Arthur Rubinstein

Warm, lyrical, and aristocratic in his interpretations, Artur Rubinstein sustained an impressive career well into advanced age, having already shown himself a keyboard prodigy almost as soon as he could reach the keys. Joseph Joachim was struck by his playing when Rubinstein was only three, and at seven the boy performed works by Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn at a charity event in his native city. Lessons with Alexander Róóycki in Warsaw preceded his move in 1897 to Berlin, where Heinrich Barth guided his piano studies while Robert Kahn and Max Bruch instructed him in theory, all under Joachim’s overarching direction. His first notable concerto engagement took place in Potsdam in 1899, after which the barely teenage pianist launched tours across Germany and Poland.

Brief work with Paderewski in Switzerland during 1903 preceded Rubinstein’s relocation to Paris, where he encountered Ravel, Dukas, and Jacques Thibaud and earned Saint-Saëns’s approval for his reading of the composer’s G minor concerto. That piece remained a signature showpiece for six decades, serving as the vehicle for his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1906.

Successful recitals throughout Spain in the 1916-1917 season led to extended Latin American tours, during which Rubinstein cultivated a special affinity for Hispanic repertoire; Heitor Villa-Lobos even dedicated his demanding Rudepoêma to the pianist. Although later often regarded chiefly as a Chopin specialist, Rubinstein’s performances of Falla, Granados, and Albéniz stayed equally authentic.

His temperament supplied ample intensity for Beethoven yet retained the poetry required for Chopin, with tempos and dynamics that remained pliant without ever becoming mannered. The near-complete survey of Chopin’s solo piano music he recorded for RCA in the 1960s has been viewed as essential to any collection since its appearance, while his account of Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and his later collaborations with the Guarneri Quartet likewise count among his enduring statements.

Rubinstein took American citizenship in 1946. He had wed Aniela Mlynarska in 1932, yet his reputation for womanizing persisted; even so, a deeper dimension marked his postwar years. In response to the Nazi destruction of his Polish family, he declined ever to appear again in Germany. He became an ardent advocate for Israel, prompting the founding of an international piano competition bearing his name in Jerusalem in 1974. Among his distinctions were the Gold Medal of London’s Royal Philharmonic Society, the U.S. Medal of Freedom awarded in 1976, and induction into the French Legion of Honor.