Word: horowitz
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...midafternoon, Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy sounded the final chord of a recital at New York's 92nd Street Y.M. & Y.W.H.A. Holding up his watch and resolutely waving off all requests for encores, he declared, "You have been most gracious, but I must go to hear Vladimir Horowitz...
...greatest pianists at his best and most relaxed. As usual, the temperature in the house was set for 74°. As usual, the recital was scheduled for 4 o'clock in the afternoon ("I hate to wait a whole day for the concert to come," he explains). Horowitz has been known to be stiff early in a recital. "In the beginning, the fingers are cold. Warm water doesn't work. I have to warm up from inside." His crisp, classically elegant way with the opening work, the Sonata in F-Sharp Minor by Muzio Clementi, a contemporary...
Schumann's Kinderscenen found Horowitz in a rare introspective mood, capable of colors ranging from petal pastels to autumnal browns and beiges. Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5 was a vehicle for him to demonstrate that whereas other pianists concern themselves with degrees of loudness, he seems to be capable of a thousand variations in softness. Horowitz, perhaps our foremost Scriabin interpreter, learned this work last summer, and his performance could be faulted only for a certain underplaying of the ecstatic concluding pages...
Mere Gallantry. After intermission came a Chopin group: the Introduction and Rondo in E-Flat Major, two Mazurkas and the Ballade in G-Minor. Few pianists alive execute Chopin's notes with the grace, precision and bravura of Horowitz. It was astounding in the midst of one set of prodigious figurations after another to hear the melody seem to float up like mist from the keyboard. Horowitz does everything for Chopin except take him seriously as a dramatic innovator. The G-Minor Ballade, for example, is one of the composer's most original and powerful creations. Yet Horowitz...
After four encores it was home to his town house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he gave a champagne party for a group of old friends and colleagues. Gala evenings are the exception these days for Horowitz. He has not had a drink in more than 20 years ("I don't need it; I am vivacious all the time"). He and his wife Wanda, the youngest child of the late Arturo Toscanini, much prefer a game of canasta with other couples, listening to records (Horowitz likes Wagner), or an occasional trip to the movies. The sound...