Editing Anton Rubinstein (section)

==Travel and performance==
===Berlin===
In spring 1844, Rubinstein, Nikolai, his mother and his sister Luba travelled to Berlin. Here he met with, and was supported by, [[Felix Mendelssohn]] and [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]].
Mendelssohn, who had heard Rubinstein when he had toured with Villoing, said he needed no further piano study but sent Nikolai to [[Theodor Kullak]] for instruction. Meyerbeer directed both boys to [[Siegfried Dehn]] for work in composition and theory.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 67–68</ref>

Word came in the summer of 1846 that Rubinstein's father was gravely ill. Rubinstein was left in Berlin while his mother, sister and brother returned to Russia. At first he continued his studies with Dehn, then with [[Adolf Bernhard Marx]], while composing in earnest. Now 17, he knew he could no longer pass as a child prodigy. He sought out Liszt in Vienna, hoping Liszt would accept him as a pupil. However, after Rubinstein had played his audition, Liszt is reported to have said, "A talented man must win the goal of his ambition by his own unassisted efforts." At this point, Rubinstein was living in acute poverty. Liszt did nothing to help him. Other calls Rubinstein made to potential patrons came to no avail.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 68</ref><ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 271</ref> After an unsuccessful year in Vienna and a concert tour of Hungary, he returned to Berlin and continued giving lessons.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 48–49</ref>

===Back to Russia===
The [[Revolution of 1848]] forced Rubinstein back to Russia. Spending the next five years mainly in Saint Petersburg, Rubinstein taught, gave concerts and performed frequently at the Imperial court. The [[Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (Charlotte of Württemberg)|Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna]], sister-in-law to [[Tsar]] [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]], became his most devoted patroness. By 1852, he had become a leading figure in Saint Petersburg's musical life, performing as a soloist and collaborating with some of the outstanding instrumentalists and vocalists who came to the Russian capital.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 69</ref>

He also composed assiduously. After a number of delays, including some difficulties with the censor, Rubinstein's first opera, ''[[Dmitry Donskoy (opera)|Dmitry Donskoy]]'' (now lost except for the overture), was performed at the Bolshoy Theater in Saint Petersburg in 1852. Three one-act operas written for Elena Pavlovna followed. He also played and conducted several of his works, including the ''Ocean'' Symphony in its original four-movement form, his [[Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rubinstein)|Second Piano Concerto]] and several solo works. It was partly his lack of success on the Russian opera stage that led Rubinstein to consider going abroad once more to secure his reputation as a serious artist.<ref>[[#Taylor|Taylor]], 27–35.</ref>

===Abroad once more===
[[File:Anton Rubenstein.jpg|thumb|"Van II": [[Liszt]] considered Rubinstein to have a physical likeness to Ludwig van Beethoven.]]
In 1854, Rubinstein began a four-year concert tour of Europe.<ref name="Schonberg, 272">[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 272</ref> This was his first major concert tour in a decade. Now 24, he felt ready to offer himself to the public as a fully developed pianist as well as a composer of worth. He very shortly reestablished his reputation as a virtuoso. [[Ignaz Moscheles]] wrote in 1855 what would become a widespread opinion about Rubinstein: "In power and execution he is inferior to no one."<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 70–71</ref>

As was the penchant at the time, much of what Rubinstein played were his own compositions. At several concerts, Rubinstein alternated between conducting his orchestral works and playing as soloist in one of his piano concertos. One high point for him was leading the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in his ''Ocean'' Symphony on 16 November 1854. Although reviews were mixed about Rubinstein's merits as a composer, they were more favorable about him as a performer when he played a solo recital a few weeks later.<ref>[[#Taylor|Taylor]], 56–59.</ref>

Rubinstein spent one tour break, in the winter of 1856–57, with Elena Pavlovna and much of the Imperial royal family in [[Nice]]. Rubinstein participated in discussions with Elena Pavlova on plans to raise the level of musical education in their homeland; these bore initial fruit with the founding of the [[Russian Musical Society]] (RMS) in 1859.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

===Opening the St. Petersburg Conservatory===
The opening of the [[Saint Petersburg Conservatory]], the first music school in Russia and a development from the RMS per its charter, followed in 1862.<ref>[[#Brown|Brown]], 60</ref><ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 69–72</ref> Rubinstein not only founded it and was its first director but also recruited an imposing pool of talent for its faculty.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

Some in Russian society were surprised that a Russian music school would actually attempt to be Russian. One "fashionable lady", when told by Rubinstein that classes would be taught in Russian and not a foreign language, exclaimed, "What, music in Russian! That is an original idea!" Rubinstein adds, <blockquote>And surely it was surprising that the theory of Music was to be taught for the first time in the Russian language at our Conservatory... Hitherto, if any one wished to study it, he was obliged to take lessons from a foreigner, or to go to Germany.{{sfn|Barenboim|1957–1962|loc=107}}</blockquote>
There were also those who feared the school would not be Russian enough. Rubinstein drew a tremendous amount of criticism from the Russian nationalist music group known as [[The Five (composers)|The Five]]. [[Mikhail Tsetlin]] (aka Mikhail Zetlin), in his book on The Five, writes, <blockquote>The very idea of a conservatory implied, it is true, a spirit of academism which could easily turn it into a stronghold of routine, but then the same could be said of conservatories all over the world. Actually the Conservatory {{em|did}} raise the level of musical culture in Russia. The unconventional way chosen by Balakirev and his friends was not necessarily the right one for everybody else.{{sfn|Zetlin|1975|loc=126–127}}</blockquote>
It was during this period that Rubinstein drew his greatest success as a composer, beginning with his [[Piano Concerto No. 4 (Rubinstein)|Fourth Piano Concerto]] in 1864 and culminating with his opera ''The Demon'' in 1871. Between these two works are the orchestral works ''Don Quixote'', which Tchaikovsky found "interesting and well done," though "episodic,"<ref name="ng21845" /> and the opera ''Ivan IV Grozniy'', which was premiered by Balakirev. Borodin commented on ''Ivan IV'' that "the music is good, you just cannot recognize that it is Rubinstein. There is nothing that is Mendelssohnian, nothing as he used to write formerly."<ref name="ng21845">As quoted in {{harvnb|Garden|2001|loc=vol. 21, p. 845}}</ref>

===American tour===
By 1867, ongoing tensions with the Balakirev camp, along with related matters, led to intense dissension within the Conservatory's faculty. Rubinstein resigned and returned to touring throughout Europe.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 73</ref> Unlike his previous tours, he began increasingly featuring the works of other composers. In previous tours, Rubinstein had played primarily his own works.<ref>[[#Taylor|Taylor]], 124.</ref>

[[File:Anton Rubinstein headstone in Tikhvin Cemetery.jpg|thumb|Rubinstein headstone in [[Tikhvin Cemetery]], [[Saint Petersburg]]]]
At the behest of the [[Steinway & Sons]] piano company, Rubinstein toured the United States during the 1872–73 season. Steinway's contract with Rubinstein called on him to give 200 concerts at the then unheard-of rate of 200 dollars per concert (payable in gold—Rubinstein distrusted both United States banks and United States paper money), plus all expenses paid. Rubinstein stayed in America 239 days, giving 215 concerts—sometimes two and three a day in as many cities.

Rubinstein wrote of his American experience, <blockquote>May Heaven preserve us from such slavery! Under these conditions there is no chance for art—one simply grows into an automaton, performing mechanical work; no dignity remains to the artist; he is lost... The receipts and the success were invariably gratifying, but it was all so tedious that I began to despise myself and my art. So profound was my dissatisfaction that when several years later I was asked to repeat my American tour, I refused pointblank...</blockquote>

Despite his misery, Rubinstein made enough money from his American tour to give him financial security for the rest of his life. Upon his return to Russia, he "hastened to invest in real estate", purchasing a [[dacha]] in [[Petergof|Peterhof]], not far from Saint Petersburg, for himself and his family.{{sfn|Barenboim|1957–1962|loc=115–116}}<ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 276</ref><ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 76.</ref>

===Later life===
Rubinstein continued to make tours as a pianist and give appearances as a conductor. In 1887, he returned to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with the goal of improving overall standards.  He removed inferior students, fired and demoted many professors, made entrance and examination requirements more stringent, and revised the curriculum.  He led semi-weekly teachers' classes through the whole keyboard literature and gave some of the more gifted piano students personal coaching.  During the 1889–90 academic year he gave weekly lecture-recitals for the students. He resigned again and left Russia in 1891 over Imperial demands that Conservatory admittance, and later annual prizes to students, be awarded along ethnic quotas instead of purely by merit.  These quotas were designed to effectively disadvantage Jews. Rubinstein resettled in [[Dresden]] and started giving concerts again in Germany and Austria.  Nearly all of these concerts were charity benefit events.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

Rubinstein also coached a few pianists and taught his only private piano student, [[Josef Hofmann]]. Hofmann would become one of the finest keyboard artists of the 20th century.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

Despite his sentiments on ethnic politics in Russia, Rubinstein returned there occasionally to visit friends and family. He gave his final concert in Saint Petersburg on 14 January 1894. With his health failing rapidly, Rubinstein moved back to Peterhof in the summer of 1894. He died there on 20 November of that year, having suffered from [[heart disease]] for some time.<ref>[[#Sachs|Sachs]], 78–80</ref><ref>[[#Schonberg|Schonberg]], 279, 384–385</ref>

The former Troitskaya Street in Saint Petersburg where he lived is now named [[Rubinstein Street (Saint Petersburg)|Rubinstein Street]] after him.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}