Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein was a perennial favorite of audiences all over the world, including the Twin Cities. Though he performed only once for the Schubert Club, he appeared across the river with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in no fewer than six seasons. In the following TV film made fairly late in his long career, he plays the B flat minor Scherzo by his Polish compatriot Chopin, the composer with whom he will always be most closely associated. It will give you an idea of what endeared Rubinstein to audiences for more than three quarters of a century: total immersion in the music, undisturbed by any extraneous movement; rubato so subtle that it always sounds spontaneous:

Rubinstein was another of those classical artists whose popularity caught the ear of Hollywood. In the 1947 movie Carnegie Hall he is seen playing two works – Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise and Manuel de Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance” – that had been in his St. Paul program a few years before,:

In this 1953 film, Rubinstein is at home, playing and talking about Chopin:

In 1958, he went back to his native Poland for the first time in 20 years. Returning again in 1966, he gave a recital in Warsaw, the first half of which – Schubert’s B flat Sonata and Schumann’s Carnaval – was captured on film: