Biography

Anton Rubinstein, the founder of St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music who regarded music as an international language, was also a word-class piano virtuoso who performed a longest concert marathon in the 19th century.

He was born Anton Grigorjewitsch Rubinstein into a Russian-Jewish family on November 16, 1829, in the village of Vikhvatinets near Rybnitsa in the south of the Russian Empire (now the Republic of Moldova). He learned the piano from an early age and began public performances at the age of 9. He studied music in Paris and in Berlin, where he was supported by Felix Mendelssohn. He achieved a reputation of one of the greatest piano virtuosi and was regarded as a rival to Franz Liszt. At age 19 he left a teaching job in Vienna, after being hired by the family of the Tsar's brother in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1862, Anton Rubinstein together with his brother, Nikolai Rubinstein, founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where their students were such composers as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff among others.

Anton Rubinstein regarded music as an international language. He believed that music may communicate beyond words directly to human souls. He also made a humorous self-definition, "To the Christians I am a Jew, to the Jews I am a Christian, to the Russians I am a German, to the Germans I am a Russian.", wittily describing his place in the world. His ancestry was Russian, Jewish, and German, and his parents converted to Christianity because of the fear of anti-Semitism in the Russian Empire. Anton Rubinstein and his brother Nikolai did not exhibit any Russian nationalism in their music, albeit their student Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became popularly identified with Russia.

In the season of 1872-73 Anton Rubinstein made a triumphant eight-month tour of the United States. It was a sensational marathon of 215 piano recitals in many cities across the USA. Upon his return to Russia, Anton Rubinstein wrote Variations on the theme of Yankey Doodle. His other compositions include six symphonies, four piano concerti, and many chamber works for piano and strings or ensemble music with piano. Among his 20 operas, "The Demon" stands out for it's lavish score, inspired by the eponymous Romantic poem of Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov.

Anton Rubinstein died on November 20, 1894, in Peterhof, a royal suburb of St. Petersburg, and was laid to rest in the Necropolis of the Masters of Arts at St. Aleksander Nevsky Monastery next to the tomb of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The street in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Rubinstein lived, is now named the Rubinstein Street. The main concert hall of St. Petersburg Conservatory is named The Rubinstein Hall.