Rubinstein: PIano Music, Vol.2
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein
Label: Marco Polo
Magazine Review Date: 9/1990
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 67
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 223177
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Soirées musicales |
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer
Anton (Grigor'yevich) Rubinstein, Composer Joseph Banowetz, Piano |
Author: James Methuen-Campbell
It is said that Anton Rubinstein's ambition in life was to be regarded firstly as a composer and secondly as a pianist. He never achieved this aim and should have been contented with his reputation as the foremost virtuoso after the retirement of Liszt. Very few people know more of his compositions than the Melody in F, the Scherzo-caprice, the Fourth Piano Concerto and possibly the Ocean Symphony. Leslie Howard has recorded the four piano sonatas, which, though uneven, contain many powerfully impressive ideas (Hyperion (CD) CDA66017 and CDA66105, 5/90).
Is Rubinstein's neglect justified? Well, one has to say that he was very uneven and that his mastery of large-scale forms was fitful, especially when it came to developing melodic material. The nine Soirees musicales of 1884 are, for the main part, works of between four and eight minutes duration, although No. 7, which has the title ''Badinages'', is a series of nine very short miniatures. In many ways it is in the latter that Rubinstein's inventiveness is at its strongest. Written for the French pianist Francis Plante, there is real comedy in the first and fourth pieces, whereas the third is in a Beethoven bagatelle style and the fifth really looks forward to the twentieth century—it could easily have been an unconscious inspiration for Scriabin's Mosquito Study, Op. 42 No. 3.
Of the other Soirees, the second, ''Valse'', also reminds one of a later work—this time the second episode of Rachmaninov's Barcarolle, Op. 10 No. 3, written a decade or so later. The title of the third piece in Rubinstein's set is ''Nocturne'', although it is Mendelssohn whose hand one feels guiding the Russian's pen rather than Chopin's. It was the German whose music was the single most important influence on his style. The Fourth Soiree, built on a pleasant and bustling hunting-call motif, has a Schumannesque middle section that is gentle and flowing. Thus, much of this music reminds one of other composer's works.
The penultimate piece, ''Theme varie'' is dedicated to the French pianist and teacher Louis Diemer, who had the reputation of being a dry executant. It is pretty dull and one wonders whether Rubinstein might have been poking fun at his Gallic colleague. The set ends with a piece entitled ''Etude'', dedicated this time to Eugen d'Albert. It is a mixture of octaves and double-notes. Banowetz doesn't manage it very well; it is lumpy. Otherwise, he plays with a very impressive grasp of the idiom and his rubatos are finely judged and discrete. Unfortunately the recorded sound is not of a comparable calibre, the piano tone being thin and slightly clangy; nor is the instrument's intonation successfully maintained in places.'
Is Rubinstein's neglect justified? Well, one has to say that he was very uneven and that his mastery of large-scale forms was fitful, especially when it came to developing melodic material. The nine Soirees musicales of 1884 are, for the main part, works of between four and eight minutes duration, although No. 7, which has the title ''Badinages'', is a series of nine very short miniatures. In many ways it is in the latter that Rubinstein's inventiveness is at its strongest. Written for the French pianist Francis Plante, there is real comedy in the first and fourth pieces, whereas the third is in a Beethoven bagatelle style and the fifth really looks forward to the twentieth century—it could easily have been an unconscious inspiration for Scriabin's Mosquito Study, Op. 42 No. 3.
Of the other Soirees, the second, ''Valse'', also reminds one of a later work—this time the second episode of Rachmaninov's Barcarolle, Op. 10 No. 3, written a decade or so later. The title of the third piece in Rubinstein's set is ''Nocturne'', although it is Mendelssohn whose hand one feels guiding the Russian's pen rather than Chopin's. It was the German whose music was the single most important influence on his style. The Fourth Soiree, built on a pleasant and bustling hunting-call motif, has a Schumannesque middle section that is gentle and flowing. Thus, much of this music reminds one of other composer's works.
The penultimate piece, ''Theme varie'' is dedicated to the French pianist and teacher Louis Diemer, who had the reputation of being a dry executant. It is pretty dull and one wonders whether Rubinstein might have been poking fun at his Gallic colleague. The set ends with a piece entitled ''Etude'', dedicated this time to Eugen d'Albert. It is a mixture of octaves and double-notes. Banowetz doesn't manage it very well; it is lumpy. Otherwise, he plays with a very impressive grasp of the idiom and his rubatos are finely judged and discrete. Unfortunately the recorded sound is not of a comparable calibre, the piano tone being thin and slightly clangy; nor is the instrument's intonation successfully maintained in places.'
Rubinstein: PIano Music, Vol.2
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