Richard Horowitz, who has had an astonishing sixty-six-year-run as the principal timpanist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, plays his final performance tomorrow, when the orchestra appears at Carnegie Hall. A lovely article by Fred Plotkin, on the WQXR website, highlights not only Horowitz's many decades in the pit — when he made his debut, in 1946, Lily Pons was singing Lakmé — but also his work as a maker of instruments and batons. (A 1988 Times article tells more about the batons, one of which rests with Leonard Bernstein in Green-Wood Cemetery.) At a recent Traviata, Peter Gelb brought the timpanist out on stage for a tribute; Mark Horowitz, his son, filmed the moment from the pit. Many congratulations to Mr. Horowitz on his magnificent career.
