Piano was the first musical instrument that captivated me in the earliest of my years. And as my twelfth springtime began, something musically miraculous happened. Sitting about six rows in front of the stage at Massey Hall in Toronto I saw and heard the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Not only did he hold me by the ears as he no doubt played Chopin, I do recall how riveted I was observing his concentration, watching his hands floating and striking at the keyboard.
Rubinstein was the first pianist I ever saw in concert, and in that March of 1964 at age 77 he already had an over seventy year career with almost another twenty ahead of him. With an extensive list of live concert recitals and a lengthy discography, it is said that he had perfect pitch and a photographic memory. Perhaps this quote says enough: “At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience.”
So much for leaving a lot to the moment in a concert, for in that same springtime 1964 another legendary pianist Glenn Gould played his last public recital to commit his work to creating only a critically acclaimed discography. Watching Gould as I have, with his eccentricities on film, or listening to him play and hum on disc, is almost otherworldly, especially in his interpretations of Bach. Witness his two recordings of the Goldberg Variations – 1955 (mono) and 1981 (digital).
Gould seemed to foresee 2023 as evidenced by this quote, “The recording debate centers upon whether or not electronic media can present music in so viable a way as to threaten the survival of the public concert.” Rubinstein and Gould, two brilliant musicians, both with perfect pitch and with different takes on the public concert experience; what was their conversation in 1960 like?
“I was born in another epoch… I trail the old things that hang all around me…like the tin cans they hang on the wedding car, you know…But you were born into another world than myself – therefore, all your own talent is being taken in by that, is absorbed by that, by the circumstances of your entourage….But somewhere, we are going to meet with our ideas, you know. I can’t say how that will happen, exactly, but, remember my words, somewhere we will meet.”
Call it a twist of fate, but both Rubinstein (95) and Gould (50) died about two months apart in 1982. Rubinstein’s last public concert was at Wigmore Hall in London, April 1976. Gould’s last studio recording was Sept. 1980 in Toronto. Maybe there’s a concert hall next door to a recording studio somewhere in the great beyond, and both are happy when they meet.
