58 Facts About Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein, who founded the Moscow Conservatory.

Anton Rubinstein became most famous for his series of historical recitals, seven enormous, consecutive concerts covering the history of piano music.

Anton Rubinstein played this series throughout Russia and Eastern Europe and in the United States when he toured there.

Anton Rubinstein composed many other works, including five piano concertos, six symphonies and many solo piano works along with a substantial output of works for chamber ensemble.

Anton Rubinstein was born to Jewish parents in the village of Vikhvatinets in the Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire, on the Dniestr River, about 150 kilometres northwest of Odessa.

Anton Rubinstein's sister Sofia was a chamber singer and teacher.

Anton Rubinstein made his first public appearance at a charity benefit concert at the age of nine.

Later that year Anton Rubinstein's mother sent him, accompanied by Villoing, to Paris where he sought unsuccessfully to enroll at the Paris Conservatoire.

In December 1840, Anton Rubinstein played in the Salle Erard for an audience that included Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt.

Anton Rubinstein was left in Berlin while his mother, sister and brother returned to Russia.

Anton Rubinstein sought out Liszt in Vienna, hoping Liszt would accept him as a pupil.

Anton Rubinstein played and conducted several of his works, including the Ocean Symphony in its original four-movement form, his Second Piano Concerto and several solo works.

In 1854, Anton Rubinstein began a four-year concert tour of Europe.

At several concerts, Anton Rubinstein alternated between conducting his orchestral works and playing as soloist in one of his piano concertos.

Anton Rubinstein participated in discussions with Elena Pavlova on plans to raise the level of musical education in their homeland; these bore initial fruit with the founding of the Russian Musical Society in 1859.

Anton Rubinstein drew a tremendous amount of criticism from the Russian nationalist music group known as The Five.

In previous tours, Anton Rubinstein had played primarily his own works.

Steinway's contract with Anton Rubinstein called on him to give 200 concerts at the then unheard-of rate of 200 dollars per concert, plus all expenses paid.

Anton Rubinstein continued to make tours as a pianist and give appearances as a conductor.

Anton Rubinstein removed inferior students, fired and demoted many professors, made entrance and examination requirements more stringent, and revised the curriculum.

Anton Rubinstein led semi-weekly teachers' classes through the whole keyboard literature and gave some of the more gifted piano students personal coaching.

Anton Rubinstein resigned again and left Russia in 1891 over Imperial demands that Conservatory admittance, and later annual prizes to students, be awarded along ethnic quotas instead of purely by merit.

Anton Rubinstein resettled in Dresden and started giving concerts again in Germany and Austria.

Anton Rubinstein coached a few pianists and taught his only private piano student, Josef Hofmann.

Anton Rubinstein gave his final concert in Saint Petersburg on 14 January 1894.

Sometimes Anton Rubinstein's playing was too much for listeners to handle.

The grandeur of style with which Anton Rubinstein presented those five measures, the beauty of tone his softness of touch secured, the art with which he manipulated the pedal, are indescribable.

Anton Rubinstein enthralled you by his power, and he captivated you by the elegance and grace of his playing, by his tempestuous, fiery temperament and by his warmth and charm.

Anton Rubinstein's crescendo had no limits to the growth of the power of its sonority; his diminuendo reached an unbelievable pianissimo, sounding in the most distant corners of a huge hall.

In playing, Anton Rubinstein created, and he created inimitably and with genius.

Anton Rubinstein often treated the same program absolutely differently when he played it the second time, but, more astoundingly still, everything came out wonderfully on both occasions.

Composer Karl Goldmark wrote of one recital where Anton Rubinstein improvised on a motive from the last movement of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony:.

Anton Rubinstein counterpointed it in the bass; then developed it first as a canon, next as a four-voiced fugue, and again transformed it into a tender song.

Anton Rubinstein then returned to Beethoven's original form, later changing it to a gay Viennese waltz, with its own peculiar harmonies, and finally dashed into cascades of brilliant passages, a perfect storm of sound in which the original theme was still unmistakable.

From watching Liszt, Anton Rubinstein had learned about freedom of arm movement.

Anton Rubinstein told the young Rachmaninoff how he achieved that tone.

Anton Rubinstein rarely displayed that side of his nature, however.

Anton Rubinstein had learned quickly that audiences came to hear him thunder, so he accommodated them.

Anton Rubinstein's forceful playing and powerful temperament made an especially strong impression during his American tour, where playing of this kind had never been heard before.

Anton Rubinstein was a man with an extremely robust constitution and apparently never tired; audiences apparently stimulated his adrenals to the point where he acted like a superman.

Anton Rubinstein had a colossal repertoire and an equally colossal memory until he turned 50, when he began to have memory lapses and had to play from the printed note.

Anton Rubinstein concluded his American tour with this series, playing the seven recitals over a nine-day period in New York City in May 1873.

Anton Rubinstein played this series of historical recitals in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe.

Rachmaninoff admitted that Anton Rubinstein was not note-perfect at these concerts, remembering a memory lapse during Balakirev's Islamey, where Anton Rubinstein improvised in the style of the piece until remembering the rest of it four minutes later.

Anton Rubinstein conducted the Russian Musical Society programs from the organization's inception in 1859 until his resignation from it and the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1867.

Anton Rubinstein did his share of guest conducting both before and after his tenure with the RMS.

Anton Rubinstein could be exacting and expected as much from them as he gave to them.

Anton Rubinstein warned his students continually to guard against timidity, not to stop at a difficult place in a composition but to leave it and press ahead.

Anton Rubinstein encouraged them to write in sketches with indications of whatever form in which that piece would be written and to avoid composing at the piano.

Anton Rubinstein was able, and willing, to dash off for publication half a dozen songs or an album of piano pieces with all too fluent ease in the knowledge that his reputation would ensure a gratifying financial reward for the effort involved.

Glinka, as Dehn's student 12 years before Anton Rubinstein, used the opportunity to amass greater reserves of compositional skill that he could use to open up a whole new territory of Russian music.

Anton Rubinstein, conversely, chose to exercise his compositional talents within the German styles illustrated in Dehn's teaching.

Anton Rubinstein had a tendency to rush in composing his pieces, resulting in good ideas such as those in his Ocean Symphony being developed in less-than-exemplary ways.

Anton Rubinstein was prone to indulge in grandiloquent cliches at moments of climax, preceded by over-lengthy rising sequences which were subsequently imitated by Tchaikovsky in his less-inspired pieces.

Anton Rubinstein was as well known during his lifetime for his sarcasm as well as his sometimes penetrating insight.

Anton Rubinstein's manner with them was a combination of raw, sometimes violent criticism and good humor.

Nor did Anton Rubinstein adjust the tenor of his comments for those of high rank.

Anton Rubinstein is heard to make a complimentary remark about the phonograph recorder.