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was a Russian-American pianist. In his prime, he was considered one of the most distinguished pianists of any age. His technique, use of tone color and the excitement of his playing are legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.Horowitz received piano instruction from an early age, initially from his mother, who was herself a competent pianist. In 1912 he entered the Kiev Conservatory, where he was taught by Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky, and Felix Blumenfeld. He left the conservatory in 1919 and performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor at his graduation. His first solo recital was performed in 1920.His fame grew, and he soon began to tour Russia where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate rather than money, due to the country's economic hardships.[8] During the 1922-1923 season, he performed 23 concerts of eleven different programs in Leningrad alone.On January 2, 1926, Horowitz made his first appearance outside his home country, in Berlin. He later played in Paris, London and New York City. Horowitz was selected by Soviet authorities to represent Ukraine in the inaugural 1927 Chopin Piano Competition: however the pianist had decided to stay in the West and thus did not participate.Horowitz settled in the United States in 1940, and became an American citizen in 1944.Horowitz is best known for his performances of the Romantic piano repertoire. His first recording of the Liszt Sonata in 1932 is still considered by some aficionados to be the definitive reading of that piece, after over 75 years and over 100 performances committed to disc by other pianists.Horowitz's interpretations were well received by concert audiences, but not by some critics. Virgil Thomson was famous for his consistent criticism of Horowitz as a "master of distortion and exaggeration" in his reviews appearing in the New York Herald Tribune. In the 1980 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Michael Steinberg wrote that Horowitz "illustrates that an astounding instrumental gift carries no guarantee about musical understanding." However, many famous pianists, amongst them Shura Cherkassky, Earl Wild, Lazar Berman, John Browning, Van Cliburn, Maurizio Pollini, Murray Perahia and Yefim Bronfman held Horowitz in high regard and expressed their admiration for him.He is also famous for his octave technique; he could play precise scales in octaves extraordinarily fast. When asked by the pianist Tedd Joselson how he practiced octaves, Joselson reports, "He practiced them exactly as we were all taught to do."Horowitz's hand position was unusual in that the palm was often below the level of the key surface. He frequently played chords with straight fingers, and the little finger of his right hand was often curled up until it needed to play a note; as New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg put it, "it was like a strike of a cobra."Sergei Rachmaninoff himself commented that Horowitz plays contrary to how they had been taught, yet somehow with Horowitz it worked.Another account has it that when Horowitz was asked by an interviewer why he played his octaves so loud and so fast, his response was, "Because I can!"