33 Quotes by Vladimir Horowitz

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!

As far as practicing is concerned, I usually try to do one to two hours a day. It isn't good to practice too much, or your playing becomes too mechanical.

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.

To be able to produce many varieties of sound, now that is what I call technique, and that is what I try to do. I don't adhere to any methods, because I simply don't believe in them. I think each pianist must ultimately carve his own way, technically and stylistically.

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 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.

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.

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.

Without false modesty, I feel that, when I'm on the stage, I'm the king, the boss of the situation.