A SPEED MERCHANT IN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 219, 3 September 1943, Page 14

A SPEED MERCHANT IN MUSIC

, OROWITZ and Toscanini, two H speed merchants in music, find they get on well together, Fifteen years ago, after meteoric success in Europe, the pianist went to the United States, where he played Tchaikovski’s first piano concerto with the New York Philharmonic under Beecham, and played it so fast and furiously that Sir Thomas refused to keep pace with him-for a while the famous concerto sounded like a tug-of-war. But Horowitz has found a conductor after his own taste in his own father-in-law, Arturo Toscanini. They have produced a recording of the same Tchaikovski concerto, and it has been a fabulous best-seller,

Viadimir Horowitz owes his enormous following to the 10 quickest, strongest and | most accurate fingers in the world of pianists. Few connoisseurs of piano playing would rank him with the great interpretive artists such as Schnabel, or Gieseking, or Rubinstein, but where it is sheer dexterity that counts, Horowitz carries away the boxoffice records. He can trill with the regularity of a mechanical drill, he can tear over a scale in octaves with an ease that few of his contemporaries can approach, and his performances invariably

dazzle their audiences with their virtuosity. The son of an electrical engineer of Kiev, and the nephew of a Russian music-critic; Horowitz gave his first concerts during the days of the Russian Revolution-sometimes he was paid for them in butter, flour, and cabbages. His efficiency is maintained at the expense of a nervy temperament. He approaches his concerts in a state of panic, and calms down only when his fingers have begun to fly over the keyboard. In 1935, his nervousness became such a strain that» he gave up public performances for two years. His life is methodical, if jittery, spent alternatively in a Manhattan hotel and in rented Hollywood homes. He has a_ highpitched giggle, a taste for bright red ties and pink-striped shirts. Outside of music, his chief absorption is in his collection of snuff-boxes from all over the world. He keeps them in a big chest-of-drawers, neatly laid out on green silk.