Anton Rubinstein

Who am I?
“ Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian,
Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew.
Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist.
The classicists think of me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary.
My conclusion is that I am neither fish nor fowl
– just a pitiful individual. ”
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein
(Russian: Антóн Григóрьевич Рубинштéйн),
(November 28, 1829 – November 20, 1894)
was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor.
As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the greatest piano virtuosos ever lived.
He also founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which, together with Moscow Conservatory founded by his brother Nikolai Rubinstein, helped establish a reputation for musical skill among the subjects of the czar of Russia.
Anton Rubinstein, was a prolific pianist and composer of his time, his virtuosity rivals composer Franz Liszt, however his works were often overlooked and ignored, no doubt overshadowed by the new composition styles of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, his works resembles quite closely to the compositions of Beethoven.
Many of Rubinstein’s contemporaries felt he bore a striking resemblance to Ludwig van Beethoven.
Ignaz Moscheles, who had known Beethoven intimately, wrote, "Rubinstein’s features and short, irrepressible hair remind me of Beethoven."
Liszt referred to Rubinstein as "Van II."
Rubinstein was even rumored to be the illegitimate son of Beethoven.
Rubinstein neither confirmed nor denied this rumor.
Neither did he remind anyone that he was born more than two years after Beethoven had died.
This resemblance to Beethoven was also felt to be in Rubinstein’s keyboard playing. Under his hands, it was said, the piano erupted volcanically.
Audience members wrote of going home limp after one of his recitals, knowing they had witnessed a force of nature.
Sometimes Rubinstein’s playing was too much for listeners to handle. But For hours people would queue up for tickets and sometimes the police had to be called to maintain order. Enthusiastic fans even climbed into the chandeliers not to miss anything of his performance.
Rubinstein’s concert programs, like his playing style, were gargantuan. In 1884 it was reported that the pianist played more than 20 pieces (including 3 sonatas from Beethoven and Schumann) in one concert in Vienna,
with all the audience, who could possibly get tired of sitting for over three-and-a-half hours,
but with Rubinstein who could never get tired of playing.
He was most famous for his series of historical recitals—seven consecutive concerts covering the whole history of piano music.
Each of these programs was enormous. The second, devoted to Beethoven sonatas, consisted of the Moonlight, D minor, Waldstein, Appassionata, E minor, A major (Op. 101), E major (Op. 109) and C minor (Op. 111). Again, this was all included in one recital. (not including encores, which he sprayed liberally at every concert.)
Rubinstein played this series of historical recitals in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe.
Also in his American tour, playing the seven recitals over a nine-day period in New York in May 1873.
Rubinstein was regarded as the greatest pianist in history in terms of his colossal repertoire and an equally colossal memory,
until he turned 50, when he began to have memory lapses and had to play from the printed note.
The American tour
At the behest of the Steinway & Sons piano company, Rubinstein toured the United States during the 1872-3 season. Steinway’s contract with Rubinstein called on him to give 200 concerts at the then unheard-of rate of 200 dollars per concert (payable in gold—Rubinstein distrusted both United States banks and United States paper Money), plus all expenses paid. Rubinstein stayed in America 239 days, giving 215 concerts—sometimes two and three a day in as many cities.
Rubinstein later wrote of his American experience,
"May Heaven preserve us from such slavery!
Under these conditions there is no chance for art—one simply grows into an automaton, performing mechanical work; no dignity remains to the artist; he is lost....
The receipts and the success were invariably gratifying, but it was all so tedious that I began to despise myself and my art. So profound was my dissatisfact that when several years later I was asked to repeat my American tour, I refused pointblank...."
Despite his misery, Rubinstein made enough money from his American tour to give him financial security for the rest of his life.
Tchaikovsky was one of Anton Rubinstein’s pupils.
His playing style was, according to several critics as "a force of nature" as was Beethoven and that when he played the piano, it would "erupt" volcanically leaving audiences who left the concert limping from the such force from his playing. Rubinstein’s playing amazed and influenced Rachmaninov when he first attended a historical concert of Rubinstein’s at the age of 12 and would later tell his biographer of it.
His most recognized works include his piano concerti, particularly the fourth concerto and also his 2nd symphony named "Ocean Symphony".
The symphony is more than and hour in lenght and came in 7 staggering movements. The symphony portrays the sea and its movements, with stormy and chaotic sounds within some of the first few movements. Listening to this symphony for the first time, it feels Beethoven-esque with powerful emotions, the music is very bold and brash which is very much apparent in the finale of the symphony.
Rubinstein was as well known during his lifetime for his sarcasm as well as his sometimes penetrating insight.
When one of his students played a Liszt Rhapsody (playing it pretty badly as he claimed), Rubinstein would ask if he (the student) had begun playing yet, the student would confirm
and Rubinstein would reply sarcastically
"I didn’t notice".
During one of Rubinstein’s visits to Paris, French pianist Alfred Cortot played the first movement of Beethoven’s Appassionata for him.
After a long silence, Rubinstein told Cortot,
"My boy, don’t you ever forget what I am going to tell you. Beethoven’s music must not be studied.
It must be reincarnated!"
Cortot reportedly never forgot those words.
Rachmaninov on Rubinstein
"It was not so much his magnificent technique that held one spellbound as the profound, spiritually refined musicianship, which spoke from every note and every bar he played and singled him out as the most original and unequalled pianist in the world."
"Once he repeated the whole finale of [Chopin’s] Sonata in B minor, perhaps he had not succeeded in the short crescendo at the end as he would have wished. One listened entranced, and could have heard the passage over and over again, so unique was the beauty of tone.... I have never heard the virtuoso piece Islamey by Balakirev, as Rubinstein played it, and his interpretation of Schumann’s little fantasy The Bird as Prophet was inimitable in poetic refinement: to describe the dimuendo of the pianissimo at the end of the "fluttering away of the little bird" would be hopelessly inadequate. Inimitable, too, was the soul-stirring imagery in the Kreisleriana, the last (G minor) passage of which I have never heard anyone play in the same manner. One of Rubinstein’s greatest secrets was his use of the pedal. He himself very happily expressed his ideas on the subject when he said, "The pedal is the soul of the piano." No pianist should ever forget this."
Mahler on Rubinstein
"He is the thundering, but also very elegant gentleman from Petersburg who will tell you with grandeur and Slavic straight forwardness what’s on his mind. He comes straight to the point. A gentleman from Russia with a overwhelming enthusiasm for music. His opera, The Demon, is a great elaborate piece of music that belongs to the everlasting masterpieces of this century."
One thing Rubinstein on the podium and Rubinstein at the keyboard had in common were the man’s athleticism and temperament. In actual performances Rubinstein would stop a symphony in the middle of a bar if he did not think the orchestra was at one with him in his conception. The orchestra would have to play the work over again from the beginning; audiences would have to hear the work over again from the beginning.
Audiences not only put up with this show, but they actually loved it. More remarkably, the orchestral players (most of them German) also accepted it. They rebelled, claimed outrage, swore they would never perform before this madman again. They would always play anyway. Moreover, they would be among the first to rise and applaud at the end of a concert.
Heir and/or Rival?
Rubinstein and Liszt
Franz Liszt, along with Frederic Chopin and Leopold Meyer, first time listened to 12 years old Rubinstein on the piano in 1841, Paris, at Salle Erard hall.
At the close of the concert, Chopin invited the boy to his studio to play for him and Liszt kissed the boy and exclaimed;
"Das wir der Erbe meines spieles!"
"This will be the heir of my playing!"
And Liszt advised 12 old Rubinstein’s master Villoing to take the boy to Germany to study composition from where though Rubinstein and Villoing toured throughtout Holland, Norway, Sweden and England where the young pianist was graciously received by Queen Victoria.
Upon his father’s death in 1846, Anton and his mother, brother and sister had to return to Moscow where Rubinstein was thrown upon his own recources to make a living at age 17.
In the same year, Rubinstein set out for Vienna, because, as he records in his auto-biography "it was a great musical centre and Liszt lived there."
The great Liszt, however, received him coldly and told him that "A talented man must win the goal of his ambition by his own unassisted efforts..."
At this point, Rubinstein was living in acute poverty, often suffering from hunger, he was only giving piano lessons.
Liszt, however, had not forgotten him and one day upon finding out Rubinstein living in poverty at once invited him to dinner. "A most welcome invitation," records Rubinstein, "since the pangs of hunger had been gnawing me for several days. After that I was always on good terms with Liszt until his death."
In fact, some of Rubinstein’s operas were given premiere under the baton of Liszt while Rubinstein often played Liszt’s piano repertoire on his concert tours.
Liszt’s style and Rubinstein’s style of piano playing was uniquely different from each other.
Except that each seemed to gather and contribute their own into the term and philosophy "Pianism".
" Beethoven rushes forth under his massive strength and titanic fingers like a gigantic torrent,
a piano sonata becomes a symphony,
a symphony played by him on the piano sounds like a volcanic orchestral tendering.
Then when you hear him accompany some songs of Schubert and Schumann, you will ask yourself in amazement whether it is the singer or accompanist who sings."
The New York Times, November 21, 1894