Horowitz at the Met

A personal reflection

A recent revisit of the first digital recording (RCA ATC1-1260 (1981) by the great pianist Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989) was the occasion of a personal reconsideration of his career.

Among other pianists Horowitz was a legend. He could achieve effects at the keyboard that still remain mysterious to even the most skilled pianistic technicians. A Horowitz recital meant a sold-out house and ecstatic listeners.

To many fans of the piano, especially of his generation, Horowitz was the greatest performing artist of his time. Born at the dawn of the new century, he was an artistic heir to the tradition of Romantic pianism of Franz Liszt.  Many of his later critics failed to take into account how thoroughly immersed he was in that tradition.

Horowitz the technician

Horowitz’s technique was so secure that he had no faults. He played the most demanding passages with an ease that is still the envy of pianists. During a recital, nothing moved but those flawless fingers. Yet he had a magnetic stage presence.

Above all else, Horowitz was a colorist. He was able to achieve an extraordinary variety of colors at the keyboard, even though his use of the pedal was sparing. He relied instead on his extraordinary technique.

Horowitz the musician

He was able to achieve huge dynamic contrasts seemingly effortlessly without banging on the keyboard. No pianist has played the octaves in the Tchaikovsky Bb Piano Concerto with more authority or more evenly.

Obviously, Horowitz’s Liszt was dynamic and dramatic. Yet no pianist did more than Horowitz to reintroduce to the repertoire the delicate sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. He played them with fantastic security, control, and extraordinary insight. Listening to his interpretation of them approaches the ultimate in pianistic poetry.

In the same way he made Chopin his own–totally pianistic yet always poetic. Horowitz untangled the gnarly dissonances of Scriabin and made those pieces his own. His performances of the concerto repertoire with Toscanini in the 1930s and 1940s remain among the pinnacles of that repertoire.

Retirement and return to the stage

Yet his personal insecurity was legendary. At times he was so terrified of going on stage that he had to be literally pushed from the wings by his manager. Horowitz insisted on playing his own Steinway, and the curtain was always at 4:00 P.M.  The emotional demands of his concert career caused him to retire several times, only to return in triumph.

Without any advance notice, his return to the stage in Washington was an immediate sell-out. I recall leaving immediately for Washington the day tickets went on sale at the Kennedy Center, only to stand in a line that extended out the door.  No one who heard Horowitz on that occasion will ever forget it.

The Horowitz experience

To those who did not hear him live, his style may seem fussy or old-fashioned. Unabashed romantics like Horowitz, Earl Wild, and Rubinstein are out of fashion. Our pianists today virtually without exception are superb technicians, but some of us of an older generation miss the more subjective artistry of Horowitz.

Yes, he could not resist “touching up” pieces by Chopin, Liszt, and even Beethoven that are considered iconic and untouchable today. Yet he did it with a sensitivity and insight that make them imperishable testimonials to his art.

horowitz piano

Horowitz at the Met

The New York recital recorded live at the Met in 1981 suggests that some of Horowitz’s technical facility had diminished. Yet the artistry is still there.

The six Scarlatti sonatas are exemplary, even though the label unaccountably deleted some of the repeats. His performance of the Chopin Ballade No. 4 is not his best, but the dynamism of his playing is in full evidence in the thundering climaxes of the Liszt Ballade No. 2 in B minor.

The recording concludes with a nod to his friend and colleague, Sergei Rachmaninoff, with the latter’s Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5, followed by the usual ovation.  Fortunately for posterity, the recording in vivid stereo sound was produced by John Pfeiffer, the acknowledged master of recordings of distinction in the heyday of classical recordings by RCA.

This recording may not the favorite of some of Horowitz’s fans, but it captures the excitement and sense of occasion that always attended a Horowitz recital. For those who love the piano, he will always remain one of the greats.

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