Pianist Writing Frank Memoirs

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30496, 18 July 1964, Page 14

Pianist Writing Frank Memoirs

Artur Rubinstein, one of the most colourful musicians, is writing the story of his life—with frankness and in great detail. He hopes to publish the first volum of his memoirs by Christinas. “You will laugh,” he said, “(but I am completely indifferent to opinion . . .

what can they do? ... I have reached the stage where noone can predict a good future for me) but I have written 300 pages in the last two years and I am still 17 years old. “Worth Telling”

“1 will never finish it. It will take 12 volumes. It will be the complete truth. I have a wonderful memory. Life has been very curious—full of adventure and beauty and hard things, but worth telling, incredibly interesting. “I don’t know what it is about me, but I attract adventure—unbelievable things, miraculous things, sometimes nasty things happen to me. It’s all in the memoirs—so it's all interesting.

“Before I married," said Mr Rubinstein. “I was extremely talented (I am talented since one year old. I was clearly a UM) per cent musicians) but 1 didn’t have enough respect for the stature of a pianist.

“I was a wonderful musician —but 1 didn’t practise enough. That was also due to my talent. I got away with a lot of things. But the AngloSaxons. they like to get their money’s worth, and they criticised me. “Then when I became married I realised that I was responsible for another person who bore my name, and I got respect for the stature of a pianist Living On “Interest” “Before my marriage I lived more on the capital of my talent. Nov I live on the interest.”

Asked if his hands became less supple as he grew older (he is now 75) Mr Rubinstein said that strangely enough they were more supple now than ever before. „ lam an old man,” he said, aid I have to be reminded of it all the time by the press, but my hands have never lost their old youthful look.”

He held up both hands to demonstrate two unusual things that have contributed sW. One was the fingers on an u- The y were as hls forefi ngers, and th» ? mcst ’d’Portant, said finVr‘ a A ISt ;? eCauSe the little tied L l u e left hand was finger and the Utt,e tied to th?* ? Rht hand was tied to the melodv. The finders m betweon fill in n had on y to

He n sX^ f^th ha "l stretched hack to nrrJ hUmbS almost straight an thumb and forefinger. R

The chief secret of his youthfulness, said Mr Rubinstein, was not his own habits and behaviour, but those of his parents. “They didn’t drink or do naughty things,” he said, “so their production is in good shape. “If I had been the son of someone with delirium tremens—as Beethoven was—it might be different.” Of other pianists, Mr Rubinstein thinks most of Paderewski. “He had a grand

air,” he said. “Not a great pianist, but a great person.” He said that at the age of 15 he stayed with Paderewski in Switzerland, but out of loyalty to his own music professor, he insisted from the outset’ that he was not to receive any lessons.

In his bag, the pianist carries all the little things his children have given him over the years—a toy soldier, an acorn, and a little doll, all dirty and torn to pieces. He is convinced they bring him luck.