Vladimir Horowitz : Carnegie Hall Rehearsal, 7 January 1965 (Improvising, Conversations, Chopin etc)

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Vladimir Horowiz : Carnegie Hall Rehearsal, 7 January 1965 (Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Schumann, Conversations etc...)

Performer : Vladimir Horowitz, piano
Date : 7 January 1965
Place : Carnegie Hall
Program : Rehearsal

00:00 Horowitz improvising
03:24 Conversation and Horowitz testing the piano
05:24 Horowitz improvising II
10:31 Conversation I
11:28 Bach : Toccata Adagio and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564, I Preludio
17:57 II Intermezzo Adagio
22:15 III Fuga Moderamente scherzando un poco umoristico
27:19 Conversation II
28:15 Chopin - Polonaise Fantaisie in A Flat Major Op. 61
41:19 Conversation III
41:42 Debussy : Etudes Livre II No. 11 Pour les arpeges composés
45:45 Conversation IV
47:12 Schumann : Fantasie in C Major Op. 17 I Durchaus phantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen fragment
58:08 Conversation V
58:24 Chopin : Nocturne No. 15 in F Minor Op. 55 No. 1

BIOGRAPHY

The most famous pianist of the twentieth century, his name known to the proverbial man on the street the world over, Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz (1903–1989) was born in 1903 in Kiev.

Horowitz showed enough prodigious talent to play for Alexander Scriabin in 1915, just before the Russian composer-pianist’s early death. Horowitz would become a superlative interpreter of Scriabin’s music, which the pianist described as “mystical… expressionistic.” Horowitz also became friends with another great Russian composer-pianist (and Scriabin’s former schoolmate), Sergei Rachmaninoff – who was the acme of Romanticism.

He also made a benchmark recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Emigrating from Russia in 1925 and eventually settling in New York City, Horowitz made his American debut with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1928 at Carnegie Hall, which would become his home venue, the site of many recordings. Impressed by the pianist’s tonal dynamism, conductor Thomas Beecham, who led that concert, reportedly said: “Really, Mr. Horowitz, you can’t play like that – it shows the orchestra up.” Horowitz made a series of solo recordings for HMV at London’s Abbey Road Studios in 1932, including several Chopin pieces and an electrifying take on Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, helping to establish the piece in the standard repertoire. A review of a 1933 London concert declared Horowitz “the greatest pianist dead or alive.”

Horowitz would make hit recordings with Toscanini of the Tchaikovsky concerto and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1940–41.

Over the course of his career, Horowitz’s recorded repertoire stretched far beyond those early specialties of Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff; in long associations for RCA, then Columbia and, finally, Deutsche Grammophon, Horowitz also ranged from Scarlatti, Haydn and Clementi to Beethoven, Schumann and miniatures across the ages with artistic and commercial success; in a period of applying himself to modern music, he premiered Samuel Barber’s Sonata in 1950, along with recording sonatas by Prokofiev and Kabalevsky.

Driven to “grow until I die,” he said, the pianist reapplied himself to select Beethoven sonatas in his middle period and then several Mozart works as he grew older.

Horowitz also crafted his own transcriptions and arrangements, including such showstoppers as his variations on Carmen and Stars and Stripes Forever.

In his book The Great Pianists, critic Harold Schonberg wrote: “As a technician, Horowitz was one of the most honest in the history of modern pianism.

Famously high-strung, his art always a mental-physical high-wire act, Horowitz took four sabbaticals from public performance to deal with various issues, his returns much-ballyhooed events.

The first layoff was for two years in 1936; the longest was 1953 to 1965, followed by a tremendous homecoming to Carnegie Hall.

But even over his later breaks, he recorded regularly at home in his Manhattan townhouse, documenting his art as it subtly evolved even beyond great venues and the recording studio.

A 1985 film, The Last Romantic, captured the pianist in his last years, performing at home as well as reminiscing about Scriabin and Rachmaninoff.

The next year, Horowitz returned to Russia, 61 years after leaving — a hugely emotional event for both artist and audience, documented in the concert album and film Horowitz in Moscow.

In 1987, he played his final recital, in Hamburg; he died two years later. “Piano playing consists of intellect, heart and technique,” Horowitz said. “All should be equally developed. Without intellect, you will be a fiasco; without technique, an amateur; without heart, a machine. The profession has its perils.”