By that time his family was devastated by the purges of the Russian Revolution. All of their property, including the piano, was seized by the Bolsheviks. Horowitz performed extensively in Kharkov, Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad, acquiring a reputation as a virtuoso.
In Leningrad alone he gave 23 concerts in , being paid with food instead of money. He left Russia in and gave 69 concerts in Europe during the season of He studied briefly with Alfred Cortot in Paris. His debut was a sensation. Horowitz performed sold-out concerts and commanded the highest fees throughout his legendary career. In Horowitz performed the Emperor Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven with the conductor Arturo Toscanini and won the admiration of the maestro.
They had one daughter. Horowitz and Toscanini gave a remarkable fund-raiser for the war effort with their performance of the Piano Concerto No. Horowitz was a close friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff. They played piano together at the Rachmaninov's home in Beverly Hills. Rachmaninov famously admitted that Horowitz surpassed him in the interpretation of his Piano Concerto No.
Horowitz played with unusually stretched fingers and low wrists, but even Rachmaninov said, "Horowitz plays contrary to what they taught, yet somehow with Horowitz it works.
At some points in his career he suffered from anxiety and depression; taking long brakes, especially from and from On several occasions he was said to have experienced stage fright and had to be pushed onto the stage. He left the conservatory in and performed the S. Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. He was later to become particularly associated with this concerto, and in made the premiere recording. His first solo recital followed in His star rose rapidly, and he soon began to tour Russia where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate rather than money, due to the country's economic hardships.
During the season, he performed 23 concerts of eleven different programs in Leningrad alone. On January 2, , Horowitz made his first appearance outside his home country, in Berlin. He became a USA citizen in He played the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.
Horowitz later commented that he and T. Beecham had divergent ideas regarding tempos, and that T. Beecham was conducting the score "from memory and he didn't know" the piece. Horowitz's success with the audience was phenomenal, and a solo recital was quickly scheduled. Olin Downes, writing for the New York Times , was critical about the metric tug of war between conductor and soloist, but Downes credited Horowitz with both a tremendous technique and a beautiful singing tone in the second movement.
In this debut performance, Horowitz demonstrated a marked ability to excite his audience, an ability he preserved for his entire career. As Olin Downes commented, "it has been years since a pianist created such a furor with an audience in this city.
In , he played for the first time with the conductor Arturo Toscanini in a performance of the L. Beethoven Piano Concerto No. Horowitz and Arturo Toscanini went on to perform together many times, on stage and in recordings. Despite rapturous receptions at recitals, Horowitz became increasingly unsure of his abilities as a pianist. Several times, he withdrew from public performances during to , to , to , and to On several occasions, Horowitz had to be pushed onto the stage.
After he gave solo recitals only rarely. Recordings Vladimir Horowitz made numerous recordings, starting in , upon his arrival in the USA. Horowitz's first European recording was his recording of the S.
Through , Horowitz continued to make recordings for HMV of solo piano repertoire, including his famous account of the F. Liszt Sonata in B minor.
Beginning in , Horowitz's recording activity was concentrated in the USA. During this period, in , he made his first recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. In , RCA issued the live performance of the concerto with Horowitz and Arturo Toscanini ; some say it is superior to the commercial recording.
Beginning in , when Horowitz went into retirement, he made a series of recordings in his New York townhouse, including discs of Scriabin and Clementi. Horowitz's first stereo recording, made in , was devoted to L. Beethoven piano sonatas. In , Horowitz embarked on a series of highly acclaimed recordings for Columbia Records.
The most famous among them are his return concert at Carnegie Hall and a recording from his television special, Horowitz on Television , televised by CBS. Horowitz was born into a well-to-do, cultured family and he received his first piano lessons from his mother. At the age of nine he entered the Kiev Conservatory where he studied with Vladimir Puchalsky, then with Sergei Tarnowsky; both had been pupils of Theodor Leschetizky. Although never a performing child prodigy, Horowitz was always the centre of attention as a child and adolescent due to his extraordinary talent at the keyboard, and this environment moulded his personality as an adult.
Horowitz made his debut in Kiev in , the year that he graduated from the Kiev Conservatory. His family had lost everything in the Revolution, so young Vladimir had to earn a living. Although an unknown, after a few performances news of Horowitz spread and his concerts were well attended. During this period he also performed with violinist Nathan Milstein; they played to packed houses in Petrograd now St Petersburg in and during the following concert season Horowitz gave twenty recitals of ten programmes.
Horowitz left the Soviet Union in to make his debut in Berlin and to avoid military service. He had great success after three performances in Berlin in January , and a performance in Hamburg secured his reputation in Germany.
In February he conquered Paris and received great acclaim throughout Europe with the exception of London. Horowitz was there to dazzle his audience, Beecham was not there to concur with his soloist. Since his European debut Horowitz had continued a gruelling series of appearances. He could whip an audience into a frenzy while the critics complained of a lack of musicianship.
In Horowitz had married the daughter of conductor Arturo Toscanini the lifestyle of whose family was far from harmonious and calm and by he was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Not long after the London concerts described he retreated from public appearance for two years in an attempt to recover his physical and mental health in Switzerland. During the s Horowitz lived in the United States and performed a great deal. In he celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his American debut, but the following month a performance of the Piano Sonata in B flat D.
Again, overworked and exhausted, the highly-strung Horowitz retired from the concert stage, this time for twelve years. His playing sounded less brittle and had acquired a new maturity; but once more, less than four years later he disappeared from public performance again, and during the s only performed after He had not appeared with an orchestra for twenty-five years, and his playing was again brittle, overwrought and frenetic.
The concert was televised and recorded for release on LP. In Horowitz appeared in London after an absence of more than thirty years.
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