ANTON RUBINSTEIN
Marius van Paassen plays on CD I:
Sonata opus 100
Prelude opus 24 dedicated to Clara Schumann
Variations opus 93 on Yankee Doodle (FIRST RECORDING OF THIS COMPOSITION)
ATTACCA BABEL 8741-4 DDD
Library of congress (USA) number: 90750360
Sponsored by Cristofori in Amsterdam
Gustav Mahler:'He is the thundering, but also
very elegant gentleman from Petersburg who will tell you with grandeur and
Slavic straight forwardness what’s on his mind. He comes straight to the point.
A gentleman from Russia with a overwhelming enthusiasm for music. His opera,
The Demon, is a great elaborate piece of music that belongs to the everlasting
masterpieces of this century.’
An artist who is worshipped by one generation
may be forgotten just as easily by the next. The way our cultural heritage is
judged changes with each new era. The legendary Anton Rubinstein has been
ignored for half a century now. This is all the more fascinating because he
played a central part in musical life in the 19th century. His compositions
ware performed throughout Europe by people like Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, C.
Saint Saëns, Hans von Bülow, Johannes Brahms and other renowned musicians. His
popularity as a pianist was equalled only by Franz Liszt. For hours the people
would queue up for tickets and sometimes the police had to be called to
maintain order. Enthusiastic fans even climbed into the chandeliers not to miss
anything of his performance. Why has Rubinstein fallen into oblivion in our
century?
One of the explanations could be that with the
present day style of playing his music could hardly be brought to life.
Rubinstein's piano- playing - together with that of Franz Liszt regarded as the
most impressive of the 1 9th century - concentrated radically on character and
the melody line in music. A risky way of playing. Rubinstein was known for his
mistakes, but the public accepted them with love. A second explanation of the
fact that Rubinstein's music is hardly performed nowadays might be found in a
popular 20th century dogma that only innovating, avant-garde art is worthwhile.
Rubinstein's music is not 'modern' but has
close links with classical music traditions. As a pianist and a conductor he
also showed interest in history. He stressed the importance of studying the
period instruments in order to be able to play the music the way it used to
sound. He asked the music-editors to remain more faithful to the original
scores of the old masters. He disapproved of the common practice in 19th
century to romanticise the old scores by means of all sorts of additions. A
third explanation may be found in Rubinstein's internationalism. He regarded
music as an international language. He watched the growth of German nationalism
with anxiety. In Russia young colleagues objected to his music not being
'Russian'. These composers: Cui, Moessorgsky, Borodin and others had, like
Wagner, in our century much success with their nationalistic aestheticism.
'To the Christians I am a Jew, to the Jews I
am a Christian, to the Russians I am a German, to the Germans I am a Russian.'
This is how Rubinstein describes his place in the world. His father was
Russian, his mother was German. Both were converted to Christianity because of
anti-Semitism. He received his education as a pianist in Russia from Villoing
with whom he wandered through Europe as a child prodigy. It was in Berlin that
he learned to compose.
Rubinstein left en enormous oeuvre. His music
is passionate end noble. His favourite tempo indication was moderato. Unjustly
one could conclude from this that his music is moderate or without character.
On the contrary: his moderato is a moderato in the grand manner. He wrote for
almost all combinations: many compositions for piano, symphonies, string
quartets, piano trio's, songs, opera's and solo concerts for various
instruments. His efforts to introduce a new form of opera, the religious opera,
were in vain. He dreamed of staging Bach's passions, and he himself composed
biblical opera's that look up to eight hours to perform. His personal zeal and
his financial backing were of decisive importance for the start of musical life
in Russia.
The most difficult thing about the
interpretation of Rubinstein's music is the actual understanding of its
artistic contents. He gives us hardly any clues in his compositions. This is
all the more peculiar as he was always impressing on to his pupils the
importance of inspiriting the notes. He compared notes to hieroglyphs that one
has to decipher. Not ask yourself: What note is this? With which finger should
I play it? But, what does this note mean? What is the nature of this piece? Is
it dramatic, lyric, romantic, humorous, heroic, divine, mystical ... ? The
performer has to choose for one specific character to be able to animate the
notes.
Sonata opus 100
The first movement, a moderato con moto in the
grand manner, seems like a plea for reconciliation. One hears in the music a
majestic strength, noble in its moderation. But in the second movement the 'reconciler’
is infuriated nevertheless. The middle section, which is quiet, shows him small
and lonely, after which the same fierce indignation follows, The following
andante offers consolation and repose. The last movement follows like an
apocalypse: flashes end lightning end bursts of thunder smash. Melodies accuse
or ascend to lyric heavens. The sonata ends in a vehement, tragic apotheosis.
In 1872 Rubinstein made a sensational tour of
the United Stales. He appeared 215 times before the public in eight months. He
took home not only chests of gold end resentment about such 'slavery', but also
a melody: Yankee Doodle. It fits in perfectly with his internationalism
that he wrote variations on this melody that played an important part in the
American War of Independence and the American identity. The variations resemble
a depiction of successive stages of the road to Victory, where a certain type
of victory is represented by each variation. Sometimes courage is low, or the
struggle is tiresome, but the piece ends in an exhilarating climax.
1987
CD II:
Anton
Rubinstein: Le Bal opus 14 dedicated to princess Sophie de Nassau, Marius van
Paassen piano
MUSIC FOR A DUTCH PRINCESS
ATTACCA BABEL 9268-7 DDD
BABEL 9268-7 DDD
LE BAL
The festive dance evening was an important social event in the 19th
century. It was an occasion where marriages were arranged or broken, and an
informal meeting place for business or political contacts. While in the 18th
century only aristocrats and rich merchants could afford the pomp and splendour
of an evening with an orchestra, in the 19th century dance parties were for
everybody. Vienna led the way. The Waltz, the Galop, the Polka and many other
dances advanced throughout the whole of Europe from the Austrian capital, where
crowds of people danced all night to the rhythm of this music.In Russia the
railways took advantage of this popular entertainment in a remarkable way.The
first Russian railway line was constructed between St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk,
the site of one of the summer residences of the Czar. Naturally the connection
didn't prosper, but this changed when a smart impresario in 1856 had the
thought to invite Johann Strauss JR. for a series of concerts in the little
country village. Thanks to Strauss immense popularity many people boarded the
train in order to attend one of his concerts. The railway company was saved and
the waltz took firm root in yet another country.
After appearing in many European capitals as a child prodigy, the
Russian pianist and composer Anton
Rubinstein (1829-1894)
settled in Vienna for a year (1846-1847), where he got acquainted with the
city's dance music. At the time he was not yet recognised as one of the
greatest pianist of the century, but a little later his contemporaries
considered him the equal of Liszt and Johann Strauss and Rubinstein would play
each other’s works. In 1846 however, Rubinstein lived in poverty. Still, he was
composing a lot of music, but upon returning to Russia the custom officers
mistook his music-scores for a revolutionary manifest written down in a
mysterious code. Rubinstein's compositions ware confiscated and only through
the help of influential friends he escaped expulsion to Siberia. The trunk with
his works was sadly never recovered.
Between 1848 end 1854 Rubinstein held the position of court pianist in
St. Petersburg. Le Bal, his opus 14, dates from this period.
Anton Rubinstein left a large oeuvre consisting of operas, symphonies,
piano works, songs end chamber music. His music was performed by famous artists
like Liszt, Mahler, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Von Bülow, Hofmann and the singer
Fiodor Chaliapin. During his lifetime Rubinstein was extremely popular both in
Europe and in the United States, but after his death he soon sank into
oblivion. Three reasons for this can be mentioned.
Firstly Rubinstein was far from being an avant-garde composer, and a
conservative style is often less admired by the experts than innovation.
Secondly, already during his lifetime he was rebuked for not composing
in true Russian style, while in the second half of the 19th century
nationalistic movements in the arts became strong. Rubinstein however,
considered music an international language and disputed the nationalistic
orientation manifest in the works of many Russian composers, prominent also in
the operas of Richard Wagner.
Thirdly his works are difficult to perform. His own style of playing the
piano - full of risks, titanic but very melodious - was completely different
from what is customary today. Some of the recordings of Horovitz, who stated
Rubinstein was his 'pianist grandfather', may give insight in the style of
Rubinstein's playing.
Le Bal(1854) contains dance music, but the
work is also en expression of the feelings induced by a 19th century dance
party. The first piece - Impatience- splendidly portrays the excitement before
the start of the party. One already hears fragments of the dances that will be
played later. Especially the longing for the Waltz was ingeniously captured by
Rubinstein. This most sensuous of all 19th century dances appears after a
pompous Polonaise end six Contra dances with their characteristically
contrasting dance rhythms. At times a melancholy comment (in minor keys) on the
Waltz is sounded which is answered by an exuberant expression of the enjoyment
in the rhythm of the three-four time. Of course this Waltz concludes in
ecstasy. In the following intermezzo - granting the dancers a rest, but very
taxing for the pianist! - one can imagine the excited conversation (agitato) of
the guests after the dance. They are left but a small pause, because already
the Polka starts, one of the most popular dances of the 19th century. The Galop
is the highlight of the evening. Because of the fatiguing character of this
dance, it never lasted longer than two minutes: the dancers could simply not
'galop' much longer. For this reason Rubinstein broke his Galop with a slower
section in order to give the dancers a chance to recover their breath. In 'Le
Réve' (The Dream), the last piece of the cycle, the dancers once again are
carried off in a Galop, but then the music ends in sweet slumber.
Le Bal was dedicated to Princess
Sophie van Nassau (1824-1897), the daughter of the Dutch King
Willem II and his Russian born wife, Queen Anna Pavlovna. Princess Sophie
married the archduke of Saxony, Karl Alexander, and lived most of her life in
Germany where she showed a great cultural interest.
Anton Rubinstein had appeared for the Dutch royal family at the age of
twelve in
In 1996 Van Paassen had the honour to inaugurate the old, renovated House of Parliament with this
composition by Anton Rubinstein. His performance was attended by Prime minister Wim Kok and many other
prominent politicians.
