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Arthur Rubinstein's Milestone Moscow Recital · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Hello everybody, my name is Jed Distler and this is the piano maven, your friendly guide
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  to piano recordings. When people ask me just what was it that made Arthur Rubinstein so
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  special, I usually will say go watch the video of his Moscow recital from 1964. That will
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  show you what was special about Rubinstein. Let me give you a little bit of background
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  about this incredible concert. In the fall of 1964, Arthur Rubinstein returned to Russia
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  for the first time in many years after the death of Stalin in 1953. There started to
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  be a tentative exchange between artists in the West and Russian musicians and a lot of
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  this exchange was brokered by the legendary Empress Aria Saul Hirach who had a virtual
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  monopoly in presenting Soviet performers in the United States. And he also happened to
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  be Arthur Rubinstein's manager. He was the one who brought Rubinstein back to New York
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  in the late 1930s and that really helped Rubinstein re-establish himself with the American public
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  and his career really solidified from there internationally. Anyway, Hirach convinced
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  Arthur Rubinstein that he had a return to Russia and play concerts in Moscow and Leningrad.
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  And Rubinstein agreed and he gave an all-Shopan recital at the Moscow Conservatory's Great
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  Hall on October 1st, 1964 and the event was both televised and recorded. The recital was
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  released on LP on the Soviet Melodia label, but it was never available in the West. Eventually
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  the recital was reissued as part of the big Arthur Rubinstein edition of his complete
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  recordings that RCA brought out in 1999 in a big box set. But it was not included in
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  Sony BMG's complete Rubinstein album collection that came out in 2011. However, the televised
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  recital was preserved for decades in the Russian state television archives and it finally came
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  out on home video on DVD through Medici classics. Unlike many pianists, Rubinstein's artistry
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  kept growing and ripening and maturing with age and he was playing pretty much at full
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  capacity, well into his 80s. He was 77 at the time of the Moscow recital and everything
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  is there, literally. His big technique, his fantastic sense of projection and a musicality
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  that's characterized by emotional health. He had an incredible inner sense of proportion,
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  yet also a willingness to play out and to let go and take risks that he would not always
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  permit himself to do in his studio recordings. But if you look at him playing, young pianists
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  who like to emote at the keyboard and indulge in all kinds of gesticulation will be shocked
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  at just how calm and centered Rubinstein is at the piano. He's sitting upright, no extraneous
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  gestures, the power is all in the music. And both the first and final selections on this
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  program, which are respectively the F-Shart minor pollinets of Chopin, Opus 44 and Chopin's
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  famous Ab pollinets, Opus 53, find Rubinstein on larger than life form. He plays these works
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  with incredible rhythmic swagger. This is big, big piano playing, yet it's never over
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  the top, it's never vulgar and it's never audience-baiting. It's just totally heartfelt.
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  Now what's interesting is that in the B-flat minor sonata of Chopin, the funeral march
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  sonata, Rubinstein seems just a little bit unsettled at the beginning of the scherzo,
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  and he has a slight memory lapse from which he recovers pretty easily. This is a great
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  example of how a seasoned professional improvises his or her way out of a jam. Now on the RCA
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  compact disc transfer of this performance, you hear that Rubinstein actually re-recorded
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  the passage he messed up to correct the memory lapse. But you can really hear this happen
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  because there's a very drastic change of ambience and the splice point is so blatantly obvious.
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  So it does sound kind of weird. Whereas on the video, the memory lapse is preserved. It's
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  also preserved on a CD edition of the main part of this recital that was issued on the
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  Russian revelation label, which is out of print. Anyway, after the sonata, Rubinstein
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  plays Chopin's barcara, and I personally think this is the greatest performance I've ever
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  heard of the Chopin barcara, especially in the coda. He makes this long and luxurious
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  ritard dondo that's not indicated in the score, yet it allows all of Chopin's elaborate
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  counterpoint and harmonic complexity room to breathe and room for the most tender expression.
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  And every time I watch or listen to this performance of the coda, I always wind up crying. And
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  also Rubinstein plays four Chopin etudes wonderfully well. Rubinstein was always reluctant to make
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  a studio recording of the Chopin etudes, but he obviously need not have worried about the
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  competition. And because Rubinstein always chose his encore spontaneously, he ventures
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  outside of Chopin to play Deys Abens from Schumann's Fantasie, a stuc. Again, it's a really beautiful
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  performance. He also plays Debussy's Andine from the Preludes book two. This was a Rubinstein
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  specialty and he always played this fantastically. And he closes with a signature encore, the
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  Villa Lobos o Policinello. Did I pronounce that right? Policinello, Policinello. I don't know.
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  I used to speak Portuguese and I totally forgot it. But what's important is that this recital
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  basically is a big love fest between the Russian public and Arthur Rubinstein. And few pianists
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  projected their mastery with such generosity of spirit and all in the service of the music,
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  yet never overly reverential and never pedantic and never self-serving. This was really what
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  Rubinstein was about. So if you can find this recital on DVD from Medici Classics, grab it.
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  But if you want the best audio sound of this recital, you have to find volume, what is it?
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  Let me look at my cover here. You have to find volume 62 of the RCA Rubinstein collection
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  issued in 1999. You might still be able to find this volume second hand or I think it's
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  also available as a download or through streaming services. But like I said earlier, the RCA version
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  has the correction of that memory lapse in a very clumsy edit. But honestly, however you acquire
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  this recital, this is the essence of Arthur Rubinstein and this recital belongs in every serious
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  piano collection. This is Jed Dissler for the Piano Maven podcast and thank you for listening
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  and please spread the good word and tell everyone about this podcast. I will be with you next time.