Rosen And Dubal On Horowitz

In , I came across some rather interesting, albeit potentially contentious, views about Horowitz's technique. Here is what Charles Rosen said: "Horowitz's technique never had the solidity of Backhaus's, or the evenness of control of the widest variety of tone color of Hofmann, or the ease of Lhévinne." "Then followed Thirty-Two Variations in C minor of Beethoven, a work he often played without doing it justice either musically or even technically. Horowitz's scales were never very even." Do you agree with those views? While Backhaus and Lhévinne were obviously extraordinary technicians, did they have more solid mechanisms than Horowitz did? Horowitz was renowed for his ability to produce many different levels of volume and tone color, but do you think that Hofmann could produce an even greater variety of color? The comment about Horowitz's scales not being even sounds strange, as Schonberg said that notes of Horowitz's scales could not have been more evenly matched and he even said that Horowitz's recording of the 32 Variations is probably his best Beethoven recording. Here are two recording of Horowitz playing the 32 Variations. Another surprising comment was made in David Dubal's . Dubal said that Horowitz knew, as did Rachmaninov, that Hofmann could do certain things at the piano that were unrivaled, especially his devastating evenness in scale playing and passagework. Do you think that Hofmann's passagework was even more even than Horowitz's? I wonder if Dubal meant that before the arrival of Horowitz, Hofmann had the most even passagework, but it sounds like he may be saying that even Horowitz realized he couldn't duplicate Hofmann's incredible runs.

Difficult to rank great maestros especially when the old recordings didn't capture orechestration and sound very well. Horowitz genius was his breathing his momentanous clarity in passages and orchestration. I enjoy Horowitz interpretations more than others because of his phrasing/breathing it's like he says himself it's all abaout singing.There is a nice clip from Italy were he plays his trenscriptions of Rossini Verdi etc and that's probably the real Horowitz he was a true operabuff. When I was younger I didn't understand that- I was like everybody else mesmerized by the fireworks. Now I agree with Rosen technically or mecanicwise speaking there were and are lot's of pianists doing much better.Horowitz thechnique was in way on the edge and his speciality ( if you ask me) was amazing recoveries of near catastrfic situations.Which is very very exciting for a public. Cziffra was a bit like that but the difference was that Cziffra alway's had a marginal of safety he could play much faster than he did even if it is pretty unbeleivable. If you listen to Busoni and others you can clearly hear that Horowitz had the same mannierism but much more intrinsic a clear echo of the 19th century. People now dead that I've met who heard them all generally thought Rachmanninov was by far the best pianist.My mother who was a pianist said that Cortot was unequaled th few times he was in shape. I sometimes wonder if Horowitz would make the cut in today's competitions I doubt it.Lhevinne would-for sure. There are some old Rach americord recordings on a new Estonia Americord and that's pretty amazing.

I think Schonberg's books are pretty careless. He clearly knew a lot about piano history and I think his two favorite pianists were Hofmann and Rachmaninoff. In the Horowitz biography I believe he says Rachmaninoff could match Horowitz's technique note for note but he couldn't achieve the kind of sonority Horowitz did in the third piano concerto. Horowitz also did things on the piano in terms of sound and energy that were completely special. My general impression of Schonberg's books is that he wrote them quickly without taking much trouble to qualify his claims or tone down the hyperbole. I would take his comments with a fair amount of skepticism. Schonberg seems particularly fascinated with super-human feats of memory, sight reading and so on. While I am sure that Rachmaninoff and Liszt and Hofmann had amazing memories, I doubt that they were as freakish as Schonberg says they were. Anyway it seems pretty obvious that people like Hofmann and Lhevinne and later Michelangeli and Hamelin easily excelled Horowitz in the mechanical aspects of technique. Horowitz himself admitted that his mechanics alone never really set him apart from the rest of the pianists. Stephen Hough actually wrote a blog post some time back where he says that in terms of mechanics Horowitz is overrated while Cortot is underrated. I suspect that Busoni and Godowsky also surpassed Horowitz in mechanical ability. Busoni's color range and use of the pedal were also said to have been phenomenal. Horowitz's contemporaries often had mixed and negative feelings towards him as a musician. Cortot was appalled at the way Horowitz approached Beethoven sonatas as technical challenges. Schnabel once called him "half-man half piano." Horowitz was concerned with box-office and generating excitement as much as anything. I think the primary reason Horowitz is a legend and appears to have secured a lasting legacy is that he could with intensity and he could create such vivid and exquisite experiences. This more than compensates for any flaws in mechanics or for that matter in musical taste.

Yes, he did say that. However, Rachmanino said that he envied Horowitz's jeu de perlé, which implies that Horowitz had superior passagework. So you believe that Schonberg was merely exaggerating when he said that Horowitz's scales could not have been more evenly matched. Even when listening to the earliest Horowitz recordings- from the 1920's and 1930's, particularly his recordings of the Liszt-Paganini Etudes that contain incredible passagework- do you feel that Horowitz's mechanics weren't as good as the pianists you mentioned? It's important to remember that as early as the 1965 comeback, Horowitz's technique was not what it used to be. In the early part of his career, his mechanics were deadly accurate. Perhaps people who have pointed out mechanical flaws in Horowitz's playing are remembering some of his later, less technically secure performances. Rachmaninov said that Horowitz had the fastest and loudest octaves. Do you feel that at least in the area of octave playing, Horowitz had better mechanics than anyone else?

Certainly his mechanics were much more reliable in the 20s and 30s. Rubinstein once congratulated Horowitz after a concert and Horowitz was upset that he made one false note in the Chopin Polonaise Fantasie. Clearly he was capable of giving perfectly accurate performances when he was younger. My point is that there were several other pianists who could play note perfect performances of Chopin. Horowitz mentions his amazement at hearing Backhaus playing the first Chopin Etude without missing a single note. I doubt that Horowitz's scales were as good as Godowsky's or Hofmann's. I think Rosen's main point on Horowitz is that no other pianist had the same level of courage to test the outer limits. Also Horowitz allowed his technique to be completely exposed without relying too much on pedal. Of course he also redistributed passages and left out notes to make them more pianistic. Horowitz's performance of the Liszt-Paganini Etude is not note-perfect. What is amazing is the clarity of the textures, the articulation of the passage work and the nervous energy in the octaves. Even if Horowitz's octaves were mechanically the best, I do not think that it affects his overall ranking too much. Argerich probably matches Horowitz in octaves but I am not sure. I will say that Michelangeli was overall a better pianist than Horowitz. As far as mechanics go he had amazing tonal beauty, sonority, passage work and control of texture. He wasn't as much of a risk taker as Horowitz but I don't think risk-taking is essential for all kinds of music. He also had an amazing command of musical structure and he could get to the core of the music without making a lot of fuss (maybe with the exception of his Chopin). I also find his quality of expression more evolved and intelligent than Horowitz. To some extent I think it is silly to rank top level pianists because each of them has something very special to offer. Mechanics without reference to musical meaning or gesture is not really worth talking about. Technique in the broader sense refers to the ability to produce musical thought on the instrument and Horowitz could do that as well as anybody, though the quality of the thought itself is another matter.

You feel that Hofmann and Godowsky could play scales more evenly and accurately than Horowitz? That may be why Dubal mentioned that Hofmann's devastatingly even passagework was unrivaled. I wouldn't put Argerich in the same league as Horowitz in terms of octave playing, as she never produced the type of explosive sonority that he did during octave passages, even if she could play with exceptional speed. There's a reason Rachmaninov thought that Horowitz had the fastest and loudest octaves. I doubt that Argerich's octaves were any better than those of Rachmaninov or Lhevinne. Rachmaninov plays the octaves super fast in the Scherzo #3 in c# minor. Because Horowitz's octave and chord playing was seemingly unsurpassed, I think that would affect his overall ranking in mechanics. For example, if we were to compare him to Hofmann, we might conclude that their mechanics were equal- both pianists had their individual strenghts. Hofmann may have had better runs, but Horowitz had better octaves and chords. I suppose you can be a great technician and still be confronted by a few pianists who can do certain things better than you. Compared to Rubinstein, Horowitz had much better mechanics, but it's a different story if you're comparing him to people like Hofmann, Rachmaninov, or Lhévinne.

If we are talking speed I doubt that anybody in those generations played faster than Cziffra just listen to his Bumblebee,Islamey or Tchaikowsky and compare. Then there is an element of deception it's wellknown that when you play distinctly (like Horowitz portato/scratchtechnique) it sounds much faster. If you listen to the last movement of Chopin Sonate #2 and compare Rach Horowitz etc you'll find that what sounds fast isn't the fastest by metronome. Generally speaking I beleive technique has evolved tremendously since together with boredom.

Well Rachmaninoff never had the chance to hear Argerich so while I agree that Horowitz's octaves were technically wonderful, I do not think Rachmaninoff's statement helps decide between Horowitz and Argerich. Here is a video with the Tchaikovsky octaves played by 16 different pianists. This might help. There was a 19th century pianist named Alexander Dreyshock who played the left hand of Chopin's revolutionary etude in Octaves and was supposedly the loudest pianist of his time. He might have had the fastest and loudest octaves but in the end it does not really matter. Piano playing is not an olympic sport. It is an olympic sport in the sense that more and more people are able to break certain speed barriers and perform difficult feats of mechanics. Just think of teenagers that are able to play the complete etudes of Chopin and Liszt. I think this is what Eric is trying to say. In Horowitz's case, the behind the octaves, the force of will and the daring to perform the near impossible are much more important than the mechanics. Eric is also right to about the subjective experience of speed versus actual speed. Dubal tells the story of a pianist who compared the metronome speed of his octaves in the Funerailles to Horowitz's and found that he was faster. But it doesn't matter. Horowitz faster. Adele Marcus also mentions a phone call with Horowitz where Horowitz admitted that Byron Janis could play octaves faster than him but they did not sound as good as his.

Argerich's octaves were fast in the video, but they didn't sound as loud and sonorous as Horowitz's. In , Dubal said that Lhévinne's octaves rank with those of Liszt, Tausig, Rosenthal, Rachmaninov, Levitzki, and Horowitz. Since he didn't mention Argerich, that implies that her octaves are inferior to the people Dubal cited. The quote about Janis' octaves was from the Glenn Plaskin biography. Horowitz said "don't you think his octaves are faster than mine", although I wondered if he was joking when he said that. Maybe it's an issue of the speed illusion that you mentioned. Someone may play faster than Horowitz, but sound slower because they don't have the same rhythmic impetus and forward motion. Eric, in regards to standards of technical development, in , Schonberg claimed that pianists of the early part of the twentieth century were generally much more technically accomplished than more modern pianists. He said that Hofmann, Lhévinne, Rachmaninov, and Moisewitch all displayed a level of technique that has practically vanished from the earth.

It does not follow from the fact that Dubal did not mention Argerich in the passage that Argerich's octaves were in fact inferior. It might have simply been an oversight on Dubal's part. At any rate, he may have wanted to clarify the of Lhevinne's octave mastery without necessarily having to list every other pianist who also belongs to that level. Dubal also could not possibly know exactly how good Liszt or Tausig's octaves were so I do not think this can be taken as a precise claim. Again, I would be skeptical about anything Schonberg says. After all he grew up on the early 20th century romantics and his book is fairly biased in that direction. Also he is relying partly on his memory of past recitals and probably focusing on the glorious moments while ignoring the moments of banality and tastelessness. I suspect that earlier pianists could get away with more carelessness than modern pianists. After all they did not have to worry about matching the quality of their recorded work. Alan Fraser does say something along these lines too but he is referring specifically to color, orchestration and interpretive imagination. Maybe pianists today tend not to project as well as these older pianists and maybe they have lost some of the culture and refinement. There are certainly pianists today that can grasp much more repertoire and play it with much more technical security than any of the early 20th century greats. Marc Andre Hamelin and Pollini are just two examples. I am not talking about artistry here, (though Hamelin and Pollini are both excellent artists), just technical grasp. One pretty decent book on Romantic pianism is Kenneth Hamilton's After the Golden Age. You may have read and processed it already but I think it addresses many of your points.