"That Civilized Man"

He looked, as always, as if he had just risen from a sumptuous and civilized dinner with dear old friends. And, as always, the banquet was just about to start. Striding onstage to his Steinway, he turned to his devoted audience at Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall with the suave little bow that he has made on more stages than any other pianist in history. Then Artur Rubinstein addressed himself to the feast: both of the Brahms concertos, either one of which is more than a good night's labor. But his strength and sureness only grew as he played on. Seeing him there, hearing the majestic ring of his music, it was difficult to believe that Rubinstein is 75.

Rubinstein despises all anniversaries, and he is especially uncomfortable as a 75-year-old; he has noticed, he says, that the world resents a man who keeps living past jubilees. Still, it will soon be 70 years since he made his debut as a child prodigy in Warsaw; he can look back 58 years and 5,000 concerts to the day of his American debut. In those early days, his simple love of playing and his overwhelming love of life drove him from tedious practice, and for many years too many notes landed on the floor under the piano.

The Hummingbird's Flight. Rubinstein's marriage in 1932 gave him a new sense of dedication. "I went to work," he says. "I learned to work on the piano for the piano's sake." When he returned to the U.S. for what he calls his "third debut" in 1937, he came as a giant who had transformed his joie de vivre into the strongest alloy of his music.

To the great romantic literature of the piano he brought all the devouring delight that in youth he had lavished on la vie Parisienne. The years since have only whetted his appetite. "The performer's life is a gift from heaven," says Rubinstein. "Making music is pure joy, like making love. And it is our job."

Having long since reached this happy entente with himself, Rubinstein travels and tastes the world like a hummingbird, charming friends in eight languages, pausing at his Manhattan and Paris houses barely long enough to savor his paintings and first editions. "That civilized man," as his friend Thomas Mann once called him, plays at least 100 concerts every year. Before the 1964 summer music festivals begin, he will have performed in Italy, London, Paris, Switzerland, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Bangkok, Manila and Hawaii.

Tearful Nights. For Rubinstein, the most satisfying aspect of his career is the constant opportunity for growth in his art. ("I cannot play something that is not always new to me.") In pursuit of variety, he will even try out new fingerings "that suddenly occur to me" in the midst of a concert. "It is dangerous, I admit," he says, "but that is the way music develops." Yet his playing is still notable for its certainty, its easy muscularity and sense of inevitability. In last week's tour d'art, Rubinstein lent exhilaration and romance to the weighty grandeur of Brahms' concertos, playing with the noble touch that has made him the most satisfying pianist alive.

Rubinstein's current labor of love is an autobiography that his wife and four children goaded him into writing--21 years after he promised it to a Manhattan publisher. "I now have written 275 pages," he says, "and I am still only up to age 17. Twenty years ago it was too difficult, but now I am old enough not to give a hoot what people think of me, so I can say everything. I have spent nights writing about my childhood with tears in my eyes. I remember it all. Ah, my dear uncles and aunties! My velvet suit!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.