Vladimir Horowitz - Repertoire, Technique and Performance Style

Repertoire, Technique and Performance Style

Horowitz is best known for his performances of the Romantic piano repertoire. Many consider Horowitz's first recording of the Liszt Sonata in 1932 to be the definitive reading of that piece, after over 75 years and over 100 performances committed to disc by other pianists. Other pieces with which he was closely associated were Scriabin's Étude in D-sharp minor, Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, and many Rachmaninoff miniatures, including Polka de W.R.. Horowitz was acclaimed for his recordings of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3, and his performance before Rachmaninoff awed the composer, who proclaimed "he swallowed it whole. He had the courage, the intensity, the daring." Horowitz was known for his performances of quieter, more intimate works, including Schumann's Kinderszenen, Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, keyboard sonatas by Clementi and several Mozart and Haydn sonatas. Horowitz's recordings of Scarlatti and Clementi are particularly prized by listeners, and the pianist is credited with helping to have revived interest in the two composers, whose works had been seldom performed or recorded during the first half of the twentieth century.

During World War II, Horowitz championed contemporary Russian music, giving the American premieres of Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas Nos. 6, 7 and 8 (the so-called "War Sonatas") and Kabalevsky's Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3. Horowitz also premiered the Piano Sonata and Excursions of Samuel Barber.

He was known for his transcriptions of several of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. The Second Rhapsody was recorded in 1953, during Horowitz's 25th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, and he stated that it was the most difficult of his transcriptions. Horowitz's other transcriptions of note include his composition Variations on a Theme from Carmen and Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa. The latter became a favorite with audiences, who would anticipate its performance as an encore. Transcriptions aside, Horowitz was not opposed to altering the text of compositions to improve what he considered “unpianistic” writing or structural clumsiness. In 1940, with the composer’s consent, Horowitz created his own performance edition of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Sonata from the 1913 original and 1931 revised versions, which pianists including Ruth Laredo and Hélène Grimaud subsequently used. He substantially rewrote Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition to make the work more effective on the grounds that Mussorgsky was not a pianist and did not understand the possibilities of the instrument. Horowitz altered short passages in certain works, such as substituting interlocking octaves for chromatic scales in Chopin’s Scherzo in B minor. This was in marked contrast to many pianists of the post–19th-century era, who considered the composer’s text sacrosanct. Living composers whose works Horowitz played (among them Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Poulenc) invariably praised Horowitz's performances of their work - even when he did take liberties with their scores.

Horowitz's interpretations were well received by concert audiences, but not by some critics. Virgil Thomson was famous for his consistent criticism of Horowitz as a "master of distortion and exaggeration" in his reviews appearing in the New York Herald Tribune. Horowitz claimed to take Thomson's remarks as complimentary, stating that Michelangelo and El Greco were also "masters of distortion." In the 1980 edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Michael Steinberg wrote that Horowitz "illustrates that an astounding instrumental gift carries no guarantee about musical understanding." New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg countered that reviewers such as Thomson and Steinberg were unfamiliar with 19th-century performance practices that informed Horowitz's musical approach. In addition, many pianists, amongst them Shura Cherkassky, Earl Wild, Lazar Berman, John Browning, Van Cliburn, Maurizio Pollini, Murray Perahia, Yefim Bronfman, and Horacio Gutiérrez held Horowitz in high regard and expressed their admiration for him.

Horowitz's performing style frequently involved vast dynamic contrasts, with overwhelming double-fortissimos followed by sudden delicate pianissimos. He was able to produce an extraordinary volume of sound from the piano, without producing a harsh tone. Horowitz could elicit an exceptionally wide range of tonal color from the piano, and his taut, precise attack was noticeable even in his renditions of technically undemanding pieces such as the Chopin Mazurkas. He is known for his octave technique; he could play precise passages in octaves extraordinarily fast. When asked by the pianist Tedd Joselson how he practiced octaves, Horowitz gave a demonstration and Joselson reported, "He practiced them exactly as we were all taught to do." Music critic and biographer Harvey Sachs submitted that Horowitz may have been "the beneficiary - and perhaps also the victim - of an extraordinary central nervous system and an equally great sensitivity to tone color." Oscar Levant, in his book, "The Memoirs of an Amnesiac," wrote that Horowitz's octaves were "brilliant, accurate and etched out like bullets." He asked Horowitz, "whether he shipped them ahead or carried them with him on tour."

Horowitz's hand position was unusual in that the palm was often below the level of the key surface. He frequently played chords with straight fingers, and the little finger of his right hand was often curled up until it needed to play a note; to Harold C. Schonberg, “it was like a strike of a cobra.” For all the aural excitement of his playing, Horowitz rarely raised his hands higher than the piano's fallboard. His body was immobile, and his face seldom reflected anything other than intense concentration.

Horowitz preferred performing on Sunday afternoons, as he felt the audience would be more well-rested and attentive than during a weekday evening.