Again, Horowitz

By William Bender

At midafternoon, Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy sounded the final chord of a recital at New York's 92nd Street Y.M. & Y.W.H.A. Holding up his watch and resolutely waving off all requests for encores, he declared, "You have been most gracious, but I must go to hear Vladimir Horowitz."

Everyone, or so it seemed, felt the same way. At 70, the unpredictable Ukrainian-born pianist was staging another "historic return"--his first New York performance in six years and the first classical recital ever presented in the eight-year-old Metropolitan Opera House. Jackie Onassis, Peter Falk and Mikhail Baryshnikov were there. So were Conductor Herbert von Karajan and many other noted musicians like Isaac Stern, Daniel Barenboim and Eugene Istomin.

What they heard was one of the world's greatest pianists at his best and most relaxed. As usual, the temperature in the house was set for 74DEG. As usual, the recital was scheduled for 4 o'clock in the afternoon ("I hate to wait a whole day for the concert to come," he explains). Horowitz has been known to be stiff early in a recital. "In the beginning, the fingers are cold. Warm water doesn't work. I have to warm up from inside." His crisp, classically elegant way with the opening work, the Sonata in F-Sharp Minor by Muzio Clementi, a contemporary of Beethoven's, made it clear that Horowitz was warm all over.

Schumann's Kinderscenen found Horowitz in a rare introspective mood, capable of colors ranging from petal pastels to autumnal browns and beiges. Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5 was a vehicle for him to demonstrate that whereas other pianists concern themselves with degrees of loudness, he seems to be capable of a thousand variations in softness. Horowitz, perhaps our foremost Scriabin interpreter, learned this work last summer, and his performance could be faulted only for a certain underplaying of the ecstatic concluding pages.

Mere Gallantry. After intermission came a Chopin group: the Introduction and Rondo in E-Flat Major, two Mazurkas and the Ballade in G-Minor. Few pianists alive execute Chopin's notes with the grace, precision and bravura of Horowitz. It was astounding in the midst of one set of prodigious figurations after another to hear the melody seem to float up like mist from the keyboard. Horowitz does everything for Chopin except take him seriously as a dramatic innovator. The G-Minor Ballade, for example, is one of the composer's most original and powerful creations. Yet Horowitz turned it into a series of episodes; it was like hearing alternately an Impromptu, Nocturne and Etude, The effect was to reduce the work's heroism to mere gallantry.

After four encores it was home to his town house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he gave a champagne party for a group of old friends and colleagues. Gala evenings are the exception these days for Horowitz. He has not had a drink in more than 20 years ("I don't need it; I am vivacious all the time"). He and his wife Wanda, the youngest child of the late Arturo Toscanini, much prefer a game of canasta with other couples, listening to records (Horowitz likes Wagner), or an occasional trip to the movies. The sound of Horowitz's Steinway is never heard at night. He practices ("I prefer to call it rehearsing") regularly every afternoon for an hour and a half, often with the Horowitz zoo--one poodle and four cats--in attendance. His regimen includes a strict diet offish, fowl and vegetables, and it shows: at 5 ft. 9% in., he is rarely more than a pound or two from his preferred weight of 160 Ibs.

Hard as it may be to believe, the legendary pianist is currently without a recording contract. Much of his time has been spent negotiating for a new one. His deal with Columbia Records expired about 18 months ago. Columbia had reportedly been giving him a $50,000 guarantee per recital LP. That is a moneymaking proposition only if the album sells like a rock record. Unfortunately, not even Horowitz sells that well consistently, although he is convinced that he would, if given more promotional and advertising backing. Also, limiting himself to solo performances, he has not made a concerto recording in more than 20 years. One from him now could well become, as the trade puts it, a hot platter.

Records have been Horowitz's principal and often his only link with his public for years. It is part of musical legend that in 1953, at the peak of his career, Horowitz retired from the concert scene for twelve years. He returned in triumph in 1965 at Carnegie Hall--that album did sell like a rock record--then once again quit the stage in 1969. Explaining his sabbaticals, Horowitz talks in terms of the need for emotional and artistic refueling. "To make a break does purify," he says. It also starts rumormongers talking, as Horowitz is well aware. "People think that if an artist like me chooses not to play, then he must be locked up somewhere in a mental home. I am not crazy; otherwise I could not have learned the Scriabin Fifth this summer." He need not have bothered defending himself, but he does have a point there. sb William Bender

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