Anton Rubinstein

This article is about the 19th century Russian pianist and composer. For the 20th century Polish pianist with a similar name, see Artur Rubinstein.

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн) (November 28, 1829 – November 20, 1894) was a Jewish-born, Russian pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival to Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the greatest keyboard virtuosi.

Life

Rubinstein was born in Vikhvatinets (now in Transnistria, Republic of Moldova). He learned the piano from an early age, and made his first public appearance at the age of nine. He was taken to Paris, and then to Berlin, where he and his brother Nikolai studied composition and theory with Siegfried Dehn. Here he met with, and was supported by, Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer. He then moved to Vienna, where he briefly taught, before returning to Russia in 1848 where he worked as a musician to the sister-in-law of the Tsar.

He began to tour again as a pianist in the late 1850s, before settling in St. Petersburg, where in 1862 he founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the first music school in Russia. He also continued to make tours as a pianist, and spent a short stint teaching in Dresden towards the end of his life.

Rubinstein died in Peterhof, having suffered from heart disease for some time. All his life he had felt himself something of an outsider; he wrote of himself in his notebooks -

“Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew. Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary. My conclusion is that I am neither fish nor fowl – a pitiful individual”.

The street in St. Petersburg where he lived is now named after him.

Composition

Rubinstein was a prolific composer, writing no less than twenty operas (notably Demon, written after Lermontov's Romantic poem), five piano concerti, six symphonies and a large number of solo piano works along with a substantial output of works for chamber ensemble, two concertos for cello and one for violin, free-standing orchestral works and tone poems (including one entitled Don Quixote).

Rubinstein's music demonstrates none of the nationalism of The Five, and in fact he spoke out against Russian nationalism, leading to arguments with Mily Balakirev and others who felt that his establishment of a Conservatory in St. Petersburg would damage Russian musical traditions. In the tirades of the Russian nationalists, the Jewish birth of Anton and his brother was frequently held against them. Nonetheless, it is Nikolai Rubinstein's pupil Tchaikovsky who has become perhaps popularly identified with Russia more than any other composer.

Following Rubinstein's death, his works began to be ignored, although his piano concerti remained in the repertoire in Europe until the First World War, and his principal works have retained a toehold in the Russian concert repertoire. Falling into no dynamic tradition, and perhaps somewhat lacking in individuality, Rubinstein's music was simply unable to compete either with the established classics or with the new Russian style of Stravinsky and Prokofiev. Rubinstein had consistently identified himself with the more conservative traditions in European music of his time. He had little time for the music of Richard Wagner and other musical radicals. Mendelssohn remained an idol throughout Rubinstein's life; he often performed his music in his own recitals; his own solo piano music contains many echoes of Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann.

Over recent years, his work has been performed a little more often both in Russia and abroad, and has often met with positive criticism. Amongst his better known works are the opera The Demon, his Piano Concerto No. 4, and his Symphony No. 2, known as The Ocean.

Other Rubinsteins

Anton Rubinstein was the brother of the pianist and composer Nikolai Rubinstein, but was no relation to the 20th century pianist, Arthur Rubinstein.

Selected Worklist

Symphonies
- Symphony op. 40, in F major
- Symphony opus 42, in C major Ocean
- Symphony opus 56, in A
- Symphony opus 95 in D minor Dramatic
- Symphony opus 107, in G minor
- Symphony opus 111, in A minor
Other orchestral works
- Triumphal Overture, opus 43
- Ivan IV, opus 79
- Don Quixote, opus 87
- Eroica, opus 110
- Suite, opus 119
Concerti
- Violin Concerto opus 46, in G
- Violoncello Concerto opus 65 in A minor
- Violoncello Concerto opus 96, in D minor
- Piano Concerti
  - Piano Concerto opus 25 in E minor
  - Piano Concerto opus 35 in F major
  - Piano Concerto opus 45 in G major
  - Piano Concerto No. 4 opus 70 in D minor
  - Fantasy for piano with or without orch opus 84 in C
  - Piano Concerto opus 94 in E-flat major (dedicated to Charles-Valentin Alkan)
  - Concertstuck opus 113 in A-flat major
Chamber works
- Solo Piano
  - Sonata for Piano opus 12 in E minor
  - Sonata for Piano opus 20 in C minor
  - Sonata for Piano opus 41 in F major
  - Sonata for Piano opus 100 in A minor
  - Album de Peterhof, op. 75
  - Kamenniy-Ostrov, (set of piano sketches), op. 10
  - Melody in F, op. 3 no. 1
  - Ondine (étude), op. 1
  - Six soirees á Saint-Petersburg, op. 44
- Ensemble music with piano
  - Sonata for Piano Four-Hands opus 89
  - Sonata for Violin and Piano opus 13 in G major
  - Sonata for Violin and Piano opus 19 in A minor
  - Sonata for Violin and Piano opus 98 in B minor
  - Sonata for Viola and Piano opus 49 in F minor
  - Sonata for Cello and Piano opus 18 in D major
  - Sonata for Cello and Piano opus 39 in G major
  - Piano Trio opus 15 number 1 in F
  - Piano Trio opus 15 number 2 in G minor
  - Piano Trio opus 52 in B-flat major
  - Piano Trio opus 85 in A major
  - Piano Trio opus 108 in C minor
  - Quartet for Piano and Strings opus 66
  - Quintet for Piano and Winds opus 55 in F major
  - Quintet for Piano and Strings opus 99 in G minor
  - Octet opus 9 for piano, strings and winds (from a first attempt at a piano concerto and entitled Concerto di camera)
- Other Chamber Music
  - Quintet for Strings opus 59 in F major (arranged also as Piano Quartet)
  - Sextet for Strings opus 97 in D major
  - Three quartets, opus 17 (in G major, C minor and F major)
  - Three quartets, opus 47 (in E minor, B flat major, and D minor)
  - Two quartets, opus 90
  - Two quartets, opus 106 (in A flat major and F minor)
Operas
- The Demon
- Feramors
- The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov
- The Maccabees
- Nero
- Sulamith
- The Tower of Babel, op. 80
- Unter Räubern
Oratorio
- Paradise Lost, op. 54 see review

References

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein, ed. L. Barenboim, Literary Works (3 vol.), (in Russian), Moscow 1983
Lev Aronovich Barenboim, Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (2 vol.), (in Russian), Moscow 1957-62
Tatyana Khoprova (ed.), Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein, (in Russian), St. Petersburg 1997 ISBN 5822700292