Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Horowitz's regret: not playing Beethoven-Liszt Symphonies

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/arts/music/piano-transcriptions.html


Interesting! I always assumed Horowitz didn't really like Beethoven. But I guess he liked the symphonies (at least Liszt's transcriptions of them) enough to call them the "greatest works for the piano".

Just because Horowitz was Horowitz doesn't mean that we have to agree with him, does it?

Regards,

It's interesting, because he mentioned something like that in another interview (I forget which one, sorry) although not the Liszt transcriptions. Another pianist, Sophie Druml, I believe (yes, I'm very vague - she also plays violin) said when talking on twosetviolin (on youtube) that she liked to imitate voice (shades of the Russian School?).

When I played Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante défunte,' how I played it was based on hearing the orchestral version and thinking of the different instrument 'colours' helped a great deal with getting expression. I still prefer the orchestral version, btw, and it was hearing that which got me interested in the piece in the first instance. Also, many years ago I used to play a version of Mozart Symphony no 39 on the piano - most enjoyable and one of the reasons I like the piano; I can't play an orchestra, so the piano is the next best thing in my opinion. Nowadays I have a few piano only versions of piano concertos - easy ones, admittedly, but very pleasant none-the less, particularly with a DP being able to intersperse bits of orchestra (well, strings).

So, to an extent I agree with him, at least for my own entertainment, but to listen to may be another matter entirely. Thinking about it, though, Liszt Transcriptions are usually worth listening to in their own right....

Although I think trying to imitate orchestral instruments might help with voicing or phrasing, I don't really think the piano can be made to sound like a violin, cello, etc. Sure, if the melody appears in the LH one can say "make is sound like a cello" but does that really mean anything other than bring out the LH melody? If a passage was in the range of both a cello and a viola, would someone attempting to make it sound like a cello play it differently than someone attempting to make it sound like a viola?

Sadly, a piano always sounds like a piano to me. It's more to do with feeling the different parts as voices while playing and hearing them in the head whilst playing. Just a feeling, I guess, and although one attempts to express them via the fingers I suspect anybody hearing it would not think 'there goes an oboe' for example. I certainly cannot make the piano sound like anything else, but of course there is some ability to play softer on notes of a slur for example, try to imitate the liquidity and so on with legato.... It's more I suspect the satisfaction of playing the notes while imagining and hoping that some expression shows at the other end, but, well, it helps me!

Horowitz recorded quite a bit of Beethoven for someone of his generation, so I do not think that he did not care for him.

I think it may do. For example, the typical rhythms and phrasing one might get with that section of the orchestra, for example, trills or thumping rhythms. I have actually recognised this from time to time in Liszt. And indeed Beethoven, but Liszt was the most obvious I think.

However, having said that, I 90% agree with you. I don't really think of it as an orchestra. But the other 10% can see what is meant by this.

"Sometimes pianists try to sound like singers: me personally I try to sound like a Bösendorfer."

Plácido Domingo

I think this whole concept of trying to imitate an orchestral instrument is part of an even broader idea that some students or teachers use. I can't remember the piece, but I remember a teacher at Mannes telling the student in a master class something like, "Now play the piece like it was a eulogy to your child who died". Is this teaching approach good? I don't know but it seems quite common. But I think some students might think something like "What does he want me to do?"

Maybe all the above is related to the idea the some pianists, both amateur and professional, think about stories or pictures when they play while others rarely do so.

I think that's where the chemistry between teacher and pupil is demonstrable. I've had some music teachers in my life that I could understand, and some that couldn't, but I don't think in my personal experience that the ones I couldn't understand were bad per se, just on a different vibe (man).

There are two orchestral instruments that the right piano under the right hands can imitate quite well: the harp and the celesta, viz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ny-pImkr7Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sSOMapNh0Q

The B-L Symphonies are definitely enjoying a renaissance in the past decade or so - more people are playing them, recording them, taking them seriously, and even programming them on competition programs. I think they're amazing transcriptions that show off the piano's best capabilities and make for a great showpiece on a recital. Naturally, there will always be purists who prefer the orchestral version or claim that they don't "work" on the piano (which, in some cases, is true, but not overall), but that shouldn't be a deterrent to exploring them. I would love to attempt #7 again, but it's crazy hard...