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Vintage Vladimir Horowitz Home Movie

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This 1928 & 1929 home movie was fillmed in Cincinnati, Ohio at the home of Dr. Karol Liszniewski, my late father's (pianist David Edward Smith's) music teacher.

Horowitz made his debut in New York in 1928 and then came to Cincinnati for a concert with the symphony and this home movie was filmed at a party after the concert.

In 1944, music critic J. Harold Harder, writing for the Toldeo Blade newspaper (April 17, 1944) after a concert by my father, (who was then 19 years old) said :"The best title to give him is the 'American Horowitz". See:

See also 1951 review of David Smith's concert at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC where critic Glen Dillard Dunn, of the Times-Herald said his playing "belongs in the same category with Solomon, Curzon, and even the venerable Arthur Rubenstein".


My father played Horowtiz's variations of Bizet's theme from Carmen several times in concert to very great reviews. I have the sheet music (notes/fingering) he prepared. Horowitz's "Carmen variations" was never published. My father wrote and asked Horowitz for the music/fingering but Horowitz declined, albeit respectfully. So my father had an sound engineer at the college where he was teaching in Oregon slow down the music so he could listen to the notes. He then prepared sheet music and played the piece. If anyone would like a copy of this music I would be happy to provide a copy. He said (my father) it was very difficult to play. But I would love to see/hear it played again.

Some of you have commented or e-mailed me as to my father's style of play. A bit of history. David Edward Smith, studied piano from the age of 12 (1936) until age 20 (1944) with Dr. Karol Liszniewski of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. What is no doubt lost to history is Dr. Liszniewski's exceptional background and lifestyle that so suited him to be a master teacher of the piano. Born in Poland, in his youth Liszniewski studied with Mikuli who had studied with Chopin. After receiving a law degree he went to Vienna to study with Leschetitsky, the great teacher of piano. There Liszniewski fell in love with another student (who was English)--Marguerite Melville--whom he married. Liszniewski was then involved in a duel--a matter of honor--and tendons in his right hand were severed, ending his concert career. Eventually he and his wife were both asked to join the faculty at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. My father became a pupil at the age of 12.

My father wrote in a letter: "All the Polish celebrities knew Dr. Liszniewski (who speaks Polish besides the Poles?). Arthur Rubinstein and Mieczyslaw Munz often stopped by when they were on tour. So did Rachmaninoff and Paderewski. I would be allowed to sit right next to them--only inches from the keyboard--to watch them practice by the hour--preparing for their solo recitals and concerto performances. They would give me lessons and sometimes, when I was practicing in my room upstairs, they would open the door at the bottom of the stairs and yell such things as 'Practice SLOWLY' or, for example, 'Who told you to do that crescendo in the left hand' (I had done something terrible, no doubt). 'That's good-don't ever change that!' (What a pleasant surprise). Sometimes they would come to my room to watch me practice--stopping me to show better fingering, a more beautiful interpretation, or how to solve some difficult problem 'at hand'. To an artist there is nothing quite so satisfying as the solving of an 'aesthetic problem'."

Channel: Film & Animation
Uploaded: November 23, 2006 at 2:44 am
Author: creativebna

Length: 00:02:58
Rating: 4.87
Views: 49296

Tags: Vladimir Horowitz piano movie

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