ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN (1887–1982) DIMITRI ... - Chandos

Guild GmbH
Switzerland
GHCD 2355
2009 Guild GmbH
© 2009 Guild GmbH
ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN (1887–1982)
DIMITRI MITROPOULOS (1896–1960)
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ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833-1887)
In the Steppes of Central Asia – musical picture 7:44
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22 ‡
I. Andante sostenuto 10:47
II. Allegro scherzando 5:53
III. Presto 6:03
CÉSAR FRANCK (1822-1890)
Symphonic Variations – piano and orchestra ‡ 14:21
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
Le Poeme de l'extase ('Poem of Ecstasy'), Op.54 18:17
ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN piano ‡
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
conducted by
DIMITRI MITROPOULOS
(Complete Concert, Carnegie Hall, 19 April 1953)

A GUILD HISTORICAL RELEASE
• Remastering: Peter Reynolds
• Final master preparation: Reynolds Mastering, Colchester, England
• Recording made available by courtesy of Claudio von Förster
• Design: Paul Brooks, Design & Print – Oxford
• Art direction: Guild GmbH
• Executive co-ordination: Guild GmbH
• Photographs courtesy of The Tully Potter Collection
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The performing career of the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein was probably the longest
in history; it was also one of the most illustrious. Rubinstein was born in the Polish
city of Lodz in January, 1887 and he made his first public appearance in December,
1894 at a charity concert at the age of seven. He last played in public in London, a recital
at the Wigmore Hall, in 1976, at the age of 89, with his powers undiminished, including
a performance of Schumann’s Carnaval that will forever remain in the memory of those
who heard it.
In the first volume of his autobiography My Young Years, published in 1973, he said he
‘was introduced to Brahms’ in 1896 - when Rubinstein was nine - although whether this
statement referred to meeting Brahms himself, or coming into contact with Brahms’s music
for the first time, was always, to some degree, doubtful. On the other hand, Rubinstein’s
powers of recall remained remarkably intact, even after his retirement from the concert
platform, well into his 90s, and one must assume that for a very musical 9-year-old,
meeting the great composer would have made a lasting impression. What cannot be denied
is that opportunities for the young Rubinstein to meet with Brahms certainly existed, and
it is beyond dispute that the boy was very strongly encouraged by Joseph Joachim in the
late 1890s, immediately following Brahms’s death. It is unlikely that Joachim would have
done this had the boy not shown a marked empathy for Brahms’s music – although, of
course, he was still a boy. According to Daniel Barenboim, Rubinstein said that Brahms’s
music was his first and greatest love; and it was Joachim who conducted for Rubinstein’s
official debut, in Berlin in 1900, when he played a Mozart Concerto at the age of 13.
From the start of Rubinstein’s career, his artistry was self-evident, and during the next
three-quarters of a century he became one of the most admired pianists before the public.
In 1905, still only 18 years old, he moved to Paris, meeting many of the most famous
musicians of the day, including Saint-Saëns, who commended Rubinstein warmly on
hearing him play his Second Piano Concerto in G minor. The following year, still not quite
19, Rubinstein made his American debut at Carnegie Hall in that self-same Saint-Saëns
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Concerto. Thus, through this recording of a complete Carnegie Hall concert from 47 years
later, we can hear a matchless performance of the work by a pianist whose interpretation
elicited praise from the composer himself.
In the course of pursuing a world-wide career from that first decade of the 20th-century,
and making many recordings over more than 50 years, by the time of this concert in 1953
Rubinstein had established homes in Europe (in Paris and Geneva) and in the United States
(in Beverly Hills and New York). Although his Carnegie Hall debut in 1906 had been with
the Philadelphia Orchestra, Rubinstein forged close links with all the major American
orchestras, especially in concert with the New York Philharmonic (the Philharmonic-
Symphony Orchestra of New York, to give it its proper title at the time). Rubinstein and
the Philharmonic could not record together commercially – at least, ostensibly under the
Orchestra’s name – for they were under exclusive contract to rival companies, Rubinstein
to RCA and the Philharmonic to CBS. Therefore, the existence of an off-air recording of
pianist and orchestra together affords the music-lover with a rare opportunity of hearing
the partnership ‘on the wing’, so to speak - in this instance with two concertos in the same
programme.
One of the more remarkable characteristics of Rubinstein’s concert-giving was that
he would often perform more than one concerto in a programme; certainly, in London
in his final year as a concert artist, and at the age of 88, he played no fewer than three on
one occasion at the Royal Albert Hall, with Daniel Barenboim conducting the London
Philharmonic – the concertos being all by Beethoven, the Third, Fourth and Fifth!
Rubinstein’s early years in Paris, and his profound life-long empathy with French music
and culture, especially in the few decades following the appearance of these works, give his
performances of the Saint-Saëns Concerto and of Cesar Franck’s Variations Symphoniques a
special authority, made more valuable by the partnership of the Philharmonic under its
then chief conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos.
Mitropoulos was one of the most astonishingly gifted all-round musicians of his day. A
great conductor – of that, there can be no doubt – and a staggeringly gifted pianist as well,
as well as a composer, this Greek-born musician possessed a phenomenal photographic
memory. He never used a score, even at rehearsals (for example, he gave the American
premiere of Berg’s opera Wozzeck, reportedly taking all 18 rehearsals without a score, calling
out bar numbers and rehearsal letters to the participants when necessary). His partnership
with Rubinstein in these performances is exemplary. Although Rubinstein had been born
in Poland, and Mitropoulos in Greece, they had both became naturalised American citizens
in the same year, 1946.
We can hear Mitropoulos by himself, so to speak, in the two other works in the
programme – Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy – the latter
work being one of which Mitropoulos was particularly fond, although older New Yorkers
present on this occasion might well have recalled both the circumstances which led Scriabin
and his female companion to leave the city in 1907 under a cloud of disapprobation, and
the world premiere of the Poem of Ecstasy which the Russian-born conductor Modest
Altschuler gave in New York in 1908.
Be that as it may, there is no question that in these two purely orchestral colourful
masterpieces, Mitropoulos demonstrates his great qualities as a conductor of Russian
music, and the outstanding playing of this world-class orchestra – an ensemble older, in
fact, than the Vienna Philharmonic – particularly in the high Romanticism of Scriabin’s
Poem, the more sensual characteristics of which are finely conveyed by a profound sense
of underlying architectural strength supporting a wondrous sense of atmosphere and
sheer feeling for beauty, attributes of a great conductor and orchestra still apparent to the
attentive listener from a broadcast of more than half a century ago.
© Robert Matthew-Walker, 2009
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GHCD 2355
RUBINSTEIN • MITROPOULOS • New York, 1953 GHCD 2355
ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833-1887)
In the Steppes of Central Asia – musical picture
These are rare ’live’ recordings from second generation transcriptions which have been remastered to a high
standard; however some patches of noise, dropouts and distortion remain.
2009 Guild GmbH © 2009 Guild GmbH Printed and made in England
Guild GmbH • Switzerland
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22 ‡
I. Andante sostenuto II. Allegro scherzando
III. Presto
CÉSAR FRANCK (1822-1890)
Symphonic Variations – piano and orchestra ‡
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
Le Poeme de l'extase ('Poem of Ecstasy'), Op.54
ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN piano ‡
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
conducted by
DIMITRI MITROPOULOS
(Complete Concert, Carnegie Hall, 19 April 1953)
Total Time: 63:44
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RUBINSTEIN • MITROPOULOS • New York, 1953 GHCD 2355