Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Horowitz was a Soviet and American pianist of Jewish origin, widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists in the history of music. He was born in Kyiv on October 1, 1903, into a family with strong musical and educational traditions. His mother, a graduate of the Kyiv Music School, gave him his first musical training, and in 1913 he entered the Kyiv Music School, which later became the Kyiv Conservatory.

Horowitz studied in Kyiv with Vladimir Pukhalsky, Sergei Tarnovsky, and Felix Blumenfeld. He completed his studies in 1920, although he did not receive a diploma because he lacked a gymnasium graduation certificate. His first documented public concert took place in Kyiv in March 1921. In the difficult economic conditions following the revolution, he toured with the violinist Nathan Milstein and with his sister Regina in cities across Russia, sometimes receiving bread rather than money for performances. From 1922 onward he built an enormous repertoire, and in the so-called Leningrad series of 1924–1925 he performed more than 155 works in twenty concerts.

Although Horowitz later said that he had wanted to become a composer, he chose the career of a pianist in order to support his family, which had lost its fortune during the 1917 Revolution. His success in the Soviet Union was striking, and he quickly became one of the most talked-about young musicians of his generation. Before leaving the country, he learned and performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Leningrad in September 1925, a work that became central to his international triumphs.

On September 25, 1925, Horowitz left for Germany, officially to continue his studies. In Europe he and Nathan Milstein rapidly gained reputations as brilliant virtuosos. After an initially cool reception in Berlin, he achieved a major success in Hamburg with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, and his fame spread quickly. Though he remained formally a Soviet citizen for several years, he chose to stay in the West and by 1939 had toured in nearly every country in Europe with overwhelming success.

Horowitz made his American debut at Carnegie Hall in New York on January 12, 1928, again with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. He soon toured extensively in the United States and became one of the highest-paid pianists of his time. In 1931 he performed at the White House. He settled permanently in the United States in 1939 and became an American citizen in 1944. In 1943, at the initiative of Henry Morgenthau, he gave a benefit performance of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall, conducted by his father-in-law Arturo Toscanini, raising a record sum for wartime needs.

In 1933 he married Wanda Toscanini, daughter of Arturo Toscanini. In 1953, after celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his American debut, Horowitz withdrew from the concert stage and did not perform publicly for twelve years. His return recital at Carnegie Hall on May 9, 1965, became an international event reported by newspapers around the world. He resumed extensive touring in the United States and Europe, though there were further interruptions in the 1970s because of health problems and medical treatment. In 1986, after an absence of sixty years, he returned to perform in Moscow and Leningrad, and the Moscow concert was broadcast worldwide.

As an artist, Horowitz was identified with the romantic style of piano playing. His repertoire included Liszt, often in his own transcriptions, as well as Mozart, Chopin, and Russian composers. He was called the "King of Kings of Pianists" and "the last great romantic." He also taught a small number of pupils between 1937 and 1962, among them Byron Janis, Gary Graffman, Ronald Turini, and Ivan Davis, and in the 1980s he gave lessons to already established pianists including Murray Perahia and Eduard Khalim.

His last concert took place in Hamburg on June 21, 1987. He continued making recordings until the end of his life; on November 4, 1989, he was still engaged in recording sessions, and the next day he died of a heart attack in New York. He was buried in the family crypt of Arturo Toscanini at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan. Horowitz received more than twenty Grammy Awards, was posthumously awarded the United States National Medal of Arts in 1989, and was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame. Since 1995, the Vladimir Horowitz International Competition for Young Pianists has been held in Kyiv in his memory.

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