A protégé of the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, Andrei Gavrilov won the 1974 Tchaikovsky Competition, revealing himself as, in the words of Harold Schonberg, "a virtuoso, sometimes an explosive one, who has Horowitz instincts that are not yet under control." Schonberg, reflecting much of the general feeling about Gavrilov, also expressed gratitude for the artist's temperament, an element notably missing from most of his supremely well-schooled, but more cautious contemporaries. In the years since he emerged as such a vivid personality, much remains the same: Gavrilo...