β Scribed by Arthur Rubinstein
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Arthur Rubinstein was a Polish American
classical pianist who played in public for eight decades. He received
international acclaim for his performances of music written by a variety of
composers, and many regard him as the greatest Chopin interpreter of his time.
He was described by The New York Times as one of the most gifted pianists of
the twentieth century.
Β
MY MANY YEARS is a continuation of his earlier
work MY YOUNG YEARS, a book of personal recollections, providing a record of
his life and creative development from his childhood days in Poland to the
years of World War I.
MY MANY YEARS covers the years 1917 to 1980,
beginning with his memories of tours in South America and New York; continuing
throughout his time in Paris in the 20βs and 30βs, we follow the path that led
him to his beloved wife Nela and their harrowing journey escaping the Gestapo,
all the way to Hollywood.Β Rubinstein
once again dazzles with his recounting of elaborate travels, parties, concerts
and dealings with the social elite.
Β
β(Rubinstein) remembers here hotels, meals,
trains, ships, pianos, and people galore--as the grown-up Arthur concertizes
all over the world, hobnobs with the rich and famous, makes recordings
(reluctantly at first) for RCA, and finally, in his forties, ends a renowned
bachelorhood by marrying a demure (though married and divorced, because of A.'s
earlier hesitations) young Polish girl.Β
Whenever the travel/party/lifestyle minutiae seem about to mount into tedium,
a fascinating moment or personality or predicament will bubble up: Nijinsky's
pathetic last public performance in Uruguay; hard-up Elsa Maxwell begging
Arthur to play a lousy piano at a party (she'd just sold it to the host);
performing for a dandy audience of 16 in Java or being an audience of one for
Marian Anderson; fending off lowbrow movie ideas from Jack Warner; encounters
with piano-hating Stravinsky (guiding him to a bordello as a cure for
impotence, watching him trade insults and compare bank balances with equally
testy Rachmaninov); plus women, women, women--elegant groupies, leech-like
prima donnas, few of whom were ever turned away. And the pages veritably heat
up before your eyes whenever Vladimir Horowitz happens by: both he and Heifetz treated
Arthur as an inferior, and Horowitz was rude to boot; but it was largely
Horowitz' superior technique (""the greatest pianist, but not a great
musician"") that inspired sloppy, brilliant Rubinstein to discover
the joys of practicing, of working for technical accuracy. Now 92, partially
blind, and very happy (record-listening his great joy), Rubinstein remembers it
all with unabashed, goodhumored self-involvement.β β Kirkus Reviews
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contenant : My Young Years My Many Years
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