Artur Artur Rubinstein

This DVD is the first release of this legendary performance by a legendary artist. "Rubinstein's superb form is matched by the incredible musical sensitivity of Haitink and the orchestra… Sounds and images are expertly cued to the split second… Rubinstein's face, body and hands are captured in a smooth flow of shots and reflectionsThe Beethoven takes on an almost Mozartean delicacy, the Brahms is infused with all the power it requires." -The New York Times

Time has brushed lightly against this remarkable man … Nothing appears to have impaired Rubinstein's unique wit, his sensitity, his urbanity or his cool-headed, warm-hearted, ever-idelaistic honesty … The concertos are imbued with an extraordinary fusion of twilight sentiment and nonchalant joie de vivre. Even more remarkable, however, are the flashes of self-revelation that emerge in Rubinstein's words. (Martin Bernheimer)

Nowadays there are a great many people who, upon encountering the name Rubinstein, would only think automatically of the Polish pianist, the late Artur Rubinstein. However, our subject (no relation) is the once world-renowned Russian composer and pianist Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein who was born in Balta Podalia (Ukraine) on 28 November 1829. He died in Peterhof on 20 November 1894. In his lifetime, Anton Rubinstein was highly regarded as a pianist, as a conductor, as the first great Russian teacher whose methods and administration are still echoed in the modern Russian musical institutions, and as a prolific composer.

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.