Tour Program: 1954 Edinburgh Artur Rubinstein piano Stravinsky Schumann Chopin concert program

Original printed programme for a solo piano recital given by Artur Rubinstein

1954 Edinburgh International Festival of Music & Drama

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

8 September 1954, Wednesday at 2.30pm

Beethoven Sonata in C major, Op. 53 (Waldstein)
Chopin Ballade, Op. 23 in G minor
Chopin Two Études : [Étude in E minor, Op. 25 No. 5]*; Étude in C sharp minor, Op. 10 No. 4
Chopin Nocturne in D flat major, Op. 27, No. 2
Chopin Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53
Schumann Carnaval, Op. 9
Stravinsky Pétrouchka (Three movements written for Artur Rubinstein and dedicated to him)

*handwritten amendment shows this was replaced by Étude in A flat major, Op. 25, No. 1

Artur Rubinstein piano

Brief biographical note on Rubinstein; programme notes by Kathleen Dale; Festival programme editor Lionel Salter

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Rubinstein KBE (January 28, 1887 – December 20, 1982) was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

Early life

Rubinstein was born in Łódź, Poland on January 28, 1887, to a Jewish family. He was the youngest of 8 children. His father was a wealthy factory owner.

At the age of two, he demonstrated perfect pitch and a fascination with the piano, watching his elder sister's piano lessons. By the age of four, he was already recognised as a child prodigy. The great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, on hearing the four-year-old child play, was greatly impressed and began to mentor the young prodigy. Rubinstein first studied piano in Warsaw. By the age of ten, Rubinstein moved to Berlin to continue his studies. In 1900 at age 13, he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, followed by appearances in Germany and Poland and further study with Karl Heinrich Barth (an associate of Franz Liszt, Hans von Bülow, Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms; Barth also taught Wilhelm Kempff).

Career

In 1904, Rubinstein moved to Paris to launch his career in earnest. There he met the composers Maurice Ravel and Paul Dukas and the violinist Jacques Thibaud. He also played Camille Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 in the presence of the composer. Through the family of Juliusz Wertheim (to whose understanding of Chopin's genius Rubinstein attributed his own inspiration in the works of that composer) he formed friendships with the violinist Paul Kochanski and composer Karol Szymanowski.

Rubinstein made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall in 1906, and thereafter toured the United States, Austria, Italy, and Russia. According to his own testimony and that of his son in François Reichenbach's film L'Amour de la vie (1969), however, he was not well received in the United States, and in 1907, when he found himself destitute and desperate in a Berlin hotel room, hounded by creditors and threatened with being thrown out into the street, he made a failed attempt to hang himself. Subsequently he said that he felt "reborn" and endowed with an unconditional love of life. In 1912, he made his London debut, and found a home there in the Edith Grove, Chelsea musical salon of Paul and Muriel Draper, in company with Kochanski, Igor Stravinsky, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, Pierre Monteux and others.

Rubinstein stayed in London during World War I, giving recitals and accompanying the violinist Eugène Ysa e. In 1916 and 1917, he made his first tours in Spain and South America where he was wildly acclaimed. It was during those tours that he developed a lifelong enthusiasm for the music of Enrique Granados, Isaac Albéniz, Manuel de Falla, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. He was the dedicatee of Villa-Lobos's Rudepoêma and Stravinsky's Trois mouvements de Petrouchka.

Rubinstein was disgusted by Germany's conduct during the war, and never played there again. His last performance in Germany was in 1914.

In the fall of 1919 Rubinstein toured the English Provinces with soprano Emma Calvé and tenor Vladimir Rosing.

In 1921 he gave two American tours, travelling to New York with Paul Kochanski (they remained close friends until Kochanski's death in 1934) and Karol Szymanowski. The autumn voyage was the occasion of Kochanski's permanent migration to the USA.

In 1932, the pianist, who stated he neglected his technique in his early years, withdrew from concert life for several months of intensive study and practice.

During World War II, Rubinstein's career became centered in the United States. Impresario Sol Hurok insisted Rubinstein be billed as Artur (his Polish birth name) for his American concerts, even though the pianist referred to himself as Arthur when in English-speaking countries. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1946.

Although best known as a recitalist and concerto soloist, Rubinstein was also considered an outstanding chamber musician, partnering with such luminaries as Henryk Szeryng, Jascha Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky, and the Guarneri Quartet. Rubinstein recorded much of the core piano repertoire, particularly that of the Romantic composers. At the time of his death, the New York Times in describing him wrote, "Chopin was his specialty ... it was a Chopinist that he was considered by many without peer." With the exception of the Études, he recorded most of the works of Chopin. He was one of the earliest champions of the Spanish and South American composers and of French composers who, in the early 20th century, were still considered "modern" such as Debussy and Ravel. In addition, Rubinstein was the first champion of the music of his compatriot Karol Szymanowski. Rubinstein, in conversation with Alexander Scriabin, named Brahms as his favorite composer, a response that enraged Scriabin.

Rubinstein, who was fluent in eight languages, held much of the repertoire, not simply that of the piano, in his formidable memory. According to his memoirs, he learned César Franck’s Symphonic Variations while on a train en route to the concert, without the benefit of a piano, practicing passages in his lap. Rubinstein described his memory as photographic, to the extent that he would visualize an errant coffee stain while recalling a score.

In the mid-1970s, Rubinstein's eyesight began to deteriorate and he retired from the stage at age 89 in May 1976, giving his last concert at London's Wigmore Hall, where he had first played nearly 70 years before.

Personal life

Rubinstein in 1963

In 1932 Rubinstein married Nela Młynarska, a Polish ballerina (who had studied with Mary Wigman). Nela was the daughter of conductor Emil Młynarski. Nela had first fallen in love with Rubinstein when she was 18, but when Rubinstein began dating an Italian princess, she married Mieczysław Munz. Nela subsequently divorced Munz, and three years later married Rubinstein. They had four children, including daughter Eva, who married William Sloane Coffin, and son John Rubinstein, a Tony Award-winning actor and father of actor Michael Weston. Nela subsequently wrote a book of Polish cookery, Nela's Cookbook.

Both before, and during, his marriage, Rubinstein carried on a series of affairs with many other women, including Irene Curzon. In 1977, at age 90, he left his wife for the young Annabelle Whitestone, though he and Nela never divorced. Rubinstein also fathered a daughter with a South American woman.

Throughout his life, Rubinstein was deeply attached to Poland. At the inauguration of the UN in 1945, Rubinstein showed his Polish patriotism at a concert for the delegates. He began the concert by stating his deep disappointment that the conference did not have a delegation from Poland. Rubinstein later described becoming overwhelmed by a blind fury and angrily pointing out to the public the absence of the Polish flag. He then sat down to the piano and played the Polish national anthem loudly and slowly, repeating the final part in a great thunderous forte. When he had finished, the public rose to their feet and gave him a great ovation.

Pupils

Arthur Rubinstein was reluctant to teach in his earlier life, refusing to accept William Kapell's request for lessons. It was not until the late 1950s that he accepted his first student Dubravka Tomšič Srebotnjak. Other students of Arthur Rubinstein include François-René Duchâble, Avi Schönfeld, Eugen Indjic, Dean Kramer, and Marc Laforêt. Rubinstein stated that his main goal in teaching was to help his pupils to find themselves and for them to become real musical personalities. Rubinstein also gave master classes towards the end of his life.

Death "I have found that if you love life, life will love you back..."

"People are always setting conditions for happiness... I love life without condition."
— Arthur Rubinstein

Rubinstein died in Geneva, Switzerland, on December 20, 1982, at the age of 95, and his body was cremated. On the first anniversary of his death, an urn holding his ashes was buried in Jerusalem — as specified in his will — in a dedicated plot now dubbed "Rubinstein Forest" overlooking the Jerusalem Forest. This was arranged with the rabbis so that the main forest wouldn't fall under religious laws governing cemeteries. Israel now has an Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society which holds the triennial Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition.

While he identified himself as an agnostic, Rubinstein was nevertheless proud of his Jewish heritage. He was a great friend of Israel, which he visited several times with his wife and children, giving concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, recitals, and master classes at the Jerusalem Music Centre.

In October 2007, his family donated to the Juilliard School an extensive collection of original manuscripts, manuscript copies and published editions that had been seized by the Germans during World War II from his Paris residence. Seventy-one items were returned to his four children, marking the first time that Jewish property kept in the Berlin State Library was returned to the legal heirs.

Recordings
For more details on this topic, see Arthur Rubinstein discography.

In 1910, Rubinstein recorded Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10 for the Polish Favorit label. The pianist was displeased with the acoustic recording process, which he said made the piano sound “like a banjo” and did not record again until the advent of electrical recording.

However, Rubinstein made numerous player piano music rolls for the Aeolian Duo-Art system and the American Piano Company (AMPICO) in the 1920s.

Beginning in 1928, Rubinstein began to record extensively for RCA Victor, making a large number of solo, concerto and chamber music recordings until his retirement in 1976. As recording technology improved, from 78rpm discs, to LPs, and stereophonic recordings, Rubinstein rerecorded much of his repertoire. Thus, there are often three or more recordings of Rubinstein playing the same works. All of his RCA recordings have been released on compact disc and amount to about 107 hours of music.

Rubinstein preferred to record in the studio, and during his lifetime only approved for release about three hours of live recordings. However, since the pianist’s death, several labels have issued live recordings taken from radio broadcasts.

Honors

Sculpture of Arthur Rubinstein on Piotrkowska Street, in Łódź, Poland, where Rubinstein once lived
Sonning Award (1971; Denmark)
On April 1, 1976, Arthur Rubinstein was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.
In 1977, he was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:
Pierre Fournier, Arthur Rubinstein & Henryk Szeryng for Schubert: Trios Nos. 1 in B-flat, Op. 99 and 2 in E-flat, Op. 100 (Piano Trios) (Grammy Awards of 1976)
Pierre Fournier, Arthur Rubinstein & Henryk Szeryng for Brahms: Trios (Complete)/Schumann: Trio No. 1 in D Minor (Grammy Awards of 1975)
Arthur Rubinstein for Beethoven: Sonatas No. 21 in C (Waldstein) and No. 18 in E-flat (Grammy Awards of 1960)

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra):
Arthur Rubinstein for 'Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat/Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 (Grammy Awards of 1978)
Arthur Rubinstein for Beethoven: Sonatas No. 21 in C (Waldstein) and No. 18 in E-flat (Grammy Awards of 1960)

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1994)

Karl Rankl (1 October 1898 – 6 September 1968) was a British conductor and composer of Austrian birth. A pupil of the composers Schoenberg and Webern, he conducted at opera houses in Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia until fleeing from the Nazis and taking refuge in England in 1939.
Rankl was appointed musical director of the newly formed Covent Garden Opera Company in 1946, and built it up from nothing to a level where it attracted some of the best known international opera singers as guest stars. By 1951, performances under guest conductors, such as Erich Kleiber and Sir Thomas Beecham were overshadowing Rankl's work, and he resigned. After five years as conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra, he was appointed musical director of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust's opera company, the forerunner of Opera Australia.
In his last years, Rankl concentrated on composing. Throughout his career he had written a series of symphonies and other works, including an opera. His symphonies were politely received, but did not enter the regular orchestral repertoire. The opera has never been performed.

Life and career

Early years
Rankl was born in Gaaden, near Vienna, the fourteenth child of a peasant couple. He was educated in Vienna, and from 1918 studied composition there with Arnold Schoenberg and later with Anton Webern. Many years later, Rankl was invited by the composer to complete Schoenberg's choral piece Die Jakobsleiter but he declined the invitation. Rankl's first professional post was as chorus master and répétiteur under Felix Weingartner at the Volksoper in Vienna in 1919, where he later became an assistant conductor] In 1923 he married Adele Jahoda (1903–1963). Over the next few years he held appointments in Liberec in 1925, Königsberg in 1927 and the Kroll Oper in Berlin where he was assistant to Otto Klemperer from 1928 to 1931. At the Kroll, Rankl strongly supported Klemperer's policy of promoting new music and radical productions. He was appointed principal conductor of the opera at Wiesbaden in 1931, but when the Nazis came to power in 1933, he had to leave Germany; his wife was Jewish, and Rankl's politics were strongly hostile to the Nazis. He moved back to Austria to head the opera at Graz in 1933, and in 1937 he was appointed principal conductor of the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague. In 1939, once again displaced by the Nazis, Rankl fled Prague, and with the help of Sir Adrian Boult, head of music at the BBC, and Boult's assistant Kenneth Wright, he escaped to London.
In wartime Britain Rankl was unable to obtain a permit to work as a conductor until 1944, and he devoted much of his time to composition. His widow later recalled that Rankl also played the viola in a string quartet during this period. When he was eventually given the necessary work permit to resume his conducting career, Rankl conducted the Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Northern and London Philharmonic Orchestras. He made a favourable impression; The Times praised his "boundless energy … clear-cut performance and with a strong feeling for the shapely line of a melody." William Glock in The Observer praised the "natural firmness" of his "splendid" and "authoritative" conducting of Beethoven. Among those whom Rankl impressed was David Webster, chairman of the Liverpool Philharmonic. In 1944, Webster was invited to set up a new opera company at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. He turned to Rankl for advice and soon decided to appoint him musical director of the fledgling company.

Covent Garden
Since 1939 there had been no opera or ballet at the Royal Opera House. Until the war, Covent Garden opera had consisted of privately sponsored seasons, principally in the summer months, with international stars, lavish productions, and a major symphony orchestra brought in to play in the orchestra pit. In 1944, the British government introduced a modest measure of state subsidy for the arts, and as part of this it established a Covent Garden Trust to present opera and ballet at the Royal Opera House. Webster successfully negotiated with Ninette de Valois to get her Sadler's Wells Ballet company to move its base to Covent Garden, but he had to build up an opera company from scratch. He initially approached famous conductors including Bruno Walter and Eugene Goossens, but found them unwilling to accommodate themselves to the new brief of the Covent Garden opera company: to present opera in English, with a permanent company, all year round on a very tight budget.
Rankl was on the verge of going to Australia in response to an invitation from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to conduct a 13-week season of 20 concerts. He and the corporation were unable to agree terms, and in April 1946, he accepted the Covent Garden post. His appointment immediately caused controversy in musical circles. To those who hankered after the glamour of the pre-war seasons he was a minor figure among international maestros. Among those outraged by Rankl's appointment was Sir Thomas Beecham, who had been in control of Covent Garden for much of the period from 1910 to 1939, and was furious at being excluded under the new regime. He publicly stated that the appointment of an alien, especially one bearing a German name was the "mystery of mysteries", and called the Covent Garden trustees a "hapless set of ignoramuses and nitwits". Webster, however, realised that what the new Covent Garden company needed at this stage in its existence was not a star conductor but one of those who, in the words of the critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor "know the whole complex business of opera inside out, and retain in their blood the pre-war standards of a good continental opera house." A biographer of Webster has written that under Rankl, "amazing progress" was made. He assembled and trained an orchestra and a chorus. He recruited and trained musical assistants.
Having recruited and trained a largely British company of singers, Rankl, with Webster's strong support, persuaded international singers including Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Ljuba Welitsch, Hans Hotter and Paolo Silveri to appear with the company, singing in English. The company performed a wide repertory of German, Italian, Russian and English opera. It made its debut in January 1947 with Carmen, in a performance greeted by The Times as "worthy of the stage on which it appeared ... It revealed in Mr. Karl Rankl a musical director who knew how to conduct opera." The company, headed by Edith Coates and including Dennis Noble, Grahame Clifford, David Franklin and Constance Shacklock, was warmly praised. In the next two operas presented by the company, Rankl was thought a little stolid in The Magic Flute, but was praised for "weaving Strauss's flexible rhythms" in Der Rosenkavalier. Rankl tackled the Italian repertoire, and new English works, winning praise for his Rigoletto, though with Peter Grimes he was compared to his disadvantage with the original conductor, Reginald Goodall. A production of The Masteringers with Hotter as Sachs was judged "a further stage in the consolidation of the Covent Garden company". Despite the good notices for his early seasons, Rankl had to cope with a vociferous public campaign by Beecham against the very idea of establishing a company of British artists; Beecham maintained that the British could not sing opera, and had produced only half a dozen first rate operatic artists in the past 60 years.
In the next three years, Rankl built the company up, reluctantly casting foreign stars when no suitable British singer could be found, and resisting attempts by Webster to invite eminent guest conductors. When Webster and the Covent Garden board insisted, Rankl took it badly that star conductors such as Erich Kleiber, Clemens Krauss and Beecham were brought into "his" opera house. In a biographical article in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the critic Frank Howes wrote of Rankl: "By 1951 he had made the Covent Garden Company a going concern, but had also revealed, notably in his 1950 performances of the Ring, his limitations as a conductor – he was considered difficult with singers, orchestras and producers." Rankl was also difficult in his relations with the Opera House's director of productions, Peter Brook, who left after two years. Critics and operagoers did not fail to notice the difference in standards between performances under Rankl and under the guests. Rankl resigned in May 1951, and conducted for the last time at the Royal Opera House on 30 June. The work was Tristan und Isolde with Kirsten Flagstad; as it was announced in advance that this would be her last appearance in the role of Isolde and her farewell performance at Covent Garden, the fact that it was also Rankl's farewell received little attention. He was never invited to conduct there again, and did not set foot in the building for another 14 years, until 1965 for the first night of Moses und Aron by his old teacher, Schoenberg; the conductor then was Georg Solti. After the end of the 1951 London season, Rankl conducted the Covent Garden company on tour; his final performance with the company was Der Rosenkavalier in Liverpool on 27 July 1951.

Later years
In 1952, Rankl was appointed conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra, in succession to Walter Susskind. He held the post for five years, and gained good notices. In 1953, Neville Cardus wrote that Rankl and his orchestra held their own even when compared against Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic, when both orchestras played at that year's Edinburgh Festival. Rankl was praised for enterprising programming, presenting the then-unknown early work of Schoenberg Gurrelieder at the 1954 Edinburgh Festival, and Mahler's Fifth Symphony, also then a rarity, at the same festival. Cardus also praised Rankl's conducting of Bruckner as "grand and comprehensive … of rare quality".
In December 1957, Rankl was appointed musical director of the Elizabethan Trust Opera Company in Australia. In his first season he conducted Carmen, Peter Grimes, Fidelio, Lohengrin and The Barber of Seville. He conducted the company at the inaugural Adelaide Festival in 1960, in Richard Strauss's Salome and Puccini's Il trittico.
Towards the end of his life, Rankl retired to St. Gilgen, near Salzburg in Austria. He died there at the age of 69.

Compositions and recordings
As a composer, Rankl wrote eight symphonies, a string quartet, and 60 songs. He also wrote a opera, Deirdre of the Sorrows (based on J.M. Synge's play), which won one of the prizes offered by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Rankl's reputation today however, lies almost entirely on his work as a conductor. His opera has never been performed and none of his music has ever been published.
Rankl made few recordings for the gramophone. In the late 1940s, for Decca he conducted Beethoven's First Symphony, Schubert's Fourth Symphony, Brahms's Fourth Symphony and Dvořák's New World Symphony; Dvořák's Cello Concerto (with Maurice Gendron) and Violin Concerto (with Ida Haendel); a Bach Cantata (Schlage Doch, BWV 53) and overtures and other shorter pieces by Beethoven¸ Cimarosa, Dvořák, Rossini, Smetana, Richard Strauss, Wagner and Weber.
Rankl recorded excerpts from the operatic repertory with the bass-baritone Paul Schöffler in Sarastro's arias from Die Zauberflöte, the "Wahnmonolog" from Die Meistersinger, the closing scene of Die Walküre, and Iago's arias from Otello. With his Covent Garden chorus and orchestra he recorded choruses from Die Zauberflöte, Rigoletto, Carmen, Il trovatore and Pagliacci, though only the first two of the five were released on disc.

The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music (especially classical music), theatre, opera and dance from around the world to perform. The festival also hosts a series of visual art exhibitions, talks and workshops.

History

The first International Festival (and the first Fringe, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, although it wasn't known as such until the following year) took place between August 22 and September 11 1947, in the wake of the end of the Second World War, with an optimistic remit to 'provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit' and enrich the cultural life of Scotland, Britain and Europe. The founders of the Festival included Rudolf Bing, (then the General Manager of Glyndebourne Opera Festival), Henry Harvey Wood the Head of the British Council in Scotland, Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University, and a group of civic leaders from the City of Edinburgh, in particular the Lord Provost Sir John Falconer. Bing, the moving spirit behind the enterprise, had looked at several English cities before settling on Edinburgh. The Festival has since taken place every August.

Today

In 1999, the Edinburgh International Festival moved to a permanent home in The Hub, formerly 'The Highland Tolbooth' - an architecturally remarkable building a couple of minutes' walk from Edinburgh Castle, originally built as an assembly house for the Church of Scotland. Its gothic spire is the highest point in central Edinburgh, and can be seen for many miles around.

The Festival aims to cover its costs every year. The total budget for the 2004 Festival was £6.8 million, covered by a combination of ticket sales (27%) and other earned income - broadcast fees, publications and so on (4%); sponsorship & donations (27%); and public grants (42%, mostly from the City of Edinburgh Council). Almost 335,000 people attended EIF events in 2004. 60% of these were Scottish, another 26% came from the rest of Britain, 14% came from overseas.

Besides the performances during the Festival itself, a range of education and outreach workshops, talks and lectures take place throughout the year.

Festival venues

The principal venues of the Festival are:
Usher Hall (capacity 2,300)
Festival Theatre (1,800), primarily used for opera and ballet productions.
The Edinburgh Playhouse (2,900)
Royal Lyceum Theatre (650)
The Queen's Hall (920)
The Hub (420)

Festival directors
1947 - 1949: Sir Rudolf Bing
1950 - 1955: Sir Ian Bruce Hope Hunter
1956 - 1960: Robert Noel Ponsonby
1961 - 1965: George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood
1966 - 1978: Peter Diamand
1979 - 1983: Sir John Richard Gray Drummond
1984 - 1991: Frank Dunlop
1992 - 2006: Sir Brian McMaster
From October 2006–present: Jonathan Mills

Other Festivals in Edinburgh

About ten other festivals are held in Edinburgh at about the same time as the International Festival. Collectively, the entire group is referred to as the Edinburgh Festival. Most notable of these is the Edinburgh Fringe, which started as an offshoot of the International Festival and has since grown to be the world's largest arts festival.