Vladimir Horowitz’s New York debut at Carnegie Hall, with New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, who is also making his American debut. Some of the world’s greatest pianists are in the audience: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Moritz Rosenthal, Josef Lhevinne, Mischa Levitzki, – and also the new Steinway & Sons president Theodore E. Steinway, celebrity manager Arthur Judson, representatives from RCA Victor recording company, and every major music critic of the time. The concert is a near-fiasco, because of the power struggle during the performance between the pianist and the conductor. (Horowitz will later comment that he and Beecham had divergent ideas regarding tempos, and that Beecham was conducting the score “from memory and he didn’t know” the music.)