Warm, lyrical, and aristocratic in his interpretations,
Artur Rubinstein performed impressively into extremely old age, and he was a keyboard prodigy almost from the time he could climb onto a piano bench. He came from a mercantile rather than a musical family, but fixated on the piano as soon as he heard it. At age three he impressed
Joseph Joachim, and by the age of seven he was playing
Mozart, Schubert, and
Mendelssohn at a charity concert in his hometown. In Warsaw, he had piano lessons with Alexander Róóycki; then in 1897 he was sent to Berlin to study piano with Heinrich Barth and theory with
Robert Kahn and
Max Bruch, all under
Joachim's general supervision. In 1899 came his first notable
concerto appearance in Potsdam. Soon thereafter, just barely a teenager, he began touring Germany and Poland.
After brief studies with
Paderewski in Switzerland in 1903,
Rubinstein moved to Paris, where he met
Ravel,
Dukas, and
Jacques Thibaud, and played
Saint-Saëns' G minor Concerto to the composer's approval. That work would remain a flashy
Rubinstein vehicle for six decades, and it was the
concerto he offered in his American debut with the
Philadelphia Orchestra in New York's
Carnegie Hall in 1906. His under-prepared American tour was not especially well-received, though, so he withdrew to Europe for further study.
Rubinstein became an adept and sensitive chamber musician and accompanist; his 1912 London debut was accompanying
Pablo Casals, and during World War I he toured with
Eugène Ysaÿe.
He gave several successful recitals in Spain during the 1916-1917 season, and soon toured Latin America. Along the way he developed a great flair for Hispanic music;
Heitor Villa-Lobos went so far as to dedicate to
Rubinstein his Rudepoema, one of the toughest works in the repertory. Although
Rubinstein would later be somewhat typecast as a
Chopin authority, his readings of
Falla, Granados, and
Albéniz would always be equally idiomatic.
Rubinstein's international reputation grew quickly, although he was by his own account a sloppy technician. In the mid-1930s he withdrew again and drilled himself in technique. By 1937 he reemerged as a musician of great discipline, poise, and polish -- qualities he would mostly retain until his farewell recital in London in 1976, at the age of 89.
Rubinstein's temperament had sufficient fire for
Beethoven but enough poetry for
Chopin; his tempos and dynamics were always flexible, but never distorted. His 1960s recordings for RCA of nearly all
Chopin's solo piano music have been considered basic to any record collection since their release, and his version of
Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain is another classic, as are his various late collaborations with the
Guarneri Quartet.
Rubinstein became a naturalized American citizen in 1946, but he maintained residences in California, New York, Paris, and Geneva; two of his children were born in the United States, one in Warsaw, and one in Buenos Aires. He had married Aniela Mlynarska in 1932, but womanizing remained integral to his reputation as an irrepressible
bon vivant. He maintained that the slogan "wine, women, and song" as applied to him meant 80 percent women and only 20 percent wine and song.
Still, there was a serious side to his life. After World War II, he refused ever again to perform in Germany, in response to the Nazi extermination of his Polish family.
Rubinstein became a strong supporter of Israel; in gratitude, an international piano competition in his name was instituted in Jerusalem in 1974. His honors included the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London, the U.S. Medal of Freedom (1976), and membership in the French Legion of Honor. ~ James Reel, All Music Guide
Arthur Rubinstein Plays Brahms & Schumann
Piano: Greatest Hits