Rubinstein Concert: 3rd

“The third of the series of Rubinstein concerts, at Steinway Hall, took place last evening, and was attended by a very large concourse. The cooler atmosphere without had an immediate influence within the house, and there was no obstacle whatever to a thorough enjoyment of the programme. The most notable number of the bill was Schumann’s concerto in A minor, a superb work, which Mr. Rubinstein, it is almost superfluous to say, interpreted with exceeding sentiment and marvelous technique. The pianist afterward recited a suite, including the usual sarabande, passe-pied, courante and gavotte; Beethoven’s sonata in C major, and a nocturne and a polonaise by Chopin. The delivery of the sonata elicited the most enthusiastic demonstration of pleasure yet evoked, for cheers supplemented the applause, and were given with a persistency which would have secured an encore-piece from any artist but the one they were intended to honor. The nocturne in C minor was not so impressive; the polonaise (in A minor) was magnificently played. Mr. Wieniawski’s most conspicuous task was the rendering of Paganini’s variations on ‘Le Carnaval de Venise,’ in which passages in faultless harmonics and astonishing staccati caused frequent interruptions of delight. Mlle. Ormény won a recall and a demand for a repeat by a dashing Hungarian song. The piano accompaniments were supplied, as heretofore, by Mr. Riembelinski, a very modest and proficient performer, and Mr. Bergmann directed the orchestra.”

“The coming of so great a man as Rubinstein to this country is a most notable event. Life is short, but art is long, says the proverb; and here we have a man who has barely attained maturity, and yet has reached the final results of his profession. Listening to him we feel that we are in the presence of the one person in all the world who is the complete master of the pianoforte, who controls most absolutely all its moods, resources, mechanism, and possibilities, and has subdued it to his own purposes. What it refuses to his hand it can give to that of no other living man.

It may seem like the language of exaggeration to give Rubinstein credit for the possession of all the qualities that make a perfect pianist; but this is a case where what seems exaggeration is simply fact. He has been heard on three occasions here in public; but it was perfectly evident to every one at the close of the initial movement of the concerto, with which he opened his first concert, that here was a pianist whose powers so far transcended those of all others who had been heard in this country, that now for the first time we heard the piano really played. He revealed all its hidden powers, and in spite of the limitations and shortcomings that make it one of the most imperfect of instruments, compelled it to express all that is best and noblest in music.

In all that he has since done he has only given fresh illustration of the variety and extent of the power that in the first five minutes was so unmistakable. The pieces that he has chosen have ranged through every mood in the whole scale of emotion. Some of them have required a massive touch, the rugged force of a harmonious blacksmith; some have called for a womanly sensibility of feeling; others impetuous; and still others playful. But Rubinstein is equally master of all modes.

Every one knows Goethe’s touching ballad of the Erl-King so perfectly set to music by Schubert; but few believed that the pianoforte could be made to give expression to the soft wooing of the Erl-King’s daughters, the wild, alarmed cries of the child, the soothing voice of the father, with such vivid distinctness and such complete individuality as it did under Rubinstein’s touch. The imaginative story was told with a dramatic intensity that astonished every hearer.

So, too, with Schumann’s carnival pictures—a series of twenty-one connected sketches, of which the composer himself had but an indifferent opinion, and with which but few pianists ever have the hardihood to trust themselves before the public. This is partly because the great length of the piece makes it doubtful if the attention of the listeners can be held to the end, and partly because it is fanciful and subtle—the metaphysics of music. But under Rubinstein’s interpretation it has been heard not only with patience, but with the most intense and earnest interest; and at its close the player received such an outbreak of applause as is seldom witnessed, even the usually stolid members of the orchestra being stirred up to a certain wild and unaccustomed enthusiasm.

The great G major concerto of Beethoven required a still different exercise of power, its elevation of feeling demands a player of universal culture and the largest scope. The dignity of the first movement, the unsurpassed pathos of the second, the playfulness of the rondo, and the impetuosity of the finale, all found in Rubinstein an enlightened and sympathetic interpreter. The cadenzas that he introduced in the first and last movements were his own, and were constructed in a simple, reverential spirit. They were not mere virtuoso displays, distracting the hearer’s mind from the composer’s thought to the executant’s fingers, but like pauses in the reading of the great tone-poem where the hearers stopped to praise and marvel at its wonderful flow and beauty. As Rubinstein played Beethoven’s composition those who looked up from the face of the pianist to the bust of the great composer above it could not fail to be struck by the strong likeness between the two—the overhanging brows, the set and rugged features, the shaggy hair, the look of the man of art and not of the man of the world.

We have not referred to Rubinstein’s greatness as a composer, and yet that of itself, if he had never played a note, entitles him to the foremost rank among the men of genius of their day. His works are marked by extraordinary originality, a vivid imagination, and fine melodic invention. They embrace every form of music from simple songs up to operas, and from pianoforte compositions and stringed trios and quartettes up to symphonies. None are commonplace, and many of them are the results of true inspiration. The Ocean symphony, for example is entitled to rank among the best of its class; and those who wish to find fresh emotions and new musical experience will do well to acquaint themselves with the songs for soprano voice and the charming duets of soprano and alto that Rubinstein has produced.

To the paltry offerings of flowers and laurel crowns brought in at a signal and paraded down the aisles with an ostentation that only serves to make the receiver of them ridiculous, Rubinstein is not only indifferent, but absolutely contemptuous; but for spontaneous expressions of pleasure from his audience he is evidently grateful, and these he has called forth more unreservedly than any previous pianist.

It will be fortunate for us in the end if, with all the delight that he brings, Rubinstein does not make all future pianoforte playing seem tame and insipid. At any rate, his career in this country will not tend to lighten the labors of those who succeed him.”

“Whatever doubts may be entertained of the popular appreciation of the great talents of Rubinstein and Wieniawski, those twin genii of instrumental music, were effectually dispelled at the third concert last night. Skeptics will smile when they hear that the pianist was called out four times after the performance of the A minor concerto of Schumann, and audience and orchestra cheered to the echo the concluding piece in the programme, the A flat polonaise of Chopin. Schumann’s concerto in A minor, with which the New York public have become familiarized through the efforts of some of our own pianists, had the first place among Rubinstein’s selections last evening, and he played it superbly. It is a work difficult to make effective, as the piano part is so interwoven with the orchestra that to individualize it and carry it through the mass of instrumentation unscathed in its beauty of melody, light and shade of treatment and variety of idea, is a gigantic task. The natural impetuosity of the pianist was not quite en rapport with the majestic measures of the Beethoven sonata, and it was the least effective to us of all the works he has so far essayed. Beethoven’s sonatas demand a repose [illegible line] and easy flow of style foreign to the nature of the Russian pianist. Yet there were occasional flashes of the rare genius that inspires him, particularly in the beautiful theme that commences the second movement. He played a suite of his own (‘Sarabande, Passe Pied, Courante and Gavotte’), which seemed to have the true Bach or Handelian flavor about it, but which was better adapted for a chamber recital than a large concert hall.

There was a perceptible air of slovenliness about the interpretation of Chopin’s nocturne in C minor, caused probably by the nervousness and chagrin evinced by the pianist when a gust of wind slammed the windows of the hall and an obtrusive dog made himself heard from an adjoining yard. But the polonaise was something to be remembered. It is one of those battle pictures which none but Chopin ever could limn on the keyboard of a piano. The clash of opposing armies, all the pomp and circumstance of war and its glittering panoply found a Vernet as an illustrator in Rubinstein. You heard the tramp of squadrons, the martial music that called them to the field, the struggle, victory and the plaints of the wounded. These immortal polonaises, created by the poet of the piano, should be introduced in all the Rubinstein concerts, since the Russian pianist has demonstrated his ability to grasp them in all their grandeur.

Fully equal to the success of Rubinstein was the triumph achieved by the Polish violinist. Paganini’s eccentric and fantastic transcription of the ‘Carnival of Venice’ has been played frequently here before by violinists whose names rank high on the roll of fame, but we will venture to say that Wieniawski is the only artist living, save, perhaps, Joachim, who can thoroughly master and make effective its eccentric treatment. Mr. Wieniawski played it with such a brio and clear, crisp finish that even the orchestra rose to a man, and applauded. He also gave two ornate works of his own in the first part with grace, brilliancy and expression. His style is the climax of art, easy, finished and intelligible in every particular, and his tone reflects every phase of expression as in a mirror. The name of Wieniawski as an executant is worthy of being placed beside that of Rubinstein. Mlles. Liebhart and Ormeny sung a couple of their selections and united their voices in a duet from ‘Don Giovanni.’”

“The great feature of the concert on Friday night was Rubinstein’s performance of the Schumann Concerto in A minor and the Beethoven Sonata in C major. The long and beautiful concerto is well known in New-York. Almost every player of celebrity has undertaken it. Miss Mehlig played it for the Philharmonic Society last year. Miss Krebs made a success with it the year before. It taxes all the best qualities of the artist,--quickness of appreciation, fineness of touch, sentiment, force, dexterity, and endurance. That Rubinstein excels in all these qualities we need hardly say. His sympathy with Schumann’s genius seems moreover to be perfect. He gave therefore such an interpretation of this noble work as we can never hope to hear from any other hands, filling it with new life and splendor, and making it speak to us in tones more eloquent than it ever uttered to us before. And yet we are not sure but he even surpassed this magnificent performance when he came to the Sonata. The spirit of Beethoven, in all its awful beauty, was revealed there. There was no criticism to be made upon it; one had only to bow one’s head and admire. A Suite of his own, consisting of a Saraband, a Passepied, a Courante, and a wonderful Gavotte, came next in interest. This was in Rubinstein’s most magnificent vein, closing with one of those unapproachable rapid fortissimo passages with which he so excites his audiences.

Herr Wieniawski played Beethoven’s Romanza in F (accompanied by the orchestra) with exquisite refinement and sentiment and a good broad free style, and gave also a Polonaise of his own, and the ‘Carnival of Venice.’ The programme in fine was of high character throughout, containing nothing common except a Hungarian song by Mlle. Ormeny. Mlle. Liebhart substituted for the ballad previously announced for her the ‘Voi che sapete’ from the ‘Marriage of Figaro,’ and gave also with Mlle. Ormeny the ‘Zephyr’ duet from the same opera.”

“The most interesting event which I have to record is the appearance of Anton Rubinstein, who has given three concerts and one matinée at Steinway Hall, under the management of Mr. Grau. These concerts took place on Sept. 23d, 25th, and 27th, with a matinée Sept. 28th, and are to be continued on Oct. 1st, 3d and 4th. Rubinstein has two great claims to eminence. He is a composer of acknowledged genius and originality, at a time when creative talent in music is in danger of becoming a thing of the past; and he is, moreover, one of the few great piano-forte players now living. Liszt, who is said to be his only rival, I have never heard, and therefore cannot compare the two artists. As a composer Wagner is his only rival.

In appearance Rubinstein is said to resemble Beethoven, and there certainly is something in that rugged earnestness of his face and manner which reminds one of the portrait of his great predecessor. As he approaches the piano he is heartily applauded and, in acknowledgment, he makes a low bow, half to the audience and half to the name plate of the piano. Then, with a quick wave of the hand he brushes back the hair which has fallen in thick, unkempt locks over his eyes, and seats himself at the piano. These little details of personal appearance you must notice before he begins to play, for, if you are musical, you will not perceive them afterwards. The piece is his own Concerto in D minor,--a composition which he generally selects in introducing himself to a strange audience, and which, if I mistake not, was performed by Miss Krebs at one of our Philharmonics last winter. As he plays, his face—always grave—becomes as impassible as the sphinx, and his far-reaching eye seems set upon some bright objective point, the culmination of a grand succession of chords which unrolls beneath his fingers. He is conscious of no hearers save the unseen, and to him the present moment, life itself, is but one link in the mighty chain of art.

The orchestra however is of the earth, earthy, and sundry nods and signals passing from the pianist to the conductor seem to tone down the too blatant brass, and send a new life thrilling through the violins. The admiration we feel for the player is not such as we bestow, but such as he compels. And when at the end of the Concerto, he faces a tempest of plaudits and bravos with an unmoved countenance, and declines, with a desperate wave of the hand, the flowers that are offered to him, we feel for the first [?] time, how extremely commonplace such demonstrations are. Rubinstein’s versatility is amusing. In the four concerts given last week he played, always without notes, the following compositions [paragraph listing the works].

If I might presume to criticize his playing in the least, I should say that the Beethoven Concerto, under his hands, was a little too strongly tinctured with the player’s own individuality; but to hear him play one of Schumann’s pieces is true food for memory.

Henri Wieniawski is an artist of considerable fame and no little merit. His playing has created a decided sensation, and there is no end to the number of newspaper paragraphs written in his praise. But it is injudicious to compare him with Vieuxtemps, or to say that Joachim is his rival. No violinist, now-a-days, can be ‘good,’ but he must be ‘the best.’

Mlle. Liebhart is a ballad singer of some note in England, and in her cool self-possession contrasts favorably with Mlle. Ormeni, who is subject to frequent attacks of ‘nerves’ when upon the stage.

A Sun reporter has ‘interviewed’ Rubinstein, and makes him give vent to a great deal of nonsense on the subject of music in general; but the whole report is to be taken with a grain of salt.”