A biography for Vladimir Horowitzhasn’t been written yet.
“I tried playing for the public, and I selected music that I thought would be pleasing to them. Times are different now. Today, I play the music I want, and I just try to do my best.”
“Imitation is a caricature. Any imitation. Find out for yourself.”
“Behind the notes, something different is told, and that's what the interpreter must find out. He may sit down and play one passage one way and then perhaps exaggerate the next, but, in any event, he must do something with the music. The worst thing is not to do anything.”
“I must tell you I take terrible risks. Because my playing is very clear, when I make a mistake you hear it. If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake. Never be afraid to dare.”
“Scriabin, as you know, is a mystic composer. His music is supersensuous, superromantic, and supermysterious. Everything is super; it is all a little overboard. Anyway, my parents were pleased that I played for him.”
“The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.”
“Without false modesty, I feel that, when I'm on the stage, I'm the king, the boss of the situation.”
“I may play the same program from one recital to the next, but I will play it differently, and because it is always different, it is always new.”
“I studied with Felix Blumenfeld, who had studied piano with Anton Rubinstein and composition with Tchaikovsky. Felix, my professor, was the right hand of Anton Rubinstein. Blumenfeld knew his playing by heart, from every angle.”
“I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.”
“I loved singing. But can you imagine my voice in an opera house?”
“Scriabin slept with Chopin under his pillow, and I slept with Wagner under mine. I could not concentrate on memorizing Bach fugues, but I had all of 'Gotterdammerung' in my fingers.”
“My face is my passport.”
“I was a terrible student. For me, to take a book home was a trial.”
“Perfection itself is imperfection.”
“Life is very busy now. I find that in today's cities, the public is very tired after working the whole day. When concerts start at eight o'clock, the wife pushes the husband to go to the concert, where some promptly fall asleep!”
“If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake.”
“It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.”
“The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.”
“You have to open the music, so to speak, and see what's behind the notes because the notes are the same whether it is the music of Bach or someone else.”