RUBINSTEIN, ANTON GRIGOROVICH Russian pianist, born of Jewish parentage on Nov. 28, 1829 at Wechwotynetz, Podolia, was the son of a pencil manufacturer who migrated to Moscow. Besides his mother Anton had but one teacher, the piano master Alexander Villoing, of whom he de clared at the end of his own career that he had never met a better.
In July 1838 Rubinstein appeared in the theatre of the Petrowski Park at Moscow; and in the following years in the principal centres of Europe, including London. He then studied in Berlin and Vienna. The years 1848 to 1854 were spent in St. Petersburg in performing and composing. His opera Dmitri Donskoi was pro duced there in 1851, and Toms der Narr in 1853. Die Sibirischen Jager, written about the same time, was not produced. In 1857 he paid his second visit to London where, at a Philharmonic con cert he introduced his own concerto in G. In the following year he was in London again, having in the meantime been appointed Concert Director of the Royal Russian Musical Society. In 1862,
in collaboration with Carl Schuberth, he founded the St. Peters burg Conservatorium, of which he was director until 1867, and again from 1887 to 189o. For twenty years from 1868 he made prolonged concert tours in Europe and America, enjoying prodi gious success wherever he went and being accounted by some the superior even of Liszt. He died on Nov. 2o, 1894. Rubinstein left compositions in almost every known form. But it is as one of the greatest of all pianists that he will be remembered.
His brother NICHOLAS RUBINSTEIN (1835-1881) was also a fine pianist. He founded the Moscow Conservatorium in 1864, and was its director until his death. There he founded a school of piano-playing which produced many great artists.
See Anton Rubinstein's own Autobiography (Eng. trans., 1890) and monographs by Bernhard Vogel, Alexander MacArthur, Eugen Zabel and Anton von Halten, W. Baskin and U. Lissowski.