More live material
from the BBC gives us the fruits of a quartet of dates given
by Rubinstein in London. The earliest was the RFH 1957 Saint-Saëns
G minor with Rudolf Schwarz followed by the 1958 studio Villa-Lobos
and Chopin Etude. Nearly a decade later we have the Beethoven
G major concerto and from 1968 we’re back at the RFH hear the
Chopin Scherzo.
You don’t need to
be a Rubinstein specialist to know that none of the works is
within a country mile of an addition to his discography. The
Beethoven concerto survives in a number of different performances
– the 1947 RPO/Beecham was followed by the Symphony of the Air/Krips
traversal of 1956, the Boston/Leinsdorf (1964) and the final
studio reading with the LPO and Barenboim in 1975. A 1951 NYPSO/Mitropoulos
has happily done the rounds, and indeed this BBC performance
has itself been out before on Hunt 567. The Saint-Saëns was
also a work long associated with the pianist; he was a selective
performer of the Frenchman’s music and only ever recorded the
Second, with the Symphony of the Air, this time under Wallenstein
in 1958 and later with the Philadelphia and Ormandy in 1969.
A live NYPSO/Mitropoulos, this time from 1953, has also circulated.
As for the Villa-Lobos he recorded the same three pieces from
Book I of Prole do bebê back on 78s in 1931, Nos. 6 and 7 in
1941, Nos. 2, 6 and 7 in 1961 and No. 7 in 1964. His Chopin
recordings are, after some of these lesser-known affairs, part
of his canonic repertoire and hardly need reprising.
So much for the
discography - now a few words about the performances. His performance
with Dorati of the G major is a beautiful and inimitable one.
It’s not perfect, and not note perfect, and I think it should
be acknowledged that he had already begun the process of progressively
slowing up that culminated in those rather lethargic though
noble last studio discs. The Beecham set for instance is considerably
quicker all round – the finale alone is two minutes quicker
and whilst the slow movement is taken at the same tempo, the
first movement is much more tensile with Beecham. Nevertheless
we can enjoy Rubinstein’s verve and tonal elegance, his subtle
colouristic sense, the battles between treble brilliance and
bass occlusion, and the terrific first movement cadenza. Limpid
but masculine the slow movement doesn’t disappoint whilst the
finale has verve and buoyant rhythm, though it’s of a different
order, and current, from the quicker Leinsdorf, much less the
altogether quicker Beecham.
This BBC performance
of the Saint-Saëns came quite soon before the studio recording
with Wallenstein and it shares those virtues. Elegant and precise
and bursting with panache this is a performance rich in personality-packed
right hand runs, colouristic profusion and adrenalin soaked
drama. It’s exciting and full of a kind of passionate aristocracy
of utterance that never allows the concerto to elide either
into bombast or into forced rhetoric or indeed, come to that,
over-refinement.
Rubinstein had known
Saint-Saëns and he knew Villa-Lobos, remaining loyal to certain
numbers from Book I of Prole do bebê. A Probresinha is
especially beautiful in this performance – limpidly done – and
O Polichinello is a dizzying and dazzling treat. The
two Chopin pieces are beautifully crafted, even the Scherzo
where Rubinstein braves the audience’s ignorance of the piece
and their subsequent “half time” applause.
The notes are good
and the sound, whilst variable, pretty reasonable for the vintage
though he’s over-recorded in the Beethoven at the expense of orchestral
detail. Rubinstein mavens will find this an invaluable addition
to their burgeoning discography.
Jonathan Woolf
Artur Rubinstein
(piano) 
