him play these pieces in 1983 in Boston. The whole program was...
Beethoven Op.101
Schumann Carnaval
***************
Chopin Etudes Op. 10 #8, Op.25 #7 and #10.
Polonaise Op.53
I think I'm leaving something out, I don't remember what it was he played by Chopin right after intermission. It was horrifying, like watching a plane crash. No one in the audience was prepared for this, during the 2nd mvt. of the Beethoven (more wrong notes than right, and horrific aimless banging) people began to turn to one another and whisper in horror. It was interesting because while most of what he played was a mess certain sections of pieces were absolutly perfect and beautiful, like his "Pantalon et Columbine" from Carnaval, the etudes, the slow parts of the Sonata. I knew something was wrong when he first walked out (I had seen him fives times previously), he was stiff, stooped and uncomfortable, like he had a back injury.
This said his tone was intact (when he wasn't slugging the piano in desperation) and his conceptions were remakable, as always.

It was simply the false notes. The Chopin Etudes were powerful and beautiful, even with the wrong notes (they were better than these vids). Best I've ever heard the Octave Etude played. He was still Horowitz, but it was like looking at a great painting that had had mud flung on it.
"Drugs", drink (?), and an old guy trying to be the young superman that he had once been. He never attempted programs like this again, his recitals from 1985 on were much less demanding, and he began to play Mozart and Schubert again after many years. I never heard any of those concerts live, but the recordings are beautiful, particularly his very last ones.
That Boston concert was the worst and yet one of the best concerts I ever saw. If most of us made the same mistakes, we would be jeered off the stage. He was truly a great artist, to be able to keep the attention of that full hall .