Artur Rubinstein was quite simply incomparable. A phenomenally gifted technician and the possessor of the golden tone that is the mark of all the great pianists, he was a musician to his fingertips. Living as we do in an age dominated by those whose astounding ability to play anything is matched only by their seeming indifference to music’s intoxicating emotional power, Rubinstein is a guiding beacon of sanity. This once spilled over in an interview with the great American musical commentator, Harold C. Schonberg, in 1964: “On stage I will take a chance. There has to be an element of daring in great music-making. These younger ones, they are too cautious. They take the music out of their pockets instead of their hearts. And they know little about pedalling and tone production.”
It is interesting to reflect that when the Tchaikovsky recording was made, John Barbirolli – England’s finest-ever conductor – had only been seriously conducting for some eight years. As a near-prodigy cellist he had joined Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall Orchestra as its youngest member in 1916, and following the Great War joined the London Symphony Orchestra and Beecham’s Covent Garden Orchestra. He also gave one of the first performances of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in 1921. However it was not until 1924 that he fulfilled his burning ambition to conduct by forming his own chamber orchestra in London. Within two years he had built up such an astonishing reputation that he was invited to deputise for an ailing Beecham with the LSO in Elgar’s Second Symphony. Although the English ‘establishment’ was strangely resistant to Barbirolli in the beginning, he was so beloved by players and audiences alike that in 1936 he was invited to take over from Toscanini as Principal Conductor of “Murder Incorporated” as the New York Philharmonic was somewhat unaffectionately known at this time. Just a year later he made one of the finest-ever recordings of Chopin’s E minor Concerto, once again with Artur Rubinstein and the LSO in 1932.
Even allowing for the cuts that are now (quite rightly) traditionally opened out, there is an inspirational vigour about these interpretations to hold the listener spellbound. Rarely can a pianist have been set up with such a fiery outburst of non-legato orchestral vigour as Rubinstein is here in the outer movements (what glorious depth of string tone!) nor accompanied with such obvious warmth, grace and sympathy elsewhere. No matter how shattering the dramatic contrasts fearlessly unleashed by these supremely great artists, the most striking thing is their total accord. One arrives at the end of these remarkable accounts feeling that this music could truly be played in no other way.
© Julian Haylock, 1999
