Horowitz: Variations on a theme of Carmen (1967)

November 26, 1967: Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York (Live)

Horowitz had several very popular encore pieces early in his career, including Carmen Variations, Stars and Stripes Forever, Wedding March Variations, etc. He initially gained great popularity with it, but he grew increasingly dissatisfied with the audience's focus on these encore pieces. Consequently, after retiring in 1953, none of them were any longer included in his concert repertoire, with the exception of the Carmen Variations, which he had been with since his very first recordings.

He was to include it in his concerts by composing an extended version of the piece at the time he was planning his comeback in 1957. Though the piece wasn't played at the 1965 concert where he made his actual comeback, but eventually he brought it back to the encore in late 1967. Strictly speaking, he had already performed this piece as an encore two weeks before this November 26 recital, but considering that it was just a concert only for Brooklyn College, this can be considered as the first public release in decades.

It is worth noting that the reaction of the audience is impressive. The encore pieces were not included in the program note at the time and, with the exception of a small audience, this would have been a completely new piece for them. Carnegie Hall audiences burst into laughter at his humorous piece, and at the end responded with a hot shout.