defending horowitz's virtuosity

This is a comment the pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin made on Leopold Godowsky’s Passacaglia:

Although Godowsky's extraordinary Passacaglia has had a number of performances in the last couple of decades, it will be some time before it is recognized for what it is. Some of its daunting reputation stems from an unfortunate and rather silly remark that Vladimir Horowitz once made. A look at the score reveals that, although admittedly greatly demanding, the work is certainly not out of reach pianistically, and more pianists should be encouraged to discover this noble and majestic creation. The range of invention displayed throughout this weighty and reverential tribute is enormous. Godowsky employs a good variety of textures and harmonic activity, as well as some very imaginative counterpoints. The composer Kaikhosru Sorabji thought enough of the Passacaglia to write that it deserved a place alongside a work such as Regers Bach Variations, Op 81, even stating that Godowsky’s opus ‘far surpasses [Regers] in sustained pianistic interest and variety of treatment.’

The remark Vladimir Horowitz is supposed to have made is, “You would need six hands to play it.”

I think Horowitz could have played the Passacaglia just as well as he played everything else, if he had ever wanted to play it, because he was that great a virtuoso. He might not have wanted to learn it because it would have fit very poorly in his repertoire, which consisted of mainstream and bravura pieces that the public was familiar with. His primary goal as a performer had always been to excite audiences to the limit. An esoteric piece like the Passacaglia would not have helped him to achieve that, regardless of how wonderful the piece is. Also, Horowitz always had a tendency to be self-effacingly modest, as is evident in his interviews. The remark he made, which almost outrageously seems to suggest that his technical abilities were not equal to mastering Godowsky’s Passacaglia, was probably just his way of being modest, and of euphemizing the fact that he really wasn’t interested in learning the piece. Few pianists equaled Horowitz in his prime; none were better than him.