Great Performances

The Magic of Horowitz
Experience legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz’s 1986 Russian homecoming for a sold-out concert of personal favorites, featuring commentary from former manager Peter Gelb and virtuoso pianists Martha Argerich and Daniil Trifonov.
TRANSCRIPT
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-Next on "Great Performances"...
In 1986 during the Cold War,
piano virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz returns to Moscow
for the first time in 61 years
for the comeback performance of a lifetime.
-He had gone from a year or two earlier
being completely unable to perform
to playing one of the greatest concerts
under pressure in history.
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-He's able to effortlessly produce
colors of limitless variety.
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-Join us for a look back at this momentous moment in music
and a glimpse at what defines the "Magic of Horowitz."
-He's the best lover that the piano ever had.
-I'm Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera.
If you wonder when I received my early training
for dealing with opera's biggest personalities,
the answer is in the 1980s when I was the 30-something manager
of Vladimir Horowitz,
arguably the greatest pianist of all time.
Horowitz was also eccentric to the extreme.
When I persuaded him to make his historic return
to the Soviet Union in 1985
when the Cold War was showing signs of thawing,
he turned it into somewhat of a Herculean challenge --
for one, he would only travel
if his Steinway and piano-tuner were in tow.
The piano was also to be accompanied
by a 24-hour Marine guard
deployed by President Reagan,
since Horowitz was convinced
that the KGB would otherwise sabotage his instrument.
Reagan wanted the concert to take place as an initial step
in a new cultural agreement between him and Gorbachev.
And Horowitz proclaimed that he would only go to Russia
if his special dietary requirements were met,
though at that time in Moscow
you couldn't even find a fresh tomato --
except on the Black Market.
But Horowitz, who planned to eat
only Dover Sole and asparagus for dinner
for the rest of his life couldn't care less,
since in his obsessive mind
his intestinal survival depended upon it.
So it was up to the American Ambassador
to mobilize his Western allies in the diplomatic corps.
The Italian Ambassador took on the responsibility
of procuring the fresh asparagus from Rome,
and the British Ambassador
organized flights of fresh Dover sole.
Members of the American Ambassador's staff
wore T-shirts printed with the legend
"Dover Sole Airlift -- Ground Crew"
when they would meet the British Airways flights to pick it up.
In partnership with CBS News
and some other international broadcasters,
we had arranged to produce the historic concert
live to the world,
bringing with us a large television crew
and our own satellite truck,
which was regarded with deep suspicion
by the Soviet authorities.
In fact, heavily armed KGB agents
positioned themselves inside our mobile control room
outside of the hall,
presumably ready to take us out
if we started transmitting
something other than the concert.
Inside the hall, in order to capture the faces
of the rapt audience,
who were welcoming Horowitz backafter an absence of six decades,
we had reversed the positions of the cameras
so that the audience becamethe backdrop to the performance.
Horowitz, moved by his return to his motherland,
played the concert of a lifetime.
In turn, the audience wept tears of joy.
I'm happy to share it with you
in this excellent film
that includes our 1985 concert footage.
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-I get incredibly excited with his playing.
I cannot... It's something different. Yes!
Yeah.
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-The most amazing thing was the concert that he played,
because he had gone from a year or two earlier
of being completely unable to perform
to playing one of the greatest concerts
under pressure in history.
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-This kind of poetry that's incredibly fluid and organic.
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[ Cheers and applause ]
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-In the mid-1980s,
Moscow was the location of a legendary concert.
At this time, the walls between East and West
remain insurmountable.
The Cold War is in full flow.
The two great powers of the United States
and the Soviet Union --
as well as their allies -- view one another as enemies.
The nuclear arms race
casts a shadow over the lives of all people.
-And usually by late in the evening
he would be sort of talking wistfully
about what his dreams or ideas were
including perhaps going back to Russia,
which I had discussed with him,
but he was very afraid of the idea.
[ Applause ]
But then along came
this new agreement between Reagan and Gorbachev.
Because of this diplomatic agreement,
I saw that as the opportunity to make this actual trip happen.
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-[ Speaking in German ]
-In April 1986,
Vladimir Horowitzreturns to his Russian homeland.
As one of those who left to make a life and career,
he had not set foot in the communist Soviet Union
for 61 years.
However, a series of artistic crises
and bouts of depression meant that he had not
performed in public for years.
For many, his appearance in Moscow
is nothing less than a miracle.
-From my childhood, it was my dream to hear Horowitz in life.
I have got many records.
And now my dream will come true!
[ Cheering ]
[ Lively conversation ]
-He was the only person who had that kind of attention
like a rock star, you know.
It was as if the Beatles or the Rolling Stones
were giving a concert.
People would literally sleep all night on the street
in New York to get his tickets.
And something similar happened in Moscow.
-[ Speaking in German ]
-A single poster at the Moscow Conservatory
was the only indication of the upcoming concert.
The authorities were unwilling
to provide any publicity for Horowitz.
Yet still the people came in droves.
For these fans,
Horowitz embodied the very freedom for which they yearned.
-[ Speaking in German ]
[ Applause ]
[ Applause stops ]
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-It's incredible poetry and musical freedom.
It's how he is able to effortlessly produce
colors of limitless variety.
There is a lot of magic in his touch as well.
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And the way he never forces the key,
even technically
that's something that's
incredible for the sound production.
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-Horowitz always traveled with his piano,
and Horowitz was a unique pianist and musician.
And we'll send the piano, you know, securely to Moscow
and they'll be watching over Horowitz.
So sure enough within hours,
a letter came from the White House
to the Horowitzes from Reagan himself,
signed by him, saying that he was going to
personally be watching over the tour
and that he was going to send the piano
under the guard of the US Marine Corps,
that the military of the US
would personally transport the piano
and watch it and Horowitz.
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He worried about many things, you know.
He was somewherebetween a neurotic and psychotic
in his personal approach to life.
And one of the things that concerned him
was what would happen to him if he returned to Russia.
He actually believed that he might be imprisoned
even though it was 60 years later from his exodus.
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-[ Speaking in German ]
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[ Chuckles ]
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-[ Speaking in German ]
[ Exhales sharply ]
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-At the time he played in Moscow,
he was older and, you know, he did not have
the strength that he had when he was in his 50s or 60s,
so he had picked a very strategic program,
I mean, sort of like the way Roger Federer
has changed his game in recent years,
where instead of having long rallies from the baseline,
Federer, you know, makes every point
over in three or four shots.
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-[ Speaking in German ]
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-Horowitz was a kind of very contradictory character
because he on the one hand, you know,
played like he had a direct connection to God,
on the other hand, he acted like a two-year-old.
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-It's wonderful. Pure beauty.
I love his expressionism! Wonderful!
I love his Mozart playing also. -Yeah.
-But not only. I love everything about him.
I am crazy about him. I was always.
[ Clears throat ]
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-[ Speaking in German ]
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-He has five different interpretations
for everything and he puts them all on the same time.
I mean, it's such a richness inhis imagination, in his playing.
Such richness!
Gulda used to say, "Er ist ein Obergott!"
[ Laughs ]
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-His whole life was a series of ascents and descents,
ascents into great artistic achievement
and then descents into depression and madness.
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He started declining, and the peak of his decline
occurred a few years after I became his manager
when he accepted a fee of a million dollars
to play a concert in Tokyo,
which at the time was unheard of.
It was the highest fee in the history of classical music.
And he played this concert that was probably the worst concert
he ever played and maybe one of the worst concerts in history
in which he played more wrong notes than right notes.
And I thought that was the end of his career.
I thought he would never play again.
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I didn't hear from him for a year.
A year passed, and after a year,
his wife called me up and said, "You know,
Mr. Horowitz is starting to play again.
He got rid of this doctor, he's no longer taking drugs,
he's not drinking, he's not smoking,
and he wants to perform again."
-And then came the Moscow concert.
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-[ Speaking in German ]
[ Both speaking in German ]
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[ Cheers and applause ]
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-[ Speaking in German ]
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-He had very close relations spiritually and personally
with Rachmaninoff, for example.
One of the stories that Horowitz used to tell me,
which was quite touching, was he would say that
when Rachmaninoff was older, when he moved to America,
Horowitz and he would privately sit
and play four-handed piano concerts in their living room,
and when Rachmaninoff, at his advanced age,
would miss a note, Horowitz would miss a note too
so that Rachmaninoff wouldn't feel bad.
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-Everything was done to ensure that Horowitz felt
comfortable on stage and behind the curtain,
to make the experience as enjoyable as possible for him.
-He lived a life that was completely regulated
by his own physical concerns.
He was worried that he would literally die
if he didn't eat the right food every day.
And in those days, what it consisted of was
having Dover sole for dinner every night
and fresh asparagus and various other items.
So the British ambassador agreed
that he would be responsible for the Dover sole,
and the Italian ambassador agreed
that he would be responsible for the fresh asparagus.
They all wanted to help this happen
because it was it was leading to detente and later perestroika.
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-Even this Polonaise,
which became a victim of its own popularity,
Horowitz makes it incredibly fresh.
So...
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In general the way how he plays it,
he doesn't use a force, a purely physical force.
He was able to play only withthis part of a finger sometimes.
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-His whole approach was to seduce the public,
you know, to win them over and make them on his side,
and he would go out and sit at the piano with no affectations,
you know,he would just sit down and play.
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-He knows how to listen to silence,
like how to actually make this tension in the...
...in the very pianissimo.
There is always tension going on somewhere.
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[ Cheers and applause ]
-[ Speaking in German ]
-[ Speaking in German ]
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-What Horowitz did was he selected a program
that enabled him to reserve what he used to call
the pyrotechnics --
that was his name for explosive technical playing --
that he would reserve those moments for strategic points
in the program, typically in the last piece.
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-He is the best lover that the piano ever had.
He's the best. Really.
[ Applause ]
-I know it was something very special for him
and he returned to America
in his own way knowing that he had fulfilled
kind of his destiny and that his life was complete.
-To find out more about this
and other "Great Performances" programs,
visit pbs.org/greatperformances,
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[ Applause continues ]
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