
Arthur and Sergei
April 1, 2018
Today, April 1st, is the pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birthday.
Which reminds me of a story.
“Which reminds me of a story,” said the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, turning to us, the Guarneri String Quartet, while remaining seated at the piano. We four happily put down our instruments, having just been bathed in Rubinstein’s ravishing playing, leaned back in our chairs, and prepared for yet another of his irresistible tales. It was something that had already occurred many times while we rehearsed for the three concerts we would perform together in New York City, London, and Paris, and the ten works we eventually recorded with him.
Something, anything, could set Rubinstein off, great raconteur that he was. It could happen between movements or even while we stopped to rehearse a specific musical passage. And it could be a story about someone of significance that Rubinstein had encountered—painter Pablo Picasso or composer Maurice Ravel, for example?or it could be about a situation in which Rubinstein himself had been made the fool. He particularly loved those kinds of stories, which I thought endearing for a man of his stature.
“You know, the Grieg Piano Concerto was Rachmaninoff’s absolutely favorite of all concertos,” Rubinstein announced. This, I certainly did not know. I love the Grieg Concerto as much as anyone, but to regard it above concertos written by giants such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms? I found that hard to believe.
And yet with hindsight these many years later, I can begin to understand Rachmaninoff’s preference. A friend, visiting none other than the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok in New York City, found him studying the score of the Grieg Concerto. Bartok, representing a radical new direction in music, told his surprised friend that he admired not only the work itself but also the way in which Grieg had turned to the musical language of his homeland, Norway, for inspiration. Bartok himself had drawn on the folk idiom of his native Hungary, and one could make that case for Rachmaninoff as well. Rachmaninoff’s signature voice is clearly embedded in everything he composed, but also his Russian soul?its melancholy and its soaring lyricism.
I can no longer remember what reminded Rubinstein of Rachmaninoff’s love for the Grieg Concerto. Perhaps we were rehearsing on April 1st, Rachmaninoff’s birthday, or it might have been that Rubinstein had just heard our recording of Grieg’s String Quartet in G Minor, but in any case, Rubinstein had more to say.
“At one point, I recorded the Grieg Concerto,” Rubinstein recounted. “You know how it is with recordings. Some you like, some you wish you had done better. In this case, however, I had never been more pleased than with this recording’s outcome. Rachmaninoff and I were old friends and we both lived in Los Angeles at the time. Why not invite him and his wife to dinner as I, and my wife, had done many times before? Of course, in this case I had an ulterior motive. Against my better judgment, I dearly wanted to show off my new recording of the Grieg, a work so dear to Rachmaninoff. He, the great pianist and artist, would love my performance, I hoped?the grandest compliment imaginable.”

Arthur Rubinstein in 1971. Photo © Dorothea von Haeften
Rubinstein, clearly relishing the remembrance of this event, told us that the dinner took place without incident, followed by dessert and coffee. This was the moment that Rubinstein had planned all along, and gathering up his courage, he asked Rachmaninoff, “Sergei, I’ve just recorded the Grieg Piano Concerto, and if it wouldn’t be too, too much of an imposition, would you mind listening to it?” Rachmaninoff, a man of few words, merely nodded in assent.
Rubenstein continued his story: “Rachmaninoff sat impassively as we listened, while I squirmed. I was hoping for a favorable response from the man who was generally regarded as the greatest pianist of his time. But Rachmaninoff revealed not a touch of emotion on that stone face of his,” Rubinstein remembered, adding Rachmaninoff’s sober facial expression for comical effect.

Sergei Rachmaninoff
“When the Grieg came to an end, the silence that followed seemed to last forever. Rachmaninoff sat quite still in his chair as if he were a statue. Eventually, he roused himself from his introspection and turned to me.
“‘Arthur,’ he said.’ ‘Yes, Sergei’ I answered, leaning forward as my heart beat faster in expectation of what he might say. ‘Arthur, the piano is out of tune.’”
It was vintage Rubinstein, with him as the butt of the joke. When our laughter subsided, he turned back to the keyboard, we picked up our instruments once again, and the rehearsal continued with sounds of indescribable beauty issuing forth from the piano?that is, until Rubinstein told us his next story, not very much later.
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Comments
As ever, you are a superb raconteur ! Please keep writing in the key of strawberry. You are never out of tune! And enjoy your new life in SAnta Fe. What a glorious choice! Love, love . I will miss you.
Happy Birthday to you too today!!! Many many happy returns!
Love your blog,
Wendy & Peter
A perfect story (as always) for April 1. Thank you!!!
LOL. You got me. I wasn’t expecting this end. Appropriate story for April Fool’s day.
Truly delightful story. All I remember of hearing Rubenstein playing was that, when he played loud,big chords, he would push his hands down so hard, he would propel himself off the piano bench; in short, he looked as if he were jumping up and down.
Thanks for relating Arnold. It’s a story from an era which sadly in many ways, has passed.
I was staggered by the sums – according to one of his biographers – Rubinstein received for concerts and recordings post-WW2.
When one thinks how hard it is for many classical performers now…
Thanks Arnold for the delightful stories. In the spring of 1956, I was on an overnight train to NYC from Cincinnati to audition for Leonard Rose at his home in Great Neck, L.I. The train was delayed for over an hour in Pittsburgh. Impatiently, I asked the conductor about
the delay. He responded that we were waiting for an important person to board. Early the next morning, upon arrival in NYC, I woke up and looked out the window and saw Rubinstein with his young son, John, waiting for their luggage! As I got off the train and walked past him with my cello, we exchanged knowing smiles as to why the train was delayed. My smile also contained a sense of pride in that a famous musician was so honored!
This delightful story about Arthur Rubinstein, in addition to the sad news of Michael Tree’s recent passing, made playing my LP of the Dvorak E-flat Piano Quartet by Rubinstein and member of the Guarneri Quartet irresistible. This record, along with several other landmark recordings, were left to me by a long time subscriber to our Ensemble Music Society series.
Dear Arnold, you are as wonderful as Rubinstein telling us your stories. Paolo and me send you big hugs and lots of love for your birthday. Same day as Sergei Rachmaninoff.
We miss you and Dodo a lot. Living in Mexico is not easy for us coming to see you so often as we used to do in the past!
Love Maru
Please consider doing a podcast too- sometimes I don’t have time to read the post for a few weeks, and it would be great to listen to them in a podcast as well
Brilliant!
It is a great post, I’ve been working with the course for about a week now, and it’s incredible. Just the practice aids and the different scales and memory techniques in Book 9 are worth the price of the course, alone! There are two things that make this course stand out. First, all the video and audio files are embedded in the lesson. I have yet to find another piano course that makes it this easy. It’s so nice not to have three files going at the same time!
For more information click here : https://bit.ly/2KkmfNs
Arnold, I was an undergraduate at Harpur College when the Guaneri Quartet was in residence there and I attended every concert when you played the full cycle of Beethoven String Quartets. I bought a book with the scores and one of the most blissful highlights of my life was listening
while visually following along with the score in advance of each concert. The next year I went to graduate school at SUNY at Buffalo, NY and you were all there and I got to hear you doing the Beethoven cycle again. I had some closer interactions with David Soyer who was always very sweet to me, a startstruck teenager. Now, some 50 years later, I have discovered some of your music on youtube and am re-living that bliss, listening again, and again I have a book with the scores to follow along. Just wanted to say hello after 50 years, and thank you for some of the most ecstatic moments of my life..this is not hyperbole..saddened to see that both David Soyer and Michael Tree are gone, but o what a legacy they have left. With great fondness and deep gratitude, Carol Olicker
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