AboutOfficial Site: http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/horowitz_vladimir/Vladimir Samoylovych Horowitz (Russian: Владимир Самойлович Горовиц, Ukrainian: Володимир Самійлович Горовиць) (OS 18 September, NS October 1, 1903 – November 5, 1989) was a Jewish-born, Ukrainian, classical pianist. His use of colors, technique and the excitement of his playing are thought by many to be unrivalled, and his performances of works as diverse as those of Domenico Scarlatti and Alexander Scriabin were equally legendary. Detractors claim that his output is uniformly mannered (termed Horowitzian), and often too much so to be true to the composer's intentions. Even so, he has a huge and passionate following and is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th Century. 
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Life and careerHorowitz himself said that he was born in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of Russian Empire), but some sources have given Berdichev as a birthplace. His cousin Natasha Saitzoff, in a 1991 interview, stated that all four children were born in Kiev; Horowitz's wife, Wanda Toscanini, however, gave credence to the Berdichev possibility. He was born in 1903, but in order to make Vladimir appear too young for military service so as not to risk damaging his hands, his father took a year off his son's age by claiming he was born in 1904 (This fictitious birth year is still found in some reference sources, but authoritative sources now list - and Horowitz himself confirmed - his correct year of birth as 1903). Horowitz had piano lessons from an early age, initially from his mother, who was herself a competent pianist. In 1912 he entered the Kiev Conservatory, where he was taught by Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky, and Felix Blumenfeld. He left the conservatory in 1919 and played the Piano Concerto No. 3 of Rachmaninoff at his graduation. His first solo recital followed in 1920. His star rose rapidly, and he soon began to tour Russia where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate (Plaskin 52) rather than money, due to the country's economic hardships. During the 1922-1923 season, he performed 23 concerts of eleven different programs in Leningrad alone (Plaskin 56). In 1926 Horowitz made his first appearance outside his home country, in Berlin. He later played in Paris, London and New York City, and it was in the United States that he eventually settled in 1940. He became a United States citizen in 1944. [edit]
Career in the USIn 1932 he played for the first time with the conductor Arturo Toscanini in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the Emperor concerto). The two went on to appear together many times, both on stage and on record. In 1933, Horowitz married Wanda Toscanini, the conductor's daughter in a civil ceremony. Their different religious background (Wanda was Catholic, while Horowitz was a Jew) was not an issue, since neither was observant. As Wanda knew no Russian and Horowitz knew very little Italian, their primary language became French. They had one child, Sonia Toscanini Horowitz (1934-1975). Despite receiving rapturous receptions at his recitals, Horowitz became increasingly unsure of his abilities as a pianist. Several times he withdrew from public performances (1936-1938, 1953-1965, 1969-1974, 1983-1985), and it is said that on several occasions, Horowitz had to be pushed onto the stage (Plaskin 353). After 1965 he gave solo recitals only rarely (various sources). Horowitz made many recordings, starting in 1928 upon his arrival in the United States and ending four days before his death in 1989. His early recordings were made for HMV, the most notable of which is his 1930 recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Albert Coates and the London Symphony Orchestra, the first recording of that piece. From 1940 to 1959, Horowitz recorded for RCA Victor. During this period, he made his first recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, under Toscanini. In 1953, when Horowitz went into retirement, he made a number of acclaimed recordings at home, including discs of Alexander Scriabin and Muzio Clementi. In 1962, Horowitz began recording for Columbia Records, and it is these recordings which are among the best known. The most famous among them is his 1965 return concert at Carnegie Hall and his 1968 performance from his television special, Horowitz on Television, featuring Scriabin's Etude Op. 8 No. 12 and Horowitz's own Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen, the most famous of his piano transcriptions along with the Stars and Stripes Forever. From 1965 until 1982, many of Horowitz's recordings were done live. [edit]
Personal LifeDespite his marriage, there is considerable independent evidence that Horowitz was gay. He is credited with the ambiguous aphorism: "There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists." It is believed he underwent psychological treatment in the 1950s in an attempt to alter his sexual orientation. In the early 1960s and 1970s, he underwent electroshock therapy for depression (Plaskin 338–7).
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The last years
After another brief retirement from 1983 until 1985 (he was playing in a drugged state and as a result, memory lapses and loss of physical control occurred during his tour of America and Japan), Horowitz returned to recording and occasional concertizing. In 1986, Horowitz made a return to the Soviet Union to give a series of concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. In the new atmosphere of communication and understanding between the USSR and the USA, these concerts were seen as events of some political, as well as musical, significance. The Moscow concert was recorded and released, entitled Horowitz in Moscow. He also made a widely successful tour in Vienna in 1987, the video recording also available, entitled Horowitz in Vienna. Vladimir Horowitz died in New York of a heart attack. He was buried in the Toscanini family tomb in Cimitero Monumentale, Milan, Italy. His body was rumored to have been buried along with a book of Hanon's piano exercises, because according to Horowitz, "I never want to do anything without warming up; that includes dying." Horowitz was 86. [edit]
Repertoire and techniqueHorowitz is best known for his performances of the Romantic piano repertoire. His first recording of Liszt's Sonata (1932) is still considered by many piano afficionadi as the definitive reading of that piece, almost 75 years later, with almost 100 other performances committed to disc. He is also acclaimed for his recordings of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 and Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, as well as for his famous hair-raising transcriptions, including his rewriting of the piano version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and his transcription of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Towards the end of the Friska section of the latter, Horowitz appears to have three hands as he combines all the themes of the piece, resulting in a fantastic finale. It was only recorded once, in 1953, during his 25th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and he stated that it was the most difficult of his transcriptions. Other transcriptions of note are his Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen and Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever. Audiences often would not let him leave the concert hall until he played his "scoring" of this piece. Later in life, he abstained from playing it altogether, as he said "the audience would forget the concert and only remember Stars and Stripes, you know." Other well-known recordings include works by Schumann, Scriabin, Chopin, and Schubert. He did much to champion contemporary Russian music, giving the American premieres of Sergei Prokofiev's 6th, 7th and 8th piano sonatas. He also premiered Samuel Barber's Piano Sonata. Horowitz was sometimes criticized for his performances, with overwhelming double-fortissimos suddenly followed by delicate pianissimos. He was capable of producing an extraordinary volume of sound from the piano, without ever banging; this rare ability was also found in the playing of Liszt. Another unique aspect of his pianism was his taut, precise, and exciting attack, which was ever-present, noticeable even in his renditions of pieces that were not particularly technically demanding (e.g. his magnificent performances of miniatures, such as the Chopin Mazurkas). He is also famous for his octave technique; he could play scales in octaves extraordinarily fast without sacrificing any precision. When asked by the pianist Tedd Joselson how he practiced octaves, Joselson reports, "He practiced them exactly as we were all taught to do." (Schonberg). His hand-position was very unusual, playing with flat fingers. Rachmaninoff once commented upon it, saying that Horowitz plays contrary to what they had been taught, yet somehow with Horowitz it works. The little finger of his right hand was always curled tight until it needed to play a note; as music critic Harold Schonberg put it, "it was like a strike of a cobra" (The Great Pianists 436). His extravagances were always well received by his audiences, but not by many critics. Virgil Thomson was famous for his consistent criticism of Horowitz's interpretations in his reviews in the New York newspapers. -- |
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Vladimir Horowitz
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Vladimir Horowitz Discography (58titles)
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