Anton Rubinstein: A Life in Music. Russian Music Studies by Philip S. Taylor (review)

Abstract

544 seer, 88, 3, July 2010 nuances of the original. Items deposited in the archives of theNobel Litera ture Prize are closed to researchers for the following fiftyyears, which makes me hope that Marchenko will shortlybe able topublish a really detailed study of the background to the award of thisPrize to Boris Pasternak. Department ofSlavonic Studies UniversityofGlasgow Martin Dewhirst Taylor, Philip S. Anton Rubinstein:A Life in Music. Russian Music Studies. Indiana University Press. Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2007. xxv + 340 pp. Illustration. Figures. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39-95 It is an instructive irony that, if the figure of Anton Rubinstein is at all known tous today, it is most likely tobe in the form ofJulius Klesmer, George Eliot's fictional representation of theRussian composer-pianist in thatmost self-consciouslymusical of all her novels, Daniel Deronda (1876): 'Ah, here comes Herr Klesmer,' said Mrs Arrowpoint, rising; and presently bring inghim toGwendolen she leftthem to a dialogue which was agreeable on both sides, Herr Klesmer being a felicitous combination of the German, the Sclave, and the Semite, with grand features, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in spectacles.His English had littleforeignnessexcept itsfluency; and his alarming cleverness was made less formidable just then by a certain softening air of silliness which will sometimesbefall evenGenius in thedesire ofbeing agreeable to Beauty. [???] Herr Klesmer played a composition of his own, a fantasia called Freudvoll, Liedvoll, Gedankenvoll ? an extensive commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and he certainly fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the piano as that moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having an imperious magic in his fingers that seemed to send a nerve-thrill through ivory key and wooden hammer, and compel the strings tomake a quivering lingering speech for him. (Book 1,Chapter 5) The myth of Rubinstein is almost entirely present here: the combined German, Russian and Jewish heritage; the commanding social figure (not to mention his powerful effect on susceptible women); the composer of pieces designed to impress, yet not too much; the imposing performer whose only rival at the piano was Liszt himself. Yet for all the zeal that today's Russian conductors bring to the promotion of their nation's composers, Rubinstein figures but rarely on concert programmes and in opera houses, if at all. Devotees of chamber music are equally unlikely to hear any Rubinstein, although in this regard, posterity has been better servedwith four discs of his solo piano music recorded forHyperion by Leslie Howard (who provides the foreword to thisvolume). At the end of this stupendously detailed biography, Philip S. Taylor specu lateswhether the time has come for 'amajor r??valuation ofRubinstein as a composer' (p. 238). If any book can promote thispossibility, then surely it is this one. To be sure, Taylor is not blind to the shortcomings of much of REVIEWS 545 Rubinstein's oeuvre,arguing thatmuch of the reason for his contemporary success? and his subsequent neglect ? was based on c[h]is repudiation of Wagnernism, his nostalgic harking back to the era of sentimental romanticism, and his innate conservatism', all of which 'must have seemed to many a sober ing antidote to contemporary excesses' (p. 156).Hostility (ifnot downright antisemitism) on the part of the nationalists, very much the victors in the battle for the historiography of Russian music, also played its part in the rapid posthumous decline in interest in his works, as would Soviet indiffer ence. Yet Taylor writes with real conviction about certain of Rubinstein's works, and ifwe see more performances of, say, the second symphony (subti?ed The Ocean), the twelve song-settings ofMirza Schafiy, or certain of themyriad chamber works, then critics and readers will know where to turn in order to learn more about their composer. Granted, Taylor writes little about the specific details of Rubinstein's works: there is just one musical example (a comparison of a figure from the opera, Demon, with a similar one from Chaikovskii's Evgenii Onegin); and themany operas are dispatched with pithy summaries of plot and character (although more detailed synopses of Die Kinder derHaider, Demon, Die Maccab?er, N?ron and Kupets Kalashnikov...