Word: pianistics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...used to play a kind of "Stump Artur" game in which they would call out titles?excerpts from symphonies, operas, Cole Porter scores?to see if he could play them. "Stumped Friends" would have been a better name for it. "Rubinstein," says Conductor Edouard van Remoortel, "is the only pianist you could wake up at midnight and ask to play any of the 38 major piano concertos...
...typical playful fashion, began the 80th year of the world's greatest pianist. The birthday was only a few weeks ago, and the days that followed were typical, too, of Rubinstein. There was a concert to be played in Boston, so he packed his suitcases, not forgetting a shoe bag crammed with the good-luck charms that his four children have given him over the years?baby shoes, a turquoise marble, a set of jacks, a pipe-cleaner doll, an acorn, a crumbled plaster angel. He put on his fur-lined blue suede shoes and his long navy blue overcoat...
...infusing a dash of improvisation, "a drop of fresh blood," into each performance. He will even experiment with new fingerings "that suddenly occur to me" in the middle of a performance. "It is dangerous, I admit," he says, "but that is the way music develops." As a result, says Pianist Rudolf Serkin, "his music is becoming more reflective, but at the same time it is becoming younger. It's almost as if he's playing everything for the first time...
Indeed, Rubinstein is not content merely to rework his repertory. He is constantly developing it. It is not easy, for his "musical valise," as he calls it, is already brimming with the widest repertory of any living pianist. As far back as 1919, he played a series of 27 recitals in Mexico City with only an occasional repetition. Since then his catalogue has expanded in all directions, with the exception of the avantgarde, "whom I leave to the youngsters." He has long been the world's reigning Chopinist, he excels in French impressionistic and modern Spanish music...
Rings & Springs. Early 19th century piano teachers were altogether baffled by the newfangled instrument. All sorts of torturous devices were invented for the purpose of getting the pianist's hands to the keyboard properly. Students' arms were clamped down with iron rails, their fingers wrapped with wires, rings and springs. Beethoven, flailing the keys like a startled bird, helped do away with such practices. He also did away with quite a few pianos, which in his day were rather fragile, spindle-legged affairs with 61 keys. When he performed, an assistant stood by to take out the broken strings...