Manny Ax Remembers the Magic of Horowitz

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Lauren Purcell-Joiner (0:16)

Hi, Classical Music Happy Hour fans. I'm Lauren Purcell-Joyner, the show's producer, and I just so happen to be chatting here with the one and only Manny Ax. Hi, Manny.

Manny Ax (0:25)

Hi, great to see you.

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (0:27)

We're going to offer you another episode of a podcast today from our producing partner, Carnegie Hall, who has a podcast called If This Hall Could Talk. And the one that we want to show today is an episode titled Horowitz's Nails.

Manny Ax (0:44)

Right. Well, I'm a very old guy now. I just turned 77, and when I was 15 years old, I was lucky enough to be on the line outside Carnegie Hall for three days and three nights, Friday night until Monday morning, when Horowitz's big return happened. He stopped playing for about 14 years.

So for someone like me, who was 15 when he returned, it was as though someone had come back from the dead.

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (1:19)

From the dead, yeah.

Manny Ax (1:20)

And it caused an incredible furor in New York that he was returning. And there was a line outside. There was somebody who kept a chart. You know, you could go away for a couple of hours. But basically, you stood and Monday morning, you had your choice of seats because you had spent the weekend online. So I got in to see that concert in May of 1965

Before the concert, he went to Carnegie Hall any number of times. I think he must have gone, oh, seven, eight times to play in the hall, the empty hall, with a couple of people listening. And he was so particular about the kind of sound he wanted to get.

And they would move the piano around from this corner to there, to there, to there, all over the stage. And then he would play a lot and get feedback. And he finally decided, this is the spot. And they actually put three screws, you know, at each leg of the piano. And they're still there, even though the hall has gone through some remodeling. So now the sound would probably be different. But the three places are still there. And that's where Horowitz put his piano for all his concerts from 1965 on.

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (2:40)

It's a remarkable story to physically leave your mark on Carnegie Hall, right?

Manny Ax (2:45)

Yeah, he was, of course, such a legendary artist, even before he stopped playing. Every concert of his was an event. Every concert was a sellout.

It was madness. I wasn't around, but I knew a lot of people who had been to his concerts in the 40s and 50s.

And it was madness in the hall. Madness, people apparently would stand up in the middle of a piece just to see what he was doing with his hands. So when he came back, you can imagine, it was just an incredible event. And I was lucky enough to hear him after that many times.

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (3:22)

Do you remember where you were sitting?

Manny Ax (3:24)

I remember exactly. Of course, in those days, we had no money. But since I had my choice of seats, I sat front row balcony, right at the top of the hall, but in the very front row. And the seats were, I think they were $4 each, which in those days was quite a lot of money. I was also lucky enough in 1968 to somehow be part of the crowd that saw him do the TV concert that's readily available. You can find it everywhere, playing Chopin and Scarlatti and various things. And I have to admit, I don't know how he can play anything, because it's such a foreign way of using the hands on the keyboard. And like my friend, Fima Bronfen says, he makes miracles.

So that's-

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (4:18)

As the greats always do, right?

Manny Ax (4:20)

Yes, yes.

Lauren Purcell-Joiner (4:21)

So what about Horowitz's playing is so transcendent?

Manny Ax (4:26)

Well, there are a few things. One thing is there seems to be a kind of demonic energy.

It's hard to describe, but he never moved when he played. He was always very still. So if you were 50 feet away, nothing changed. And his range, the range from the loud to the soft, it made a symphony orchestra sound small. And he also had this incredible, I don't know whether you'd call it an ear or an imagination, that led him find things in the way he balanced the chords, because we're always pianists, always deal with polyphony. And so he would bring out things in the middle of a chord or in the middle of a passage that no one else thought of. You would hear this thing and say, oh my God, I've never heard that line before. Yeah, yeah.