Rubinstein: A Life PDF
Preview Rubinstein: A Life
$27.50 /S) rthur Rubinstein’s career was 1/ Z A one of the longest and most L/ l successful in the history of musical performance. He was seven when he first played the piano in public and eighty-nine at the time of his last concert. A musical genius, friend to the famous, and bon vivant, he spoke eight languages, loved many women, and inspired admiration from fans worldwide. Yet this consummate, elegant musician was a man of contradictions and tempestuous personality. Harvey Sachs’s biography examines a figure whose narcissism and instinct for self-preservation contrasted dramatically with his innate generosity and enormous charm. Born into a middle-class family of Polish Jews in 1887, Rubinstein was possessed of a musical talent so prodigious that it was recognized when he was only three by no less an authority than Brahms’s friend the great violinist Joseph Joachim. The boy made his Berlin debut at the age of thirteen and was hailed as “a chosen one among the elect,” but before long he was neglecting his keyboard work to pursue women and enjoy the good life. Although he quickly established an international reputation as an excellent pianist and was esteemed by such composers as Saint-Saens, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Falla, not until he was fifty did the musi- cal world recognize him as one of the great masters of the piano. His technique was brilliant, but to the end of his career he tried to avoid the mechanical aspects of practicing and depended on inspiration and tempera- ment to carry him over the rough spots. Yet as an inter- preter, Rubinstein was not so much “the last romantic” as one of the first great modern pianists, dedicated to discovering the individuality of each piece he performed continued on back fl a p ~ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/rubinsteinlifeOOsach Rubinstein ALSO BY HARVEY SACHS Toscanini Virtuoso Music in Fascist Italy Reflections on Toscanini Harvey Sachs Rubinstein A Life With a Discography Compiled and Edited by Donald Manildi GROVE PRESS New York Copyright © i by Harvey Sachs 995 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Printed in the United States of America FIRST EDITION Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sachs. Harvey, 1(946- Rubinstein: a life / Harvey Sachs; with a discography compiled and edited by Donald Manildi. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. Contents: The life-The recorded legacy. ISBN 0-8021-157 - 9 9 1. Rubinstein, Artur, 1887-1982. 2. Pianists-Biography. I. Manildi, Donald. II. Title. ML4i7.R79S23 I995 786.2'O92—dc2o [B] 95-1353(9 MN DESIGN BY LAURA HAMMOND HOUGH Grove Press 841 Broadway New York, NY 10003 io 8 65432i 9 7 In memory of my grandparents, ]oseph Sachs (1883-1954), Dora Bloch Sachs (1884-1960), Carl Bloom (1891-1959), Blanche May Bloom (1892-1976), who were all Eastern European Jews, like the subject of this book, and of the same generation.
The list of books you might like
