Word: pianist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Horowitz is still the world's most exciting pianist...
...pianist is luckier than a singer. He can go on performing as long as his fingers maintain their strength and coordination. At 73, Vladimir Horowitz seems to be just as brilliant as when he first played the U.S. exactly 50 years ago. Last week in New York, the famed Ukrainian-born virtuoso celebrated the anniversary of that debut with some of the most electrifying music-making ever heard in Carnegie Hall, a hall that has had its share of excitement over the years...
What makes Horowitz the most exciting pianist in the world is not readily apparent from the look of him. Handsome? Hardly. His ears are too big, and his nose and chin much too long. The explanation came, as it always does, when he began to play. Leaning to his left and glancing toward the orchestra, he filled the hall with the simple, folkish melody that opens the concerto. That is one aspect of the Horowitz magic: rich, full tone even in moments of quiet. The rest of his sorcery was soon at work. The concerto's immense hurdles (lightning...
Beautiful sound and color are what Horowitz is really all about. Form and a unifying tempo matter less to him, and there were dallyings and wanderings in the second and third movements that would have been considered eccentric in any other pianist. The performance was marvelously spontaneous and without calculation. It was markedly freer than the way Horowitz used to play the work, but in its own way it was breathtaking, certifying that one of the most unpredictable musicians of our time is still not set in his musical habits. Probably he never will...
...such American composers as Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson was correct about Schuyler Chapin. She was also right when she suggested that he might do well in music management. Chapin became road manager for Violinist Jascha Heifetz. He held Vladimir Horowitz's hand when the volatile pianist returned to the recording studios in 1962, and to the concert stage in 1965. For three turbulent years he occupied the most prestigious chair in opera, general manager of the Metropolitan...