Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor Op.23 (Horowitz/Toscanini – 1941)

Vladimir Horowitz (1903 - 1989), piano The NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini (1867 - 1957) May 6/14 1941: Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York (Studio) Pictures : 00:00 1. "Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso" : 00:18 2. "Andantino semplice" : 17:56 3. "Allegro con fuoco" : 23:50 Historical context: Horowitz and Toscanini meet for the first time in November 1932 in New York. The great conductor contacts Vladimir for a concert on April 23, 1933, at Carnegie Hall. He has no choice of work, it will be Beethoven's Concerto No.5 known as "Emperor" as an invitation from Toscanini is a command. How can the slender, childish, sensitive Vladimir Horowitz have imagined working with the famous tyrant Toscanini? Toscanini has heard about Vladimir from Kreisler. He needs a soloist, period. Volodya sums it up: « Toscanini didn't want a star, he didn't like them. But he idolized the powerful figures of the musical world, and that outweighed all his fears. » Perhaps more simply, he was also captivated by the opera conductor, his gluttony. Bruno Zerato (the managing director of the New York Philharmonic), who asks him to go see Toscanini immediately at his hotel to prepare the concerto together, specifies that he is not allowed to be late for a minute and warns him: « If he starts yelling don't be scared if he insults you don't answer », enough to put Horowitz on hot coals. Wanda, who has heard Vladimir play at a ceremony, testimonies: « My father always demanded that the soloists come to his house, so he asks the manager if Horowitz could come to the Hotel Astor at a certain time. I was so nervous, afraid my father wouldn't like him, that I went out. And Mr Horowitz was terrified because everyone had told him that my father was an ogre, one's specifies "Be punctual because otherwise, he will throw you out." » Then he told me that ten minutes before three or four o’clock, he was walking around the Astor Hotel to get ready. Vladimir arrived pale and trembling. At the door of the suite, Zerato had to push him. Vladimir clung to him, murmuring « Niet, niet, I can’t play a note! » He went into the suite, and a perfectly calm and courteous conversation began. Toscanini mentioned Blumenfeld, the teacher with whom Vladimir studied in Russia and whom the maestro had known. Then he asked him to play his piano part. Vladimir complied, and the conductor told him « It’s very good. Now I have to ask you to leave me because I have a lot of work. I’ll see you at the first rehearsal with the orchestra. » Even more surprising, during the rehearsals there was no battle, Volodia recounted. « I was expecting tension, a stormy scene, screaming, I was also afraid that he would laugh in my face. But we got along famously » And the big surprise is that Toscanini asked him to play with more freedom: that's to say how wise and sorry Vladimir had been. In fact, that evening, we witness a double thunderbolt: Wanda for Vladimir and Vladimir for Toscanini. After getting married to Wanda on December 21, 1933, Horowitz becomes Toscanini's son-in-law and was part of his clan who moved to the USA in 1939. On October 2, 1934, Sonia Horowitz is born and immediately Toscanini likes his granddaughter. Intimately, the false notes rain down too. His old friends knew that Vladimir's eccentricity and snobbery were infantile. For them, they were only a touching facet of the character, and he willingly let him play the leading role out of affection. For Vladimir’s close friends, Toscanini’s autocratic brutality could have killed anyone, and Horowitz simply did not have the resources within him to fight against such pressures: he withdraws, it’s sad, he changes. But that was perhaps the point: thanks to Toscanini, he can become another musician, perhaps more unhappy, but deeper. Does that mean more sincere? Probably. Much later, Vladimir will reasonably pay a simple but convincing tribute to Toscanini: « He was a man without compromise and at his side I began to play much more straight. » However, their relationship was not smooth: « I realized that he liked to play with me because I gave in. Sometimes I was not in complete agreement with him, but in those cases, I modified my interpretation; I was an easy guy. » They recorded the concerto twice together in live (in April 1941 and 1943) and once in studio (this one!). This version was so catastrophic that Wanda had written to Rachmaninoff not to listen to it: « It’s a runaway train, a performance from start to finish that is fast and without any respite. » The record was released, however, RCA rubbing its hands at such a duet. But then they made together another much better recording in 43 live:    • Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat...   A few notes about my YouTube video : The edition I used for this score video is an urtext edition with fingerings of the composer included Horowitz makes plenty of changes to the scores (cuts, simplifications, adds) that I did not mentioned.