On Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 4:43:19 PM UTC-4,
jwca...@gmail.com wrote:
PROMOTING a Yahoo! Group dedicated to one of the greatest pianists of
the 20th Century, Arthur Rubinstein: "Homage to Arthur Rubinstein"
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/HomageToArthurRubinstein/
This site has grown considerably in just over two years, and currently
has over 600 photographs,numerous files and links, six separate
"Archive Sites" for MP3 file storage and, most important of all,
ongoing message dialogues/discussions from Rubinstein aficionados
around the world!
We invite all lovers of classical music and the piano to join this
group and contribute to our collective knowledge about this great
musician. Thank you!
Jonathan Cahill
This post is unconventional in that Arthur Rubinstein is not its only focus. I’ve also been an avid fan of Abbey Simon, a great pianist who recently died at the age of 97. At about the time of Simon’s death, I was reading his autobiography, Inner
Voices. Famously opinionated, Simon was unfailing respectful to Rubinstein and included an interesting description of a meal they shared at AR’s expense. Abbey tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to keep up with his older colleague in the martini, wine,
and cognac department, and then Arthur noted: “I am getting to be old, and you have to sit down and play my repertoire. Why am I taking you to lunch?” Later, they became good friends while both living in Geneva.
I hope this link leads others to a recent unreleased recording published in the blog Slipped Disc:
https://slippedisc.com/2019/12/a-secret-abbey-simon-recording/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slippedisc%2FnICW+%28Slipped+
Disc%29 . Sometimes it’s hard to understand why links to online materials do and don’t work. If all else fails, please try to get to the blog itself and then locate: “A Secret Abbey Simon Recording.”
Liszt was not a preoccupation either of Rubinstein or Simon. But Rubinstein recorded the Concerto in E-Flat (with Dorati) in 1947 and it appears in Vol. 32 of the complete Rubinstein set. A year later, his younger colleague played it in this
previously unreleased “secret” recording. I note that performances of the concerto generally take about 20 minutes but that both the Rubinstein and Simon takes come in at about four minutes shy of that. Beyond that, I haven’t delved deeply into
how similar or different their contemporary performances were. I’d love to read comments by others in the group on the subject.
Paul Murphy
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