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He decried musical amateurism and railed against homegrown ditties, offending Russian nationalists who appropriated folk themes for their own pieces. Rubinstein established high standards, but his opinions sometimes ruffled feathers.
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For the first time, a Russian student didn't have to learn music theory in German. The purpose of all of this was to create a culture of music by Russians, for Russians. As if that were not enough, in 1866 he co-founded, with his brother Nicolai, the Moscow Conservatory. Petersburg Conservatory (where one of his students was Tchaikovsky). He created in 1859 the Russian Musical Society, and then in 1862 the great St. That he looked (and wore his hair) almost exactly like Beethoven added to his star-power. On his 1872-73 American tour, Rubinstein played 215 concerts in 239 days - sometimes three concerts in three cities in one day, and never tired. The thundering power, subtlety, and beautiful tone of his playing astonished everyone, including a young Rachmaninoff who would marvel to the end of his life at Rubinstein's greatness. He may have been the only pianist referred to as at least the equal of Franz Liszt. He was a child prodigy at the piano, which opened doors for him all the way to the royal family. His work as educator, pianist, and composer would declare musical independence for his country forever. The same thing was happening in Russia at exactly the same time, and among those taking up the cause in Russia was Anton Rubinstein. In America around 1850, William Henry Fry and George Frederick Bristow were declaring independence for an American art by supporting native composers, and by writing works often inspired by national themes. It is fascinating to see how the musical language of a nation asserts itself. Slovak Philharmonic, Michael Halasz, conductor Rubinstein: Feramors, operatic excerpts (1862). Rubinstein: The Demon, operatic excerpts (1871). Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Bratislava, Michael Halasz, conductor Booklet notes, introducing Rubinstein's life as well as these specific works, are in English only.Rubinstein: Nero, Festival March (1875). Some may wish for more sheer power in the climaxes of the Theme and Variations, but the sound, from Marin County's Skywalker Studios, is a strong point. 114, which despite its vaguely occult name consists merely of a set of character pieces (the name refers to labels for the individual movements that spell out the name of the work's dedicatee, a female student of Rubinstein's). American pianist Joseph Banowetz, who has recorded piano music by various Russian composers of the 19th century, captures the combination of virtuosity with a certain formality in Rubinstein's music, and he delivers evocative readings of the Akrostichon No. The finale is a tour de force in which a chorale-like statement of the theme is filled in with increasingly dense counterpoint over more than 10 minutes of music. There are two large variations, the eighth (track 9) and the concluding twelfth (track 13), where the virtuosity that has been bubbling under the surface of the more straightforward variations blasts through. Although most of the variations are of a fairly conventional sort, the structure of the work is innovative. Both Liszt and Busoni (who may indeed have been influenced by it) admired this work, and it is hard to understand how pianists could have let it fall into disuse. The major one is the Theme and Variations, Op. Hard as it may seem to believe for a composer once so well loved, both the pieces included receive their premiere recordings here. The Naxos label's recordings of music by Anton Rubinstein fit in with its more general effort to revive late Romantic music that fell out of favor thanks to people who believed dogmatically in progress, or in nationalism, for Rubinstein was the most Western-oriented of Russian composers of the period, and some musicians have never forgiven him for it.