#rubinstein

Rubinstein Chopin Waltzes

Artur Rubinstein recorded these waltzes once before, exactly ten years ago. He has been performing them in concerts for more than fifty years. Aside from the use of the latest recording techniques, what could be “new” to make this album so important?

How does Rubinstein maintain his constantly fresh outlook which makes familiar music sound as if it had been written only the day before?

“This question I must answer by relating a lesson I once learned from Picasso. You know Picasso and I are good friends and we used to see each other a great deal. I used to visit him while he was painting at his atlier in Paris… Well, for some months I saw Picasso stand in front of his easel and paint a bottle of sherry, a table, a guitar that was lying around, and some banal ironwork on the balcony. I saw about fifty canvases of those same objects. I became a little impatient and also a little bored. I wanted to see a new Picasso! So, one day I said, “Look here, Pablo, what is the matter with you? Aren’t you getting tired of painting day after day always the same things?” Well, I saw a furious glance at me. He became really angry. “What rot are you talking to me? What stupid things are you telling me? Every minute I’m a different man, every hour there is a new light, every day I see that bottle with a completely different personality. It is another bottle, another table, another life in another world and everything is different!” After a moment to catch my breath, I told him: “Pablo, you are absolutely right. I catch myself thinking the next morning in a completely different way about something I was proclaiming as true the day before.” And it is still so… A new recording opens up a new world to me because the music speaks to me in a different language.”*