Pianist's Return

In the winter of 1928 a sallow, jittery, 23-year-old Russian pianist named Vladimir Horowitz made a sensational Manhattan debut at a Carnegie Hall concert under the baton of gouty Sir Thomas Beecham. So steely brilliant and ballistically precise was his performance of Tschaikowsky's B Flat Minor Concerto that Manhattan critics hailed him as "the most successful artist to appear before the American public in a decade." For Pianist Horowitz that success was the first swell of a long crescendo. He was soon one of the biggest box-office draws in U. S. music.

Only three other pianists (all world-famed veterans) could top his earning power: Ignace Jan Paderewski, Josef Hofmann and Sergei Rachmaninoff. In 1933 he joined music's royal family by marrying Wanda Toscanini, daughter of the world's No. 1 Maestro. By 1935 he had sold out 350 U. S. concerts. At $1,500 a performance, his concerts were grossing $300,000 a year.

Then, at the height of his career, in 1935, Pianist Horowitz cracked up. Soon after leaving the U. S. for a year's European tour he was laid low by an appendectomy complicated by phlebitis. For months he was unable to touch the piano. For two years he convalesced at his home in Switzerland. Only in 1938 was he able to get back to a concert platform, and then only for a few scattered recitals in European capitals. But last week, on a new U. S. tour, Pianist Horowitz made a comeback at Carnegie Hall. Manhattan concertgoers proved they had not forgotten him. When he surged through Schumann's great C Major Fantasy the huge audience cheered. Critics found that his long vacation had not dulled his fiery fingers.

Said Pianist Horowitz of his hibernation: "I think I really began to live then. For years I had been playing constantly.

I gave nearly a hundred recitals on my last tour. ... I played certain works so often that I couldn't hear them any more, even while my fingers were performing them.

[During my retirement] I had nothing to do except rest and concentrate on music --music itself. ... I think I grew as an artist. At any rate I have found new things in my music."

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