Raymond Lewenthal has been a favourite pianist of mine for many years...

...and, having been guided by him a few times (once even with this same piece), I found him to be generous with his time and comments and affirming as a mentor.

For those who know his name, his career as one of the supervirtuosi of the mid-20th is still remembered with awe and respect.

Now the Rubinstein mentioned here isn’t Artur, that wonderful Polish pianist, but Anton - the Russian pianist, composer and pedagogue.

He composed a total of five piano concerti which were very well respected and instrumental in the development of Russian piano concerti to follow, namely those of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. So much was this the case that the concerti of both those composers later eclipsed those of Rubinstein.

In today’s concert halls, the concerti of Rubinstein are very much forgotten and even sometimes viewed as second rate or immature compared to Tchaikovsky’s first concerto and the second and third concerti of Rachmaninoff.

This, of course, is untrue.

While there is a textural thickness, motivic complexity and technical brilliance, all compliant with a certain degree of profundity in Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein had no desire to be profound. What he wanted to accomplish in this concerto was to bring the house down and create drama - and when this concerto is played with that in mind, it never fails to impress.

Rachmaninoff, himself, understood and appreciated the brilliance of this piece and its effectiveness on the audience...which is why he chose to pair Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto with the Rubinstein D minor for his American debut as a concerto soloist.

Having read this, I followed Rachmaninoff’s example and paired it with Saint-Saens’ “Egyptian” concerto for my debut as concerto soloist, years ago in Maracaibo. The result was wonderful, as it was the first time the Rubinstein had been played in that city, and there was thunderous applause even at the end of the first movement due to the excellence of the composition!

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