Anton Rubinstein - Rubinstein's Repartee

Rubinstein's Repartee

Rubinstein was as well known during his lifetime for his sarcasm as well as his sometimes penetrating insight. During one of Rubinstein's visits to Paris, French pianist Alfred Cortot played the first movement of Beethoven's Appassionata for him. After a long silence, Rubinstein told Cortot, "My boy, don't you ever forget what I am going to tell you. Beethoven's music must not be studied. It must be reincarnated." Cortot reportedly never forgot those words.

Rubinstein's own piano students were held just as accountable: he wanted them to think about the music they were playing, matching the tone to the piece and the phrase. His manner with them was a combination of raw, sometimes violent criticism and good humor. Hofmann wrote of one such lesson:

Once I played a Liszt rhapsody pretty badly. After a little of it, Rubinstein said, "The way you play this piece would be all right for Auntie or Mamma." Then rising and coming toward me, he said, "Now let us see how we play such things." I began again, but I had not played more than a few measures when Rubinstein said loudly, "Have you begun?" "Yes, Master, I certainly have." "Oh," said Rubinstein vaguely, "I didn't notice." Rubinstein did not so much instruct me. Merely he let me learn from him ... If a student, by his own study and mental force, reached the desired point which the musician's wizardry had made him see, he gained reliance in his own strength, knowing he would always find that point again even though he should lose his way once or twice, as everyone with an honest aspiration is liable to do.

Rubinstein's insistence on absolute fidelity to the printed note surprised Hofmann, since he had heard his teacher take liberties himself in his concerts. When he asked Rubinstein to reconcile this paradox, Rubinstein answered, as many teachers have through the ages, "When you are as old as I am, you may do as I do." Then Rubinstein added, "If you can".

Nor did Rubinstein adjust the tenor of his comments for those of high rank. After Rubinstein had reassumed the directorship of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tsar Alexander III donated the dilapidated old Bolshoi Theater as the Conservatory's new home—without the funds needed to restore and restructure the facility. At a reception given in the monarch's honor, the Tsar asked Rubinstein if he was pleased with this gift. Rubinstein replied bluntly, to the crowd's horror, "Your Imperial Majesty, if I gave you a beautiful cannon, all mounted and embossed, with no ammunition, would you like it?"