Arthur Rubinstein Biography

Arthur Rubinstein

(Lódz, 1886-Geneva, 1982) Polish pianist.The son of a married couple of industrialists and the last of seven siblings, Arthur Rubinstein showed a precocious musical talent as a child.At the age of eight he entered the Warsaw Conservatory, where he studied with Professor Roziycki.

Arthur Rubinstein

The famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who had married one of his sisters, introduced him to the composer Johannes Brahms, who, captivated by the talent of the boy, he made him go to Berlin to continue his studies with Heinrich Barth, and later with R.Breithaupt, M.Bruch, R.Hahn, and Ignacy J.Paderewski.It was also in Berlin that he began his career as a great piano virtuoso accompanying his brother-in-law Joachim in Mozart's Concert in the .In Spain, where he appeared for the first time in 1916, he demonstrated his great knowledge of the music of Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla.

Rubinstein's romantic temperament allowed him to masterfully interpret Brahms, Schumann and Beethoven, but it was in Chopin's work that he achieved a rich and detailed expression, unsurpassed rigor and the warmest of readings pianistics.Modern composers such as Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinski, Héitor Villa-Lobos and Francis Poulenc were not lacking in Rubinstein's repertoire.In 1916, King Alfonso XIII himself had provided him with a Spanish passport so that he could travel freely in his recitals during the First World War, and in 1946, after the Second World War, he took American citizenship.

In 1976 a progressive blindness finally separated him from the keyboard, but his portentous vitality and his lucid critical sense had him interested until his death in cultural problems, and particularly in music, which had one in him.Of the most outstanding pianists of his century.

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