Rubstein russian collection12/22/2023 ![]() ![]() Some of these works, Pushkin’s Night for example, were originally conceived as solo piano pieces and only later “fitted” to poetry. Rubinstein wrote the art songs throughout his career, yet very few of them achieved popularity and success. There are 6 symphonies and numerous compositions for piano. Out of 13 operas only one, The Demon, based on the poem by Mikhail Lermontov, survived in the repertoire. Yet his compositional output is largely forgotten. Rubinstein composed prolifically throughout his career. Rubinstein was re-appointed director of the Conservatory in 1887. He crossed the United States during 18, giving over 200 concerts. Rubinstein resigned from the conservatory in 1867 and embarked on yet another tour of Europe. One of his first students there was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, with whom he maintained a stormy but very close relationship until Tchaikovsky’s death. He became its first artistic director as well as a professor of piano. Petersburg Conservatory in 1862 with the help of his patron, the Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna. Rubinstein toured Europe with enormous success in 1854. Rubinstein lived in Berlin from 1844 to 1846, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Siegfried Dehn, also Glinka’s instructor. A highlight of his tour was a meeting with the Russian imperial family in the Netherlands. He traveled though Germany, Austria, France and England, meeting Liszt, Chopin and Queen Victoria along the way. Villoing, who eventually took him on an extended tour of Europe in 1839-1843. He first studied piano with a French pianist, A. ![]() My conclusion is that I am neither fish nor fowl – a pitiful individual.” The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary. Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. He once said “Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew. The composer had an uneasy relationship with his ethnic and religious heritage his entire life, as well as ambiguous feelings about many other things. His paternal grandfather forced the entire family to convert to Christianity while Rubinstein was still a young child, no doubt to solidify its financial gains and social position. Most Jews within the Russian Empire were not allowed to live outside the so called settlement zone (the “Pale of Settlement”), yet since Rubinstein’s father, a pencil manufacturer, was a merchant of the first guild (a businessman with substantial capital) the family was allowed to reside in Moscow. Rubinstein came from a well-to-do Jewish family. He was an arch-typical representative of the pan-European tradition in Russian music, as demonstrated by the staggering number of compositions that flowed from his pen. Rubinstein established the conservatory system of music education in Russia. In his maturity, he was considered along with Liszt to be the world’s greatest pianist. I have sat for hours trying to imitate the timbre of Rubini’s voice in my playing.Rubinstein was a child prodigy who toured Europe when he was ten. Try to imitate the sound of the human voice, he kept saying.” Indeed, the great Rubinstein used to say, “Strength and lightness, that is the secret of my touch. Anton Rubinstein, I later learned, told his pupils the same thing. If you don’t have colour, you don’t have anything. They play good octaves, double notes, so what? They all sounded the same. I would much rather go to the opera than to piano recitals. The most important thing on the keyboard is colour and singing. I was interested in Battistini and Caruso and on the piano I would try to imitate the singers. As a child, Horowitz was much more interested in opera and singers than piano playing and he later recalled, “I was collecting records of singers, never of pianists. But the man whose art had an even greater impact on him was the Italian baritone Mattia Battistini. Horowitz also greatly admired Chaliapin (and often parodied his singing to the delight of Rachmaninoff).
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