Music: A Song to Remember

Arthur Rubinstein: 1887-1982

He was born to play the piano. His huge hands with their wide palms and spatulate fingertips could reach an extraordinary twelve-note span on the keyboard. His vast memory allowed him to store hundreds of pieces of music in his head, ready for performance on a moment's brushup. His quick mind enabled him to learn a new work simply by studying the score on the train or plane on the way to his next concert, where he would play it perfectly. Most important of all, he had the soul of an artist. When Arthur Rubinstein died last week after nearly 96 years of productive, eventful living, the world lost one of the greatest pianists of the century.

Discussing younger performers, Rubinstein once said: "You know, they are fabulous. They play better than I do. They do things I wouldn't begin to attempt. But when they come onstage, they might as well be soda jerks." Even among the surviving major pianists of his own generation, however, he was unsurpassed. Vladimir Horowitz, 78, may have a flashier, more dazzling technique; Rudolf Serkin, 79, may have a more intense emotional identification with the German classics; Claudio Arrau, 79, may have an even wider repertoire. But Rubinstein had everything: in his playing, consummate virtuosity and a pellucid tone were at the service of a natural musical storyteller.

His appeal was phenomenal. The largest-selling classical pianist in history, he made more than 200 records, which sold 10 million copies. Although Rubinstein was a modern pianist in such things as fidelity to the score and a desire that his playing call attention only to the music, never to itself, he was also a direct link to the pianistic tradition of the 19th century; when audiences heard Rubinstein perform, they were listening to a man born six months after Liszt died. No wonder Violinist Isaac Stern last week called Rubinstein "part of the centrality of music in our time."

He was born in the industrial city of Lodz, Poland, on Jan. 28, 1887. His father, who owned a small textile factory, quickly recognized his son's talent. At four, Rubinstein had calling cards that read ARTUR THE GREAT PIANO VIRTUOSO; at eight, he was studying in Berlin. In 1906 Rubinstein made his first trip to America. The notices were mixed; some praised his spirit, but others carped about his technical waywardness, a criticism that haunted him for nearly 30 years. Disheartened, Rubinstein returned to Europe, where he lived the uncertain, itinerant life of an aspiring performer, moving from hotel to hotel, from country to country, dining on lobster and caviar one week and on a sausage and dry roll the next.

Along the way, he seems to have met everyone. He knew Stravinsky, he knew Picasso. He knew Joseph Conrad and Gertrude Stein. He knew fine wine, he knew fine art. Most of all, it seems, he knew women; his two-volume autobiography is almost as much a recounting of amorous conquests as musical triumphs. "It is said of me," he once told an interviewer, "that when I was young I divided my time impartially among wine, women and song. I deny this categorically. Ninety percent of my interests were women."