Transcriptions

Horowitz often changed passages here and there, but not all of these can be deemed transcripitons. There are select number of pieces that Horowitz paid particular attention to and to which he applied his great skills as a composer.

Horowitz significantly reduced his recordings and performances of his transcriptions when it became all too clear that these work were overshadowing the other works on his programs. After ninety minutes of Bach-Busoni, Clementi, Chopin, Schumann, or Scriabin, Horowitz would play his self described 'scoring' of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" as an encore and the audience would be so dazzled Horowitz felt that they would go home stunned without a recollection of the more substantial works on the program.  He felt programming in this manner was not and appropriate action of a responsible musician. This was particularly difficult for Horowitz because he was a frustrated composer as he explains in the following clip.

Select the icon to view a list of Horowitz's recordings of these transcriptions

Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen

This was the only transcription that remained in Horowitz's repertoire throughout his career. He played it from his earliest concerts in the 1920's through his golden jubilee season in 1978, more than fifty years later. Like the man, this piece changed over time. Even before his days as a student at the Kiev Consevatory, Horowitz was in love with opera. He would play opera themes at the piano after only hearing the music one time. The Act II Gypsy Dance is where the main theme finds it origins. It is a very memorable theme and has been used by many, including Brahms for various variations and transcriptions. When he and Nathan Milstein, the violinist became friends they would often play the arrangement for violin and piano by Pablo Sarasate, and Horowitz was familiar with the Moszkowski-Bizet "Chanson Boheme" based on the same theme. It is the influence of the four, Bizet, Sarasate, Moszkowski and Horowitz that come together so beautifully to give us 'Carmen'. Horowitz's first recordings were on a piano roll for Welte and Sons in 1926 and just two years later in 1928 for Duo-Art. Also in 1928, Horowitz made his first disc recording of the piece for RCA. In these early performances we hear the youthful Horowitz's hasty fingers. The piece is almost strictly a virtuoso showpiece. Surely it always was, but as the years progressed, Carmen became more sophistocated. There is a live recording from 1942 and a similar version recorded in the studio in 1947. There were not too many changes from the 1928 version. In the middle of his long retirement from the concert stage from 1953 until 1965 Horowitz considered a return in 1957 and worked up a new version of Carmen. This time it was not to be just a flashy encore, but a full length concert piece. Unfortunately he did not return to the stage and his recording was not released until after his death. In the 1957 version we see some truly fascinating developments of the piece; it becomes almost a study in surrealism; it is enigmatic. The variations are more varied. We see a maturation of the variations that remain from previous versions. The coda is almost completely new. Many improvements from 1957 version that would remain buried until his revival of the piece in 1967 and other things until he did the same in 1978. In 1967, Horowitz was concertizing again and had brought back 'Carmen'. This time the public heard it for the first time in almost 20 years. Though this version contained many of the changes made in 1957 it had been restored to its more jovial encore form. Again in 1968, in his famous television concert on CBS, Horowitz performed this piece with some minor changes from the 1967 version. Mostly alterations in the coda, now a common place to see changes in this work. The last recoding of this piece occured in February of 1978 at Horowitz's White House concert. This version is quite similar to that of 1968 except for a few small alterations here and there and the implementation of several items from the 1957 version including some of the coda.

To keep us informed that he hadn't forgotten it, in 1985 during the filming of "The Last Romantic," Horowitz lets a few choice bars slip out of his cuff:

Hungarian Rhapsodies

Of the 19 Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, Horowitz played five of them and made transcriptions of four of them.   He played numbers 2, 6, 13, 15 and 19.  All were his own transcription except for number 6 where he did make some changes, but nothing like in the others. 

Horowitz's transcription of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsoday is almost surely the most difficult of the transcriptions.  The cadenza is his own and the coda is spectacular.  In the cadenza we hear four simultaneous voices brought to life in the way only Horowitz could do.

The Sixth is a piece that Horowitz dazzled people with at parties in the early years with his lightening fast octaves in the later section.  The recording is a true testament to Horowitz's famous octave technique.

Hungarian Rhapsody Number 13, was Horowitz's last transcription of a Liszt Rhapsody.  This was in 1969 just before his third retirement from the stage.  He only played it once and it wasn't recorded professionally, but there are pirate recordings, in poor quality, that do attest to his brilliant performance.

Number 15 is perhaps the most amazing and original take on any of the Liszt transcriptions.  There are new sonorities and harmonies that Liszt never included.  Horowitz's seems less Hungarian and more Horowitzian.  This piece is the epitome of the Horowitz style (whatever that may be.)  Horowitz engages the listenter in many of his virtuosic pyrotechnics, and one can't help but laugh hysterically in the climax where Horowitz reaches a sound of indescribable character.  It is impossible to hear this piece and feel shortchanged, a testament to Horowitz the supernatural being. 

Finally number 19.  This was Liszt's final Hungarian Rhapsody.  Written in Liszt's second-to-last year of life, this piece's virtuosity is quite different than the earlier rhapsody transcriptions do.  The form of Horowitz's transcription of this piece is very true to Liszt's.  Horowitz transcribes, keeping mind Listz's own late style and the importance of giving  piece something of his own.  This is a very rewarding piece to listen to.  It is a serious transcription, not as "out there" as some of the earlier ones, and it is certainly more than just a showpiece.  After his twelve year absence from the concert stage, Horowitz became more focused on musical nature of transcribing than technical, and this comes out clearly in his 1962 (and only) recording of this piece.

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (RCA 1953)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 (1969)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 (Rakoczy March) (RCA 1950)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19 (Columbia 1962)

The Stars and Stripes Forever!

Well, what can be said but Bravo Horowitz!  This piece really makes one feel overwhelmed and somewhat astonished at the possibilites of the piano.  Who would have thought that one could evoke the feeling of a marching band with a single instrument controlled by 10 fingers.  Horowitz described this not as a transcription but as scoring for the piano.  He also was sure to point out that there were some things in it that made it his own.  Introduced in 1945 in Carnegie Hall and then in Central Park for "I am an American Day" celebrating the end of the war, this piece was Horowitz's gift to the country to celebrate the end of the war, but also to thank them for his newly acquired citizenship.  He played this at many of his concerts from 1945 through the early 50's and never played it in concert agian after that.  He didn't play any of his flashy encores after his long retirement because he didn't feel that it was responsible of him as a serious musician to present a work at the end that made the audience forget the rest of the concert.   

Pictures at an Exhibition

This is probably Horowitz's most important transcription and indeed he was most proud of this "pianostration." He later expressed disappointment that he had never written it down.  It is also the transcription for which he recieved the most heat from the critics. Here Horowitz takes a different angle on transcription. Horowitz's justification: "Mussorgsky was not a pianist." Horowitz knew more about the piano than Mussorgsky could have dreamed possible giving him the right as a serious musician and brilliant artist to strengthen this piece of music. In response to harsh criticisms of putting 'graffiti on Mussorgsky' Horowitz said "I don't give a damn!" Horowitz was not fond of critics. This piece can bring hours of enjoyment in trying to find all of the wonderful things Horowitz did to make it more effective. There are two Horowitz performances on record.

Danse Macabre

Frequently in his early career, Horowitz played the Saint-Saëns-Liszt arrangment of this piece. He even made a piano roll recording of this arrangment shortly after he arrived in Germany after leaving Russia in the twenties. Horowitz was, in his own words, a frustrated composer. He took the Liszt arrangment and made it easier, but at the same time, more spectacular! That's the beauty of the Horowitz arrangments. They are spectacular, but frequently don't require that unattainable technique that one would think would be required. This is what made Horowitz a good composer. He understood the instrument and technique completely. By modifying the Liszt and adding his own wonderful material, Horowitz makes his version much more exciting.

Wedding March and Variations

Horowitz made a transcription of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. This was inspired by Liszt's transcription of the piece and its presence in Horowitz's transcription is apparent giving authorship of this piece to Mendelssohn-Liszt-Horowitz. Unlike with the Danse Macabre, Horowitz never had played publicly the Liszt transcription itself, but he played a longer version we hear on the record when he programmed the piece and a shorter version recorded by Arkady Volodos when the piece was performed as an encore. It's a brilliantly exciting piece if you can get past thinking of it as that wedding march. Horowitz's sparkling performance is easy to enjoy.

Rachmaninoff Sonata No. 2

Horowitz had played the 1913 version of the work for his graduation recital from the Kiev Conservatory, not to mention in many of his concerts in the earlier years.  When he saw the revision, Horowitz and others, realized the piece had lost its 'grand manner' that is so often associated with Rachmaninoff's works.  Horowitz prepared a combination of the two versions and presented it to Rachmaninoff and Rachmaninoff readily approved the reworking.  Rachmaninoff is supposed to have said that Horowitz performed the Second Sonata better than he [Rachmaninoff] could. Horowitz played this work in concert in the West for the first time during February 1943 in celebration of Rachmaninoff's seventieth birthday. Rachmaninoff would die one month later and Horowitz dropped the work from his programs. Horowitz's revised version appeared next in 1968 when it was first recorded in this version. In the mid-1970's Horowitz played the third movement alone as an encore. He brought back the entire sonata for the 1979-80 season and recorded it again then for RCA. He played it for the last time in public in London for Prince Charles on May 28, 1982; this performance was not his strongest, but it was captured on video. Regarding the later performances of this work, it was said that 'the years just fell away.' Horowitz was already 78 in 1982. In 1987, Horowitz seriously considered reworking the Sonata again.  He said to David Dubal, "I can still do it!"

It was once said of Horowitz regarding this piece especially that he was guilty of the "heinus crime of making music sound better than it is." I feel, instead, that it took a Horowitz to really know what Rachmaninoff was saying in this piece and to express it effectively. There is also a funny anecdote regarding Horowitz and this piece. In a live performance in 1968 Horowitz was in the middle of the second movement and a string broke on his Steinway (CD 186) Horowitz turned this tragedy into an opportunity. That is to say, when his technician, Franz Mohr, came out to replace the string Horowitz leaned over and said "Take your time, this is really good!" He then picked up where he left off without begining the movement and completed what even critics say was his most powerful and lucid performance of the work.

You be the judge. Listen to the third movement coda from a live November 1968 performance from Carnegie Hall:

See my site dedicated to this work for more specific information regarding Horowitz's performances of this piece.

Liszt Mephisto Waltz No. 1

Horowitz performed this piece during the 1978-79 concert season. I've included this in the transcription section because there is some original material by Horowitz in this work. In addition Horowitz the musical texture architect goes to work here like he did with the Rachmaninoff Sonata. Horowitz combines Liszt's and Busoni's piano transcriptions and throws in his own coda to create quite a marvelous whole.

I have an entire site dedicated to this work.