Vladimir Horowitz, one of the great pianists of the 20th cen­tu­ry, left Rus­sia to set­tle in the Unit­ed States in 1939. But, once the Cold War thawed, he famous­ly returned home and played before rapt audi­ences. What we have here, I believe, is Horowitz play­ing Mozart’s Sonata in C Major dur­ing a 1986 recital Moscow. A beau­ti­ful piece. For good mea­sure, I’ve also added Horowitz play­ing Chopin’s 2nd Piano Sonata at the White House. Both clips have been added to our YouTube favorites.

A lit­tle some­thing for Neil Young fans. Right now, you can stream online (click and scroll down) his new album, Dreamin’ Man Live ’92. It’s a live per­for­mance of Young’s 1992 album Har­vest Moon, which itself returned to the sounds of Har­vest, Young’s clas­sic 1972 record­ing. A good find by About.com.

Image by Roy Ker­wood, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The anniver­sary of John Lennon’s death jogged my mem­o­ry, remind­ing me of this lengthy 1970 inter­view. Con­duct­ed by Jann Wen­ner, the founder of Rolling Stone mag­a­zine, this impor­tant con­ver­sa­tion was record­ed short­ly after The Bea­t­les’ bit­ter breakup.

Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. It’s not always flat­ter­ing, but it gives you a good feel for the man and the great artist.

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The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan now offers a course designed to help stu­dents turn their iPhones into musi­cal instru­ments. The video above shows footage from one of their prac­tice ses­sions held in Novem­ber. A final con­cert will be held on Decem­ber 9. You can read more about this project here. Also see Stan­ford stu­dents play­ing the iPhone here.

via TUAW.com

A quick free­bie men­tion: Amazon.com is cur­rent­ly giv­ing away $3 worth of MP3’s until Novem­ber 30th. That amounts essen­tial­ly to three free songs. Just click to this page, fol­low a few easy steps (includ­ing using the code code MP34FREE), and you’ll be on your way.

via Life­hack­er

We take you back to 1967, to the three-day Mon­terey Pop Fes­ti­val in Cal­i­for­nia, which was kind of a pre­cur­sor to the Wood­stock Fes­ti­val held in 1969. Mon­terey marked, among oth­er things, the first major Amer­i­can appear­ances by Jimi Hen­drix and The Who. Above, we give you Hen­drix cov­er­ing Bob Dylan’s anthem Like a Rolling Stone. And here, we have Wild Thing, which ends famous­ly in Hen­drix adding fire to his best imi­ta­tion of Pete Town­shend. Great vin­tage clips which you’ll find in our YouTube favorites.

It hap­pened 44 years ago. A 14-year-old Bea­t­les fan named Jer­ry Lev­i­tan man­aged to sneak into John Lennon’s Toron­to hotel room and asked for an inter­view. And he got one. Now, there’s a short ani­mat­ed film that brings that encounter back to life. I Met the Wal­rus was nom­i­nat­ed for the 2008 Acad­e­my Award for Ani­mat­ed Short. You’ll know why when you watch it. Anoth­er excel­lent find by Vick­ie.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon’s Raw, Soul-Bar­ing Vocals From the Bea­t­les’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (1969)

Get a Fly-on-the-Wall View of John Lennon Record­ing & Arrang­ing His Clas­sic Song, “Imag­ine” (1971)

Watch John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Two Appear­ances on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971 and 72