Editing Anton Rubinstein (section)

==="Van II"===
Many contemporaries felt he bore a striking resemblance to [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]. [[Ignaz Moscheles]], who had known Beethoven intimately, wrote, "Rubinstein's features and short, irrepressible hair remind me of Beethoven." Liszt referred to Rubinstein as "Van II." This resemblance was also felt to be in Rubinstein's keyboard playing. Under his hands, it was said, the piano erupted volcanically. Audience members wrote of going home limp after one of his recitals, knowing they had witnessed a force of nature.<ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 269</ref>

Sometimes Rubinstein's playing was too much for listeners to handle. American pianist [[Amy Fay]], who wrote extensively on the European classical music scene, admitted that while Rubinstein "has a gigantic spirit in him, and is extremely poetic and original ... for an entire evening he is too much. Give me Rubinstein for a few pieces, but [[Karl Tausig|Tausig]] for a whole evening." She heard Rubinstein play "a terrific piece by Schubert," reportedly the ''[[Wanderer Fantasy|Wanderer Fantasie]].'' The performance gave her such a violent headache that the rest of the recital was ruined for her.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

[[Clara Schumann]] proved especially vehement.  After she heard him play the [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] [[Piano Trio No. 2 (Mendelssohn)|C minor Trio]] in 1857, she wrote that "he so rattled it off that I did not know how to control myself ... and often he so annihilated fiddle and cello that I ... could hear nothing of them." Nor had things improved in Clara's view a few years later, when Rubinstein gave a concert in Breslau.  She noted in her diary, "I was furious, for he no longer plays.  Either there is a perfectly wild noise or else a whisper with the soft pedal down.  And a would-be cultured audience puts up with a performance like that!"<ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 274.</ref>

On the other hand, when Rubinstein played Beethoven's [[Piano Trio No. 7 (Beethoven)|"Archduke" Trio]] with violinist [[Leopold Auer]] and cellist [[Alfredo Piatti]] in 1868, Auer recalls:
<blockquote>It was the first time I had heard this great artist play. He was most amiable at the rehearsal... To this day I can recall how Rubinstein sat down at the piano, his leonine head thrown back slightly, and began the five opening measures of the principal theme... It seemed to me I had never before heard the piano really played. The grandeur of style with which Rubinstein presented those five measures, the beauty of tone his softness of touch secured, the art with which he manipulated the pedal, are indescribable ...<ref>[[Leopold Auer|Auer, Leopold]], ''My Long Life in Music'', 114–115, as quoted in [[#Sachs|Sachs]], 73–74.</ref></blockquote>
Violinist and composer [[Henri Vieuxtemps]] adds:
<blockquote>His power over the piano is something undreamt of; he transports you into another world; all that is mechanical in the instrument is forgotten. I am still under the influence of the all-embracing harmony, the scintillating passages and thunder of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 57 [''[[Appassionata]]''], which Rubinstein executed for us with unimagined mastery.<ref>Ysaÿe, Antoine and Ratcliff, Bertram, ''Ysaÿe'', 24, as quoted in [[#Sachs|Sachs]], 69.</ref></blockquote>
Viennese music critic [[Eduard Hanslick]] expressed what [[Harold C. Schonberg|Schonberg]] calls "the majority point of view" in an 1884 review. After complaining of the over-three-hour length of Rubinstein's recital, Hanslick admits that the sensual element of the pianist's playing gives pleasure to listeners. Both Rubinstein's virtues and flaws, Hanslick commented, spring from an untapped natural strength and elemental freshness. "Yes, he plays like a god", Hanslick writes in closing, "and we do not take it amiss if, from time to time, he changes, like Jupiter, into a bull".<ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 275</ref>

[[Sergei Rachmaninoff]]'s fellow piano student Matvey Pressman adds, <blockquote>He enthralled you by his power, and he captivated you by the elegance and grace of his playing, by his tempestuous, fiery temperament and by his warmth and charm.  His ''crescendo'' had no limits to the growth of the power of its sonority; his ''diminuendo'' reached an unbelievable ''pianissimo'', sounding in the most distant corners of a huge hall.  In playing, Rubinstein created, and he created inimitably and with genius.  He often treated the same program absolutely differently when he played it the second time, but, more astoundingly still, everything came out wonderfully on both occasions.<ref name="Apetyan, Z.A 1988">{{harvnb|Apetyan|1988|loc=vol. 1, p. 194}},  as quoted in [[#Martyn|Martyn]], 368</ref></blockquote>

Rubinstein was also adept at improvisation—a practice at which Beethoven had excelled.  Composer [[Karl Goldmark]] wrote of one recital where Rubinstein improvised on a motive from the last movement of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven)|Eighth Symphony]]:<blockquote>He counterpointed it in the bass; then developed it first as a canon, next as a four-voiced fugue, and again transformed it into a tender song.  He then returned to Beethoven's original form, later changing it to a gay Viennese waltz, with its own peculiar harmonies, and finally dashed into cascades of brilliant passages, a perfect storm of sound in which the original theme was still unmistakable.  It was superb."<ref name="Schonberg, 272" /></blockquote>