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{hohr'-uh-vits, vlad'-i-mir}
The eminent piano virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz, b. Kiev, Russia,
Oct. 1 (N.S.), 1904, d. Nov. 5, 1989, was an internationally
renowned performer for six decades. He studied in Kiev with
Felix Blumenfeld, making his debut at the age of 17. Very
successful in Russia, he toured Europe and had his American
debut in 1928, in Carnegie Hall, playing Tchaikovsky's first
piano concerto with the New York Philharmonic. He quickly
gained a reputation as an outstanding virtuoso. In 1933, he
married Wanda Toscanini, daughter of the conductor. Exhausted
from strenuous concertizing, he retired in 1953, but returned
in 1965 to perform in Carnegie Hall. In January 1978 he celebrated
the 50th anniversary of his American debut with a performance
in Carnegie Hall of Rachmaninoff's Concerto no. 3 with the
New York Philharmonic under Eugene Ormandy. In 1985 he gave
a triumphal concert in Paris, which had snubbed his performances
in 1951. Then in 1986, Horowitz made the grand gesture of
his career by returning to the USSR, from which he had escaped
by a ruse in 1925, for a series of sold-out performances.
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