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Remembering Horowitz: 125 Pianists Recall a Legend

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This is an amazing book!! Thank you, Mr. Dubal. This book is permanently on the table next to my favorite easy chair. Whenever I have a few minutes between this or that, I pick up Remembering Horowitz and dip into a different part. I must have read the entire book at least once and many parts several times already, but I will go back again and again and again.

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone who has ever looked at a piano. I have taught piano for twenty years and played it for 35 years. And this book not only talks about Maestro Horowitz, but, in doing so, discusses the essence of the many facets of piano and music in general. Ultimately, the profound, beautiful, and insightful essays touch on all aspects of life and spirit, just as all great performances do.

Notable are Seymour Bernstein's essay, for personal recollection and an essay on emulation and inspiration; Gary Graffman's memoir that is funny and urbane, in the style of his wonderful I SHOULD BE PRACTICING, his own memoir; and as a defense of Horowitz's showy side, Roger Shields, who finishes by saying,"The study of civilization reveals the mysteries of aspiration, the merging of individual passion with a chaste reverence for tradition and the cyclical unfolding of our achievements. Our time will run its course, and one day another horowitz will be possible." Bravo!

I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. Buy this book and you will not only get a superlative compilation of essays from many cultural perspectives and top-notch writing styles (yes, musicians can write!) but also a deep, loving, discussion of what piano playing means to the soul. It is at is best an exploration of the mystery of what it means to make great, otherworldly music, and what it means to play music in this world. It never pretends to explain this mystery, these artists are too wise for that, but it sheds light for audiences and musicians alike to see more clearly the divine nature of genius.

Bravissimo!!

Remembering Horowitz
125 Pianists Recall a Legend

Compiled and edited by David Dubal

Schirmer Books, Hardback, 1993.
8vo. xxix, 383 pp.

First published in 1993.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Van Cliburn, Gaby Casadeus, Santiago Rodriguez, Gabriel Tacchino, James Tocco, David Bar-Illan, Bella Davidovich, Christoph Eschenbach, Samuel Lipman, Vladimir Feltsman, Lydia Artymiw, Mieczyslaw Horszowsky, Tong-Il Han, John Browning, Hans Graf, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Vladimir Viardo, Leon Fleischer, Jose Feghali, Leon Bates, Ian Hobson, Janina Fialkowska, Sahan Arzruni, Leslie Howard, Emanuel Ax, Yuri Boukoff, Gilbert Kalish, Constance Keene, Peter Frankl, Idil Biret, Charles Wadsworth, Malcolm Bilson, Maurizio Pollini, Gary Graffman, Alexander Slobodyanik, Bela Siki, Ruth Slenczynska, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Mischa Dichter, Stephen Hough, Lazar Berman, Ronald Turini, Evelyne Crochet, Artur Balsam, Claude Frank, Seymour Bernstein, Leonard Pennario, Ursula Oppens, Rudolf Firkusny, Maurice Hinson, Leonid Hambro, Roger Shields, Alicia de Larrocha, Peter Serkin, Dmitri Alexeev, Ruth Laredo, Martin Canin, Jeffrey Siegel, David Burge, Jean-Philippe Collard, Cyprien Katsaris, Vladimir Leyetchkiss, Russell Sherman, Edward Kilenyi, Daniel Polack, Herbert Stessin, Oxana Yablonskaya, Garrick Ohlsson, Julien Musafia, James Streem, Joseph Banowetz, Michael Boriskin, Ivan Davies, Morton Estrin, John O'Conor, Harris Goldsmith, Jon Kimura Parker, Barbara Nissman, Mordecai Shehori, Michael Ponti, Charles Rosen, Abbey Simon, Israela Margalit, Louis Lortie, Jerome Rose, Walter Hautzig, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Thomas Schumacher, Jerome Lowenthal, Rosalyn Tureck, Ari Vardi, Yefim Bronfman, Ralph Votapek, Michael Habermann, John Salmon, William Wolfram, Earl Wild, Ilana Vered, Fernando Laires, Ronald Smith, Daniel Ericourt, Samuel Sanders, Edmund Battersby, Claudette Sorel, Josef Raieff, Norman Krieger, Maria Curcio, David Wilde, Malcolm Binns, James Dick, Grant Johannesen, Coleman Blumfield, Veronica Jochum, Emanuel Krasovsky, Lorin Hollander, Peter Orth, Horacio Gutierrez, Tzimon Barto, Jeffrey Swann, John Perry, Robert Taub, Boaz Sharon, Tamas Vasary, Joseph Kalichstein, Tedd Joselson, Shura Cherkassky.

Index of the Contributors
General Index

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I think all Horowitz admirers should be grateful to David Dubal for compiling and editing this book. There is something to enjoy in many of the 125 essays here, most of them no longer than two or three pages and fairly well written. Most importantly, they all are written not by critics or musicologists or other artistically sterile creatures but by pianists - famous or obscure, good or bad, sympathetic or malicious, but pianists nonetheless. In his compelling Introduction Mr Dubal makes the excellent point that nowadays most critics really have no idea what it takes to go on stage and play professionally, let alone artistically. Despite a characteristic purple prose here and there, the Introduction is a fascinating historical overview of the roots of the famous cliche ''The Last Romantic''. As usual with clichés, this one too makes a great deal of sense if it is put in the right historical context. Horowitz's artistic personality was formed before the Second World War, in the last decades of the so called Great Romantic tradition of piano playing when individuality of interpretation and emotional freedom were much more valuable assets than to stick fanatically to the printed notes. Horowitz carried all that with himself some four decades into the modern age of piano playing, the age that insists on the printed note being a sacred cow, the age that spoiled the audience with inhuman perfection on heavily edited records which is simply impossible to exist in the concert hall, the age that marked the end of the piano playing as art and turned it into a matter of scholarship. Small wonder that Vladimir Horowitz was so often misunderstood and harshly criticized for his very personal approach to virtually everything he ever played; most people not only completely lack imagination but are obviously too lazy, or mentally incapable perhaps, to gain a little knowledge of history and do some thinking. Though in some aspects Horowitz was very modern pianist, indulging in eccentricities on the keyboard far less than his great colleagues from the beginning of the XX century, essentially he was a perfect romantic for whom improvisational spontaneity and emotional intensity always came first. Horowitz aimed not at interpretation of the works he played but in their recreation. I am amazed people still describe Horowitz as brilliant technician and skillful showman. He was both of course. But he was so much more than that. At any rate, two questions loom large: 1) Does technique, brilliant or not, have anything to do with artistry?; and 2) What is the point of playing in front of public if you don't try to win it over? To my mind both questions are rhetorical. Let's get back to the book now.

It is conspicuous how many famous pianists who were quite active, or at least alive, in the early 1990s are missing from the list of contributors to this book: Brendel, Argerich, Ashkenazy, Michelangeli, Cziffra, Richter, Zimerman, Joao Pires, to name but a few. In his Preface Mr Dubal mentions that he contacted about 175 pianists but, as it seems, some 50 of them refused to write a few words about Vladimir Horowitz. The editor gives various reasons about that: some were far too busy and had no time; others didn't bother to answer his request at all; third group refused for no apparent reason, and surprisingly so since they were admirers of Horowitz; but most of the refusals, Mr Dubal states, came from people who simply couldn't put into words the impression Horowitz made on them. It is quite amusing to read about few more ''sophisticated'' refusals: one famous virtuoso said he didn't write about cults, another celebrated artist said he didn't deal with mythologies; Mr Dubal doesn't disclose the identity of these gentlemen, but at all events the readers of ''Remembering Horowitz'' hardly lose anything from their absence. Indeed, the most fascinating essays in the book are almost exclusively those written by obscure and - to me at least - completely unknown pianists. Some great, even legendary, names in the history of piano playing might very well have spared themselves the shame of writing their ''essays''. Van Cliburn's one, for instance, is a pure sycophantic nonsense with little substance in it; Eschenbach oscillates between pure gossip and genuine adulation ending as a perfect bore. Mieczyslaw Horszowsky (1892-1993) may well have been a real legend, the pianist with the longest career in the history, a pupil of the legendary pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky (1830-1915) and a link with the Romantic age of piano playing - but his contribution of exactly six lines looks pretty much like a bad joke. Some essays of very well known pianists are appallingly self-serving; Leon Fleischer's ''fondest memories'' are when he played for Horowitz and Alicia de Larrocha's half page blurb is entirely concentrated on how Horowitz once came after a recital to greet her and how on another occasion she played his piano. There are some insightful moments in the essays by Pollini, Berman and Thibaudet - but on the whole they all are far from remarkable. In my rough estimation about one third of the pieces in the book might just as well have remained unpublished.

But the majority of the essays in Remembering Horowitz are, for the most part at least, fascinating and compelling. Almost all of them are written by people who heard Horowitz live in concert or met him personally, some even knew him almost intimately for a long time. There are absurd criticisms from time to time as well as some equally absurd adulation; Horowitz at the piano (and not only) provokes everything: malice is constantly mingled with ecstasy, anger with sympathy, there is always a great deal of all too human envy. There is, indeed, everything. Surprisingly, or perhaps it's not surprising at all, pianists who are also aspiring writers - Lipman, Arzuni, for instance - write pretty badly, the latter's piece is actually an astonishingly tortured and convoluted mess; as for Samuel Lipman, he has some interesting points but on the whole he completely fails to appreciate the artistic development of Vladimir Horowitz - but he is not alone there. I wonder why people so often insist on comparing the different periods in the career of the legendary artist; as a matter of fact, there were at least four different Horowitzes through the years; any of them has his own strengths and weaknesses but - as the Turkish lady Idil Biret uncannily read my thoughts - ''Even in his most debatable interpretations, there is always an amazing sense of creativity and imagination.'' Horowitz's playing in concert and on record, always accompanied with his absolutely unique and inimitable sound, is being analysed in almost every essay here - Ax, Browning, Boukoff, Kalish, Frankl, to name just a few more memorable. A number of pianists has something charming to say about personal meetings with Horowitz (Keene, Bats, Tong-Il Han) which sometimes grows to thoughtful, sympathetic and perceptive personal portraits; reading the essays by Tocco, Bar-Illan, Keene, for example, is deeply moving experience.

Of particular interest are the memories of Russian pianists - Feltsman, Viardo, Alexeev - about the historic Moscow recital in 1986 when Horowitz visited his homeland for the first time after he had left it - more than 60 years ago. By that time Horowitz was a living legend all over the world but behind the Iron Curtain, in the former USSR, he was more - he was a myth; people there simply could not imagine that he had studied in Kiev in 1920s, in one ''vanished world'' as Mr Alexeev wonderfully put it. I should like to note that Vladimir Feltsman has the last world about the notorious ''defects of character'' that the great pianist surely had. His statement that Horowitz is ''too great for idealisation'' hits the nail right on the head. Exactly: whatever personal faults Vladimir might have had, they are perfectly irrelevant when we are talking about the artist Horowitz. Alas, this is not always the case; a number of essays (Hambro, Goldsmith, in particular) are incredibly high-handed and conceited, written in outrageously condescending manner; Mr Hambro is convinced that Horowitz always was far better pianist than musician but he seems to be pretty alone there, and as for Mr Goldsmith, being much more a musicologist and music critic than a human being capable of emotion, he is interested primarily in the paradoxes of Horowitz showing little, if any, insight into the artistic personality and its amazing development through the years. Both of these gentlemen obviously think themselves extraordinarily perceptive but the little perspicacity they do have simply vanishes in comparison with their overwhelming negativism and rather preposterous prejudices. Another caveat of the essays is that sometimes - Lydia Artymiw is especially fine example for that - the writing may largely degenerate into too technical language that is incomprehensible for the layman. Also, a healthy dose of cynicism when reading these pieces is useful too, and one should be on one's guard when people express their knowledge or memories about this or that; the claim of Ruth Laredo, for example, that Horowitz did not encourage young pianists is far from accurate, while the one the he used to play 7-8 encores per concert borders on fantasy. (A very plausible reason for Ruth's disappointment might be that Horowitz wasn't in the least interested in her interpretations of Scriabin.) But I suppose it is asking too much of human nature not to romanticize about the great; it must be devilishly hard not to exaggerate your own importance when you write about a real legend. At any rate, the Horowitz's words reported by Jeffrey Siegel may well be accepted as true, even in they were never said by the great pianist: ''Please don't be nervous to play to me because no one understands better than I how difficult it is to play the piano.''

Among the most delightful essays certainly are those by Horowitz's students - Graffman, Blumfield, Davis and Turini - with whom the Maestro worked during his longest retirement from the concert stage between 1953 and 1965. By no means all praise, these writings do show that in addition to vain, spoiled and egoistical, Horowitz could also be charming, warm and lovable. All these gentlemen agree that the hours spent with the Maestro were among the most unforgettable in their lives and certainly of immense importance about their development as pianists. Some of Horowitz's students actually were more on friendly terms with the mythical pianist than hardly anybody else; famous and legendary, Horowitz always was eager to learn from the youngsters - provided of course that there is in them something more than technical wizardry. The essay by Gary Graffman is especially wonderful since he has enchantingly urbane style that makes one wanting to read his memoirs I Really Should Be Practicing. His description of the lessons with Horowitz makes for a really great read. First they would talk on numerous subjects and Gary would play a good many pieces receiving precious advice about tempi, accents, colouring, pedal effects and so on and so forth. But the culmination of the evening was about midnight when Horowitz, always a night person, would ask Gary if he knew a certain sonata by Scriabin, for instance, and then would go the piano apologizing - ''I don't play anymore, you know. But just to give you an idea.'' Then he would play the whole piece stupendously and so note-perfectly that it could well have been recorded on the spot.

The essay by Ivan Davies is highly enthusiastic and a pure joy to read. The first time he met Horowitz he had to play one of Maestro's famous warhorses from the past - Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 with its staggeringly difficult octave finale. ''Yeah, coals to Newcastle'', thought Ivan but played the Rhapsody brilliantly and between him and Horowitz developed a warm friendship. Davies also tells the famous incident how they once went to a cafe where Ivan, an "old man" of 28, was asked for an autograph by some younger virtuosos who didn't even recognise Horowitz. Since that happened in the early 1960s, when there was a whole new generation that had never heard the great Horowitz live, Ivan Davies thought that it might have played a role in the great pianist's return on the stage in 1965. He may well have been right.

Here are few memorable quotes among many others that definitely make the book a must-read for all real admirers of Vladimir Horowitz, despite the considerable amount of junk that often mars the pages.

''I have frequently read or heard the charge that Horowitz was a genius without taste. I take issue with such a view. We generally describe as tasteless those who demonstrate a taste quite opposite to our own, and I think that applies dramatically in this case. We live in a rather peculiar age of musical performance, an age almost obsessed by a sense of faithfulness to the score and fidelity to the composer's intentions. This aspect of performance has become almost universal, with some going back to original sources and instrumentation. Horowitz represented another class of musician altogether, one for whom such considerations seem to matter little. Music, wherever it had been composed, was to be brought to life by an imaginative performer, each time in individual and personal way. It was a different way of thinking from today's, and with the passing of Vladimir Horowitz its last disciple has gone.''
(Malcolm Bilson; author of one of the shortest and most fascinating essays in the whole book.)

''There are people who say he was disrespectful, or he was too kitschy or exaggerated. But when one makes such statements, one usually tells more about oneself than the person one is talking about.''
(Garrick Ohlsson; extremely perceptive writer to whom belongs the greatest description I have ever heard of Horowitz's infamous and heavily edited rendition of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 which he played in the late 1970s - ''outrageous and tremendous''.)

''Horowitz was daring. He was not afraid to go deep into music, where he found inner voices that most pianists would not have the imagination to bring out. In this sense, Horowitz conceptions could irritate purists. For those interested in easy-going, pretty, or conventional playing, Horowitz may indeed be hateful. His immense talent and volcanic power makes me shudder in such adventurous performances as Schumann's Kreisleriana and Sonata in F minor. For me, these gigantic and shocking performances are the true fulfillment of Schumann's dreams.''
(Yefim Bronfman; beautifully written, profound and moving.)

''Personally, I think many people overestimate the wrath the composer would feel toward an artist ''personalizing'' his composition. At least, it has been my experience in working with living composers that rather than being offended, they are usually excited by other possibilities concerning the realization of their scores. What seems always to be true, however, is that the composer is consumed by the desire communicate.
If that is an important criterion, Horowitz is an exemplary case. That he communicated, and communicated strongly, we can all agree. I believe that this ability is the most important aspect of an artist's worth. Horowitz succeeded in doing this with the greatest of consistency, at the highest degree of intensity. One cannot conclusively say one knows whether or not what he did was always right. Fortunately, I no longer need to know whether it was right or not. To be able to indulge in the magic and to be thankful for its existence is quite enough for me.''
(John Perry; though I disagree with this conception about the artist and the communication, Mr Perry does have a point here - moreover, lucidly and coherently expressed.)

Trying to summarize a huge diversity of opinions and writing styles that span at least through several generations is not a very easy thing to do, but there are certain Leitmotivs that recur in the essays comprising Remembering Horowitz and that are worth mentioning since almost all of the pianist-writers agree on them. One of things that appears to be true, considering the overwhelming body of testimony, is that the recordings of Horowitz do not do him justice at all. Despite the fact that the gramophone has always been rather friendly to the unique "Horowitz sound", almost everybody who ever heard him live in the concert hall raves that the magical sound not only did fill without problem even the most cavernous venue but also had a fullness and richness that are simply missing from the recordings, brilliant though they are. That's quite bad news for great admirers of Horowitz who had just turned eight when the Maestro died - like myself - but we'll have to get over it.

Another recurring theme in the book is precisely what I consider as one of the hallmarks of these artists who possess that authentic greatness called genius - it's funny that so many people should mention it, often in almost the same words. I am of course talking about the phenomenon that nobody who cares about piano playing, let alone playing the piano professionally, can remain indifferent to Vladimir Horowitz: love him or hate him, adore him or detest him, but never can you ignore him. A direct consequence of that is the sad fact that Horowitz certainly was the most emulated pianist in the history - and since the personality cannot be transferred or copied, many a pianist ruined themselves trying to imitate the inimitable. But one really shouldn't blame Horowitz for having so many empty-headed followers who lack (almost) completely any artistry whatsoever; it is like blaming a woman for being beautiful. As a matter of fact, Horowitz always encouraged his students not to copy him and to express freely themselves on the keyboard - actually he insisted on that very much. It is interesting to read how many aspiring young virtuosos were scared of getting under the influence of Horowitz even though they didn't agree with many of his interpretative concepts. That reminds me about the wonderful words of Geoffrey Dorfman (in the liner notes to the CD Horowitz in Leningrad) that the obvious reply to all pianists who watch Horowitz and shake heads negatively with the words ''I wouldn't play it like that'' is actually very simple: you couldn't, even if you wanted to.

Speaking of emulation of Horowitz, I think the essence of this predicament is captured most brilliantly by Roger Shields, a rather obscure pianist whose essay is one of the most perceptive and profound ones in Remembering Horowitz. Mr Shields shows quite remarkable knowledge about the history of piano playing and how it has changed since the beginning of the last century until modern times, in other words how individuality of the artist and the emotional intensity of the music were replaced by wooden blandness and note-perfect rigidity that borders on unbearable dullness. Mr Shields is very well aware of Horowitz's unique place in the history of piano playing and, moreover, of his unique artistry that we shall have to wait quite some time to see again; his remark that those who say that nowadays ''people who really love music no longer go to concerts'' are perhaps right is quite chilling. Finally, Mr Shields gives what is to my mind the best description of Horowitz's tremendous influence over generations of pianists and its significance: it is not important to play like Horowitz, but to be like him. The italics are mine and I couldn't agree more, nor could I say it better. But let me try: not so much Horowitz's mighty sound and powerful personality should be imitated, for they are completely inimitable, but rather his reverence for the music and his total dedication to its recreation.

One of the best essays in Remembering Horowitz is, incidentally, one of the most critical ones. This is the piece written by the eminent Lisztian Leslie Howard, the man who did succeed to record the complete piano music of Franz Liszt - mammoth project which took about 15 years and 1300 pieces on almost 100 well filled CDs. Mr Howard also wrote the liner notes on all these CDs and did an outstanding musicological research. It is simply impossible not to admire such a man - especially if you suffer from Lisztomania as I do. But that doesn't at all mean that one should agree with him. Mr Howard's essay is a curious mixture of merciless criticism of some of Horowitz's recordings, his style and his textual changes in works of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, and a genuine admiration for his fascinating artistry, remarkable career and a place of utmost importance in the piano history. What has struck me is Mr Howard's claim that Horowitz was no intellectual pianist, something that is often heard by the way. I wonder what it actually means - if anything. I have always thought of music as a very emotional and intimate experience, as a form of art; and art is concerned solely with the language of feelings that all may understand. Art is absolutely subjective and personal phenomenon that has nothing whatsoever to do with intellect. That's the greatest advantage it has over science; and that's the greatest problem of science indeed - it tries to be objective and I very much doubt such thing as objectivity really exists.

If anything, Horowitz was a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition for whom the emotional intensity always came first and always was of paramount importance. Now, what do these gentlemen, the intellectual pianists, do? They do fabulous research of manuscripts, they play every note exactly as it was written by the composer, they try devilishly hard to realise the "composer's ideas" and the way to do this surely is to stick to the notes. They are fine scientists but they are no longer artists. Fine. Trying to convert music into science is their way to understand it. But they are really very foolish if they think it is the only way, or even the best of all ways. Far from it. It is a way like any other. Indeed, I think it is much worse than the so called ''romantic way'' (to be read ''non-intellectual show''). Let's face the simple logic which, moreover, is increasingly confirmed by the sad condition of the international piano scene during the last few decades. If everybody plays intellectually and regards the printed note as sacred and immutable, then everybody will sound pretty much like anybody else; of course there will be some differences due to different pianos, acoustics, sound technicians - but they will be very minor ones. Then, why would we need thousands and thousands of pianists who record thousands and thousands of CDs and play thousands and thousands of concerts each year? Hear just one, that's enough; they all are the same. Then, why would we need to go to concerts at all? Yes, listening live is far more stirring an experience than listening to a CD at home, no matter how great your 5.1 audio system is. But who wants to listen to exactly the same thing in the concert hall as on CD? Never mind the great sound live, the total absence of difference with your records sooner or later will result into a tremendously tedious experience. So in conclusion: too much intellectual approach in music will invariably lead to deadly dullness of the performing ''artists'' (which already happens) and finally to disappearance of music as art (which is about to happen). For my own part, I am extremely happy that Vladimir Horowitz never was an intellectual pianist; for him spontaneity and emotion always were first and most important of all.

One last point about the intellectual pianists. It is really remarkable and impressive to hear Alfred Brendel, surely the greatest intellectual among them all, describing Rachmaninoff as ''music for teenagers''. Extremely intellectual, is it not?

I want to give this book to a friend who is a musician and teacher of music. You had better ask her how she likes it. But I saw at a glance that it must be absolutely wonderful to have all these different views on a person as interesting and inspiring as Horowitz.