Three Pianists, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: September 30, 2024. The Pianists. Final week we complained that there have been too many composers of notice; this time the scenario is reversed: solely Paul Dukas of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice fame has a birthday within the subsequent seven days. One of many few French Jewish composers, he was born on October 1st of 1865 in Paris. (And our apologies to the followers of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, we all know you’re there).
The pianists are faring a lot better. Vladimir Horowitz was born on October 1st of 1903 in Kiev, the Russian Empire (now Kyiv, Ukraine) right into a well-off Jewish household. At 9, Horowitz entered the Kiev Conservatory the place he studied with Felix Blumenfeld, amongst others. He made his solo debut in 1920; round that point, he met the violinist Nathan Milstein, who was the identical age and confirmed nice expertise. They performed collectively in live shows (Vladimir’s sister Regina was Milstein’s accompanist). Each Horowitz and Milstein left Russia in 1925; Vladimir went first to Berlin after which to the US. His debut, on January 12th of 1928, when he performed Tchaikovsky’s First piano concerto sooner than the conductor Thomas Beecham would have it and dazzled the general public together with his method, turned legendary. That was the start of one of the crucial good pianistic careers of the 20th century, despite the fact that Horowitz interrupted it 4 occasions, first from 1936 to 1938, then from 1953 to 1965, his longest absence from the live performance stage, and once more in 1969–74 and 1983–85. Altogether, he was away from the general public for a protracted 21 years. That didn’t stop him from turning into each a celeb and one of the crucial attention-grabbing pianists of the century.
Horowitz was identified to make small alterations to the rating. One instance is Mussorgsky’s Footage at an Exhibition: Horowitz felt that the composer, who wasn’t a pianist, didn’t use the instrument to its fullest extent. He added double octaves to a few of Chopin’s items. However the actual shock was Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Sonata. No person would accuse Rachmaninov, one of many biggest pianists of the 20th century, of not realizing methods to use the instrument. The sonata had two variations by then, the unique, from 1930, and a remodeling made in 1931. In 1940, Horowitz instructed some adjustments and Rachmaninov, who was in awe of Horowitz the pianist, consented to the alteration. Right here it’s, in Horowitz’s model, carried out dwell in 1968 in Carnegie Corridor. Horowitz all the time carried out on his personal Steinways, particularly voiced by the maker. You’ll be able to hear how, at round 12:25, in the midst of the second motion, a string breaks – on his personal piano. After taking part in a number of extra bars, Horowitz pauses (to applause) and waits for the technician to return on stage and take away the string. He then continues. Fairly often dwell recordings, regardless of some missed notes, are extra thrilling than ones made in a studio. This time the joy reached a complete new stage.
Vera Gornostayeva, a extremely regarded Soviet/Russian pianist and pedagogue was born on October 1st of 1929 in Moscow. Alexander Slobodyanik, Pavel Egorov, Eteri Andjaparidze, Ivo Pogorelich, Sergei Babayan, Vassily Primakov, Lukas Geniušas, Vadym Kholodenko, Stanislav Khristenko, and others had been her college students.
Lastly, Edwin Fischer, the Swiss pianist thought of one of many biggest interpreters of Bach, was born in Basel on October 6th of 1886.
