Here's a dip I grew up with, yet I didn't know the recipe until I was nearly 30. My grandmother's veggie dip brings a piquant but not overwhelming flavor to raw vegetables.
The recipe: * 2 parts mayonaise or Miracle Whip * 1 part mustard (preferably Cleveland Stadium brown mustard) * Liberally season with curry * Mix in a small dipping bowl * Garnish with curry for a decorative touch.
The communities of Orange, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills, and Woodmere are studying a proposal to merge their small communities into one larger one. These four towns already share a school system. Combining police, fire, and other services would save them a substantial amount of tax dollars and increase efficiency. I believe it would also help root out the corruption that is inevitable when fiefdoms take root as happened in Woodmere during the 1990s. There has been speculation about what the new suburb would be called, from Chagrin Hills to Pepperwood. The latter sounds too much like peckerwood, and is best left alone.
There has been talk of other communities merging, including Parma/Parma Heights, Seven Hills/Independence, Olmsted Falls/Olmsted Township, and Cleveland Heights/University Heights. There has also been talk of South Euclid merging with various bordering towns. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to stick to South Euclid and its bordering communities.
Should South Euclid (population 21,000) merge with another community, and which one? University Heights? Richmond Heights? Lyndhurst? Let’s examine the various possibilities.
I didn’t mention Cleveland Heights above because I think a merger with that city would be out of the question. It’s very unlikely that citizens in either community would agree to it. Also, Cleveland Heights – with a population of over 46,000 - is arguably large enough by itself that a merger is not warranted.
Some have suggested University Heights (population 13,500) merge with South Euclid (calling it, Euclid Heights, perhaps?). This idea has its merits: both are about the right size for combination, and a merger would not make the combined community too large. The demographics of South Euclid and University Heights would commingle nicely. But there are obstacles, too – chiefly that University Heights and Cleveland Heights already share a school system. It’s my opinion that any new communities should match their school systems – and the state board of education makes decisions in those matters. If the South Euclid and University Heights school systems were combined, it would mean construction of a new high school and the shifting of a lot of kids to new schools.
Merging South Euclid with Richmond Heights (population 10,500) would benefit neither and possibly harm both. Consider that both SE and RH have mostly older housing stock and a struggling tax base. Any improvement in efficiency would be marginal at best – for example, the SE and RH fire stations are so far apart, both would need to remain open. Then there is the issue with the school system: Richmond Heights High School would be too small to accommodate a large number of additional students, sits on a cramped parcel of land where expansion is impractical, and would have to be replaced. Finally, the Se and RH borders don’t fit together well, and the physical layout of the area would look like an infant gerrymander.
Under just about any reasoning, it would make the most sense for South Euclid and Lyndhurst (population 14,000) to merge. For one thing, both cities have had a long history of mutual cooperation – though there have been some rough patches lately, mostly caused by South Euclid’s city council. For another, South Euclid and Lyndhurst already share a school system and even a branch of the Cuyahoga Library. In many ways, South Euclid and Lyndhurst are de facto merged already, so the transition could be accomplished with the least difficulty.
I’ve thought of various names for a new, merged SE-L suburb. I’ve never been a fan of the South Euclid name. It makes it seem as if we’re an appendix of Euclid – when in fact our border with Euclid is tiny. The name that strikes me as most apropos is Hillcrest, a nod to an earlier era. Some are under the impression that Hillcrest refers only to the area adjacent to Hillcrest Hospital, which is not the case. Historically, Hillcrest has referred to the entire hilltop area intersected by Mayfield Road, from Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland Heights to the western border of Gates Mills. (Early geographic surveys referred to that region as Hillcrest, later calling the western portion Heights and the eastern part Hillcrest.) That’s why the Hillcrest branch of the YMCA is located in Lyndhurst near the South Euclid border. Since the SE-L area sits dead center in that region, and is literally at the top of this hill, calling a merged suburb Hillcrest would be historically and geographically accurate.
Merging communities is not an easy prospect to sell. Most Lyndhurst residents would probably be against it. I lived in Lyndhurst from 1983-1985 and 1994-1998. Many there have long had a somewhat “nose in the air” attitude toward South Euclid which is totally unwarranted. Some have proposed separating South Euclid and Lyndhurst into individual school districts, even though the combined district is smaller than it has been in decades. The best way to overcome these objections is for the County to give Lyndhurst a choice: merge with South Euclid or merge with Richmond Heights. It would be a no brainer for them to choose South Euclid.
University Heights, I propose, should merge with Beachwood (population 12,000). The combined population would be about 25,500 and would balance nicely with Cleveland Heights’ 46,000, the proposed Hillcrest’s 35,000, and Shaker Heights’ 28,500 (Shaker is large enough on its own that a merger is not warranted). The distinctive housing would make the Beachwood/University area even more of a gem; and the plentiful retail would keep taxes low, helping to dissuade people from moving to a far off exurb. Most importantly, University Heights would greatly benefit from joining with Beachwood’s excellent school system – far superior to the struggling system in Cleveland Heights. Another option would be for University Heights to merge with a combined South Euclid/Lyndhurst, making the total population about 48, 500.
That leaves the question of Richmond Heights. In the new paradigm, it would be too small to remain on its own. As a standalone, Richmond Heights is barely viable. Since Euclid already has a population of over 50,000, I would recommend that Richmond Heights merge with Highland Heights and the name be changed to Richmond Highlands. The existing school infrastructure would remain the same, with kids going to the same schools as at present, but would be under the jurisdiction of the Mayfield City school district.
This is a long post with a somewhat rambling diversion. But it contains some thoughts I need to put front and center, because it deals with what I see as a decline in American morals. Some people, most of them religious fundamentalists, define morals on the basis of who you sleep with or how you make love. I define morals based on whether you apply the Golden Rule to your conduct (so, from the available evidence, did Jesus Christ). An example: While waiting at Akron-Canton Airport for our flight, an announcement went over the PA asking if any couple would be willing to split their seat assignments so a mother could ride with her young daughter. Dan & I volunteered. That’s the Golden Rule in action. (Air Tran bumped us up to Business Class for our return trip, which was a pleasant surprise.)
By far the most frustrating part of our trip to Walt Disney World was something we encountered every day: rude behavior from children and a good number of adults. As I previously related, Dan and I used Disney’s transportation for travel throughout WDW. If I could only air one complaint about Disney it would be that they do not provide adequate transportation: there were too few buses and monorail cars – so we often waited longer than necessary and vehicles were standing room only. We also encountered one bus driver who was plainly not fit to be behind the wheel of such a large vehicle. The transportation situation must be even worse at peak season.
It was in the buses that we observed children lazing in seats while adults (some of them elderly) stood while the vehicle made its way to and fro. Dan and I were appalled – and we weren’t the only ones. I was far from a perfect child, but I would certainly have had the sense of mind to surrender my bus seat to an adult. If I hadn’t, my parents would have swatted the sense into me via my backside. Of course, the parents here were to blame - they often lacked the good sense to put small children on their laps so another adult could have a seat. Discourteous behavior on the buses was duplicated at restaurants, in queues, and even on rides: kids ran around like plague ridden rats, shoving adults out of the way and throwing temper tantrums at the slightest provocation.
All of the badly behaved children had one thing in common: they were American. I have rarely been as ashamed of my country as I was during the week I spent at Disney. Watching how they behaved, I shuddered to think of what foreign visitors would say about Americans after returning to their homelands.
As touched upon at an earlier post, Dan & I observed a family with superbly behaved kids at San Angel Inn one evening, and I thought to myself, “This is a nice change”. Listening to their conversation, I realized the family was British. The father spoke to his children like they were grown-ups, and these kids did behave like miniature adults (British adults, as some American grown-ups were as bad as their kids). Indeed, during our entire trip to WDW, we never observed a foreign child who was discourteous in any way.
Where did we go wrong? Let’s compare & contrast two societies: The United States and Great Britain.
It seems to me that America’s expectations of instant gratification (which the Great Recession seems to have done little to correct) came about in the generation following World War II. After the war, American soldiers came home, got married, bought homes, and had kids – all in an era of unprecedented prosperity (the likes of which would be repeated in the 1990s). For the first time in world history, a nation held a prosperous middle class – which in & of itself was a good thing. (It’s worth remembering that during the war, food, clothing, and gasoline were rationed – and the President regularly took to the radio to caution Americans not to make unnecessary purchases, especially those involving installment payments.) After the war, whether one paid for something in cash or financed it made little difference; if an American wanted something, he bought it. And over time, the homes became bigger, cars became fancier, children’s toys became more elaborate – but just as quickly discarded. The values of thriftiness learned in the Great Depression and shared sacrifice learned during World War II were lost. At the same time, the value of working with one’s hands was diminished as the service economy took over – and fewer & fewer Americans could be troubled to paint their own homes or fix their own cars. Also, an attitude of “me first” (or even me only) took hold among the adults. Such an attitude (and I won’t deign to refer to it as a philosophy, despite its designation as such by Ayn Rand acolytes) didn’t have to be indoctrinated into children – “me first” is their default position.
Contrast this with England’s postwar experience. As pianist Stephen Hough relates, the experience of England’s people in the decade after World War II was far removed from Americans’:
“It is often forgotten that the years immediately following World War II involved more suffering for the British people in many ways than the six years of combat. Rationing lasted well into the mid-1950s, and homelessness, hunger, and deprivation, along with listlessness and depression amidst the cities’ unrepaired, litter and rat-infested bomb sights, made those years of ‘victory’ seem at times like a cruel irony. With air-raids, threats of invasion, and a certain man with a moustache as an enemy there seemed a moral purpose behind the hardship. People joined together and cheerfully kept ‘the home fires burning’ as a community through the dark years of the war. When all this was over things just wouldn‘t return to normal – like a nasty virus which lingers: insufficiently serious to take time off work, but debilitating enough to make useful activity impossible.”
On top of all that, the British Empire was crumbling, while America’s Empire (which was as much economic as military) was just solidifying. England’s parents had to tell their children that they weren’t going to get everything they wanted for Christmas. On the rare occasions the family could afford to dine out, the children would be expected to sit in their seats without fidgeting. Also, the English were more accustomed to public transport than their American counterparts, whose parents were part of the car culture – so kids already knew to surrender seats to adults, especially the elderly.
English culture has long been based on the concept of respect – it may have started with deference to the monarchy, but with the demise of England’s class system, it has evolved into mutual respect for everyone. At the same time, America, with it’s not-so-rugged individualism, has devolved into “I’ve got mine, you’re on your own, pal.”
But sometimes, the kindest thing you can do for a child is to say “No.”
As stated previously, the last time I went to Disneyworld was in 1979. I was 12 years old. (I also visited Disneyland, which does not compare to the Florida park in quality or quantity of attractions, in 1980.)
First, a few quick tips: If you’re traveling to WDW and staying for more than one day, your best option is to stay at a Disney resort (more on that in a later post). The main reason for this is that you get extended hours at the parks, and there is free and reliable (if crowded) transportation to the various parks via bus and monorail.
A note about the rides at the parks: Most popular attractions offer the Fastpass option, which lets you come back at a pre-selected time and avoid a long queue. If encounter a long line at a ride, don’t hesitate to take advantage of this option - it saved us hours of wait time.
I don’t remember much about that 1979 visit to the Magic Kingdom - it took place during a particularly difficult time in my life. Of the park, I only remember Space Mountain and the monorail with any clarity. I returned to Space Mountain during this trip, and it hasn’t changed much. Not a particularly challenging roller coaster when compared with the coasters at Cedar Point, it’s the lighting effects which sell it. Still, as a middle-aged person with a bad back, Space Mountain was about the limit for me this time around.
During our trips to Magic Kingdom, we walked through the entire park, visiting most attractions including The Haunted Mansion (not at all scary), and It’s a Small World (which became a bit nightmarish after we briefly became stuck). Experiencing Magic Kingdom from an adult perspective was interesting. Some of the attractions, like Country Bear Jamboree with its primitive animatronics, seemed dated. (A worker there informed me that it will be shut down this year.) The Hall of Presidents, recently refurbished, suspends one’s disbelief. A bit of that was necessary during the “historical” film which precedes the unveiling of the Presidents – the sanitization of Andrew Jackson’s role in the genocide of American Indians was especially galling. Still, the experience of seeing a faux Abraham Lincoln rise out of his chair and deliver the Gettysburg Address was more than impressive from a technological standpoint; it was haunting and emotionally moving. Lincoln, along with Washington and Barack Obama, were the only three Presidents who spoke at this attraction. All three figures had full articulation and Obama’s hand gestures were mostly realistic. All of the figures had some level of articulation, at least to the extent of nodding their heads when their names were heard in the Presidential “roll-call”. During our trips to Magic Kingdom, we walked through the entire park, visiting most attractions including The Haunted Mansion (not at all scary), and It’s a Small World (which became a bit nightmarish after we briefly became stuck).
With a friend in Frontierland.
1979 was an era before Epcot, before Hollywood Studios, before Downtown Disney. Most of those places were already in the design stage by then. (Indeed, Epcot was designed in the 1960s while Walt Disney was still alive, and was envisioned by him as an actual city, not an amusement park.)
If a visitor had time to visit only one park at WDW, I would recommend Epcot, particularly if the visitor is an adult. Although there are several kid friendly attractions, including Mission: Space and Soarin’ (one of the best attractions in the entire WDW complex), the World Showcase is clearly aimed at adults. Indeed, each represented “country” has several stores selling themed wares, so this area is aimed at adults’ wallets. The Showcase pavilions include Mexico, Norway, China, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, France, the United Kingdom, and America (which is somewhat redundant with a similar area at the Magic Kingdom. Surprisingly, there is no pavilion for India, although a pavilion for the world’s second-most populous country would be warranted – especially given India’s plethora of cultural riches. Everyone who visits Epcot should experience the nighttime IllumiNations show – more than entertainment, it’s a summation of Walt Disney’s vision.
Hollywood Studios is a faux recreation of a studio backlot, circa 1940. There are some stage attractions like Beauty and the Beast (a condensed stage version of the animated musical) and Indiana Jones (a best hits stunt demonstration), along with some rides such as Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Star Tours. But the shopping-to-attraction ratio is higher here than at any other park, so some sections here might not be appealing to kids. There is a nighttime show with music, water lighting effects and fireworks called Fantasmic. This was a crowd pleaser for adults and kids alike, at least until the wind shifted during the fireworks finale and we ended up with ashes in our eyes.
Beauty and the Beast
Animal Kingdom is the newest of the Disney parks, and the least focused. The problem with AK is that it can’t decide whether it wants to be an amusement park or a zoo, so neither aspect satisfies. There are a few animals visible, as with some primates in one area, a show dealing with birds (the highlight of our trip to this park), and a trolley ride past some jungle animals. There are also some rides, such as Expedition Everest, and shows such as Festival of the Lion King (featuring some impressive acrobatics). But I never experienced the awe I’ve felt when visiting the Cleveland Zoo.
Animal Kingdom Lodge in the background
Downtown Disney is not a theme park, although it’s part of the Disney complex. You don’t need a ticket to go there, because you’re essentially going to a hyped-up shopping center. (Think Legacy Village, but larger, and almost entirely devoted to Disney.) A 24 screen AMC movie theater there shows first run films with ticket prices at $11 per person. At one time, Downtown Disney was envisioned as an adult-oriented place, but has been tweaked to make it more kid-friendly. Still, there are a number of bars there and I observed some public intoxication that didn’t seem Disneyesque. I would not bring my kid here.
Dan & I traveled to Walt Disney World from May 31st to June 6th. It was the first time I’d been there since the summer of 1979 – a time before Epcot and many of the other attractions now available. In my posts detailing my previous travels, I’ve related the events of the trip chronologically. However, for this trip, I didn’t have my computer with me and didn’t take notes. So, I will be posting my thoughts on different aspects of our trip.
First, for those who are contemplating a trip to Disney, I strongly urge you to use the Dining Plan that Disney offers, especially if you are staying at a Disney resort. There are several versions of the plan available. We chose the version that offers one quick-service meal (essentially, fast food), one snack, and one table service meal per day. Alcoholic drinks and gratuity are not included in the plan. (It should be noted that some of the higher end restaurants will count as two meal credits per person. Still, you’ll wind up paying less than if you bought each meal separately.)
Also, for table service meals, make reservations as far in advance as possible (Disney allows restaurant reservations up to 180 days in advance). Dan & I made reservations in February, and by that time, several restaurants were already booked – notably Le Cellier in the Canada pavilion.
As mentioned, quick service meals were essentially fast food – just a step up from the fare you’d find at McDonald’s. Each of the value resorts has a food court much like what you’d find at a shopping mall. Dan and I used them for breakfast most days, where they served omelets made-to-order with home fries, waffles (shaped like Mickey Mouse’s face, I felt I was committing rodenticide through food proxy), juices and fruit. They also have lunch and dinner options of the hamburger/pizza type.
Snacks can be purchased at the food court, or at any of the food carts that dot the various Disney parks: anything from ice cream to sweets or healthy options like fruit. With the large breakfasts we had, Dan & I only needed a small snack to carry us till dinner. On one occasion, we purchased one of Disney’s legendary smoked turkey legs - one was enough for both of us.
In each of five full service restaurants we went to, Dan & I experienced attentive service. Each restaurant was staffed with people recruited from their respective countries. Here are the details on each of the restaurants we went to:
Boma – Animal Kingdom Lodge: This is a buffet, specializing in African dishes. The food is prepared in an open area and I conversed with one of the chefs, who was from Mentor. Since the African continent is vast and encompasses many cultures, the selection was highly varied. Highlights there are various meats cooked over an open flame, salmon with capers, a delicious seafood bisque flavored with curry and coconuts (which Dan had to skip due to his shellfish allergy), and a huge selection of desserts. There was simply too much food for Dan & I to sample everything, and I came closer to gluttony than I have at any time since I started my diet in January. (Incidentally, my dietary restrictions were suspended for the duration of the trip). But I would recommend it to anyone who thinks buffet food is automatically second-rate.
At Boma
San Angel Inn – Epcot, Mexico pavilion: Obviously, this is a Mexican restaurant - part of a shopping complex, all interior, which is designed to feel like an outdoor setting in a small Mexican town. .The food here was good, but not extraordinary. The chips and salsa, for example, were no better than you’d get at a garden variety Mexican place anywhere in Cleveland. The most arresting thing here was a family we spotted at the next table: Two perfectly behaved children with their parents. I was within earshot of their conversation and they were British. More on this observation in another post.
A possible Hidden Mickey at Teppan Edo
Teppan Edo – Epcot, Japan pavilion: This was a real treat for Dan, who’d never been to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant before. We shared our table with another group. Here, as at the other restaurants we went to, the staff were proactive in asking about food allergies. The chef cooked Dan’s food separately from everyone else’s to avoid contamination. Rather than going into detail about our food, this video tells the story:
Rose & Crown Pub & Dining Room – Epcot, United Kingdom pavilion: As I may have said before, my ancestry is English, and I adore their culture and the temperament of their people. As for their food, it’s agreeable to me, but doesn’t send me into waves of ecstasy. Rose & Crown recreates the English pub experience, complete with a live performer singing bawdy songs. We sat outside, under a shade so the heat wasn’t too oppressive. I had the Surf (broiled to medium rare perfection) & Turf – and for dessert, Chocolate Scotch Cake, (and I sampled Dan’s Sticky Toffee Pudding).
California Grill – Contemporary resort: This is one of the most popular restaurants at Disney. Located on the top floor of the Contemporary Resort, you can only gain access via a special elevator guarded by the maître’ d. One of the reasons for this is the restaurant’s balcony, which is ideal for viewing nighttime fireworks. Like many higher end restaurants, California Grill serves smaller portions, so we were able to enjoy our appetizers (flat bread and salad) and entrees (I got the Veal), with room left over for dessert.
I almost felt guilty eating this artfully presented dessert
(The recordings on this video correspond to some of the recordings discussed below.)
Arthur Rubinstein (I include the “h” in his first name as he preferred) was easily the most beloved pianist of the 20th Century. His concerts regularly sold out, his recordings consistently sold well, and he seldom got a bad review. Rubinstein’s career had such endurance that by the time he retired, he had crossed over from the limited niche of Classical music and was known to the general public. (He did this, by the way, without straying from the Classical and Romantic repertoire that he loved, and continued to make known his distaste for popular music – the Beatles in particular.) Rubinstein’s recordings of much of the core repertoire, particularly Chopin and Brahms, became the standard for how those works are played and will be with us for many decades.
Some of the hallmarks of Rubinstein’s best playing – the gorgeous tone, technique that was solid but never for show, healthy temperament - were so obvious that much else that distinguished the pianist from many of his contemporaries was missed. It was not Rubinstein’s style to offer the high-wire excitement of a Horowitz, the dynamic contrasts of a Hofmann, or the gaunt angularity of a Serkin. At the tail end of the “Golden-Age” of piano playing, Rubinstein’s straightforward, uncluttered performances must have come as a splash of cold water across the face of the cognoscenti. It’s not for nothing that Paderewski, who Rubinstein considered the epitome of the “bad” 19th Century school, much preferred the young Horowitz. (Paderewski described Horowitz as “self-disciplined, and above all, he has rhythm and tone…Without any doubt, he is the most convincing of the younger pianists.”) Rachmaninoff, whose own style of playing was straighter than Paderewski’s but still rooted in an earlier tradition, considered Horowitz his heir. If Rachmaninoff ever had any opinion on Rubinstein, aside from his advice to his Polish-colleague to stop playing “dirty modern music” like Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, I have yet to see it.
I never heard Rubinstein in person. I was only nine years old when he retired. I first heard AR's playing in 1983, when I found an old 78RPM recording of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata in my grandmother's basement (it was the 1946 recording, in retrospect a pretty slapdash performance - despite the surface thrills). Since that time, I’ve come to know his playing much better.
Several times, I’ve heard young pianists comment to the effect that they didn’t understand why Rubinstein was so popular with the older generation of music lovers. The recordings they’d heard (which would naturally be the most easily available) sounded cautious or even stodgy.
The historical view of Rubinstein as pianist and musician has become somewhat distorted. It’s not easy to get a grasp of the totality of Rubinstein’s career. It may be impossible, since there’s no one alive today who would remember his earliest performances. Recordings give a very incomplete picture: Rubinstein’s very first recording, made in 1910 when he was 23, has never been issued on LP or CD and is nearly impossible to find. (I have never heard it, but have been told that all one can hear through the poor sonics is rather careless, sloppy playing.) His next recording wasn’t made until 1928 when he was over 40 - the same age Evgeny Kissin is at this writing. From that point on, Rubinstein recorded prolifically until he was 89 – at one point he was the world’s most recorded Classical pianist. But he was loath to make live recordings, and the few he made reveal that he played differently in concert than in the studio. RCA (now Sony) reissued Rubinstein's stereo studio recordings several times - going back to the early CD era, while the most of the mono recordings have been issued only once - and many are hard to find. Problem is, most of the stereo recordings capture the final phase of Rubinstein's long career - and it's impossible to have a balanced view of his playing without knowing more of his output. It would be like judging Toscanini's conducting based only on his last years at NBC, or Horowitz solely on his Deutsche Grammophon recordings.
About ten years ago, I bought RCA’s mammoth boxed set of Rubinstein’s complete recordings with that label – over 106 hours of recorded music covering a period from 1928 to 1976. Many of these performances were unfamiliar to me. But it was fascinating to follow the evolution of his playing from middle to old age. Rubinstein’s recording career coincided with a quantum leap in recording technology, starting in the earliest years of electrical recording (that is, recording with a microphone instead of a horn) during the 78RPM era, to the LP, and stereophonic sound. (By time digital recording came into common use, Rubinstein had retired – and early digital recordings seldom sounded very good anyway.) Every time recording technology improved, Rubinstein would rerecord his core repertoire – so we often have at least three recordings of the same works.
There were basically three phases of Rubinstein's recording career:
* 1928-1946: Impetuous playing, full of brio, but sometimes uncontrolled, very much a virtuoso but sometimes gets carried away, more freedom and imagination than in later years.
* 1947-1962: greater maturity, still hot blooded but starting to mellow, most secure technically, increasing understanding of musical structure.
* 1963-1976: maturity giving way to stodginess, control of pianissimo failing, best in contemplative repertoire like late Brahms.
In short, if you haven’t heard recordings drawn from Rubinstein’s early and middle periods, you haven’t heard Rubinstein. Examples of the evolution in Rubinstein’s playing can be found in the many works he recorded several times. One that comes to mind for me is Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, which Rubinstein recorded in 1929, 1952, 1958, and 1971. (There are other, unauthorized recordings from broadcasts and the like, but I am only including the authorized versions here since they presumably reflect Rubinstein’s wishes.) The 1929 version is a hell-for-leather performance that runs contrary to “traditional” Brahms, and quite marred by technical lapses and over-pedaling. But wrong notes were inevitable in the days before tape editing, so those can be forgiven, and Rubinstein may have been falling back on his youthful habit of leaning on the pedal to avoid exposing cheated passagework. The question is: Did Rubinstein not practice enough for this recording? Or was he determined to present his conception of the work no matter what the obstacles and blemishes? I am inclined to believe the latter. It should be noted that Rubinstein’s tempos in this performance are closer to Brahms’ metronome markings than any other recording I’ve heard.
The 1952 and 1958 are very similar in approach, although the stereophonic sound of the latter makes it preferable. These are still rather impetuous performances, not as extreme in tempo as the 1929 version, but outgoing. The pianist often stated that since Brahms was alive until Rubinstein was ten years old, he thought of him as a living composer instead of an old master. This is not the tired, grey bearded Brahms, but a vigorous, temperamental, even lusty conception.
The last version, with Ormandy, is the weakest. His conception of the piece had changed dramatically in the intervening years, and he seems to have traded one extreme for the other. The octogenarian pianist’s tempos are slow here, phrasing is flabby, then opening flourish of the Scherzo is played in an almost dainty fashion, and Rubinstein seems overwhelmed by the Philadelphians. A pseudo-reverential quality drains the spontaneity and passion that marked his earlier recordings. One wonders if Rubinstein was thinking of this recording when he stated in his autobiography that the first versions he recorded inevitably remained the best.
Much the same could be said for Rubinstein’s Chopin as for his Brahms – but there is a twist since Chopin wrote across more solo piano genres than Brahms.
Rubinstein recorded the bulk of Chopin’s solo works three times (roughly: in the 1930s, late ‘40s/early ‘50s, and in the stereo era starting in 1958). There are exceptions to this pattern: the Ballades were recorded only once, as were the Op. 28 Preludes and the Third Sonata – and some assorted pieces were recorded more than three times.
As has been noted by many, Rubinstein never recorded the Op. 10 & 25 Etudes in the studio (an attempt in the late 1960s was abandoned after one session). But he did record the Trois Nouvelles Etudes twice – the early stereo version from 1958 is a bit more alert than the 1962 remake.
Rubinstein’s one traversal of the Preludes, from 1946, is a perfunctory rendition and not among his best efforts in any composer’s work.
I heartily endorse his 1950s Chopin Polonaises which I reviewed under the headline "The Best Polonaises – EVER!". (That headline earned me a good amount of hate-mail, particularly from Pollini fans. The headline was a parody of a famous line from Mommie Dearest.) I have yet to hear a set of Polonaises that combines the fire, swagger, and gravitas of this idiom better than this cycle. The same for his 1949 Scherzos – although the superior sound in the 1959 Scherzos compensates for a slight falling off in tempos.
But in the Nocturnes and Mazurkas, I recommend the 1930s set, which have many moments of magic missing from the later sets. Why is this? For one thing, some of these pieces were probably new to him. Rubinstein played only a small selection of Nocturnes and Mazurkas in concert, and the idea of recording a complete set of them was unusual in the 1930s and fairly daring on Rubinstein’s and HMV’s part. (Schnabel’s set of Beethoven Sonatas had to be financed in advance via subscriptions.) The freshness in this set is palpable. But by the 1960s, Rubinstein was very much aware that he was the "elder statesman" of Chopin; he knew this would be his last cycle of Chopin's music, and he was thinking of "posterity." As such, his last set of Mazurkas was over-thought and rather stiff – “stripped of pungency” in the words of David Dubal. There's also the problem - likely caused by his failing hearing – that Rubinstein consistently played too loudly in the last decade of his career. That especially marred his last version of the Nocturnes.
Indeed, of Rubinstein’s later Chopin recordings, I can only recommend one without reservations: His 1961 recording of the famous Funeral March Sonata is head and shoulders above his 1946 version. There is a relaxed kind of virtuosity here, and a keener grasp of the totality of the piece than in 1946. The B minor Sonata (his only recording of the piece, made over a two year period) is not on the same exalted level. Rubinstein seems to have had a troubled relationship with the B minor sonata, and legend has it he threw a tape of a concert version of this piece into his fireplace.
There is a pattern to be discerned above in the Brahms and Chopin examples above, and it can also be confirmed by listening to Rubinstein’s recordings of other works like Franck’s Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue or any of his concerto recordings: His understanding of large scale works improved as he aged, while his recordings of shorter works tended to lose imagination with time.
(I do not endorse the notion, claimed by some, that Rubinstein’s last producer, Max Wilcox, was responsible for the character of Rubinstein’s later recordings. There are plenty of instances in the later years, such as the all-French album or the Chamber music recordings, where Rubinstein is clearly “on.” In any case, recordings were never issued during Rubinstein’s lifetime without his consent, and one can presume that they met his standards. The idea of Wilcox pressuring Rubinstein into playing in a certain way, or tricking the pianist into releasing something not to his standards, is at once laughable and defamatory.)
Despite the changes in his performances, positive and negative, that came with age and maturity, Rubinstein's interpretations were always very normal, in the sense that they didn’t call attention to themselves. In the last half of the 20th Century, there were growing numbers of pianists who offered straight interpretations of the standard repertoire (Ashkenazy was the king of normalcy, IMO). But when Rubinstein was starting out, this kind of straightforward, unfussy approach was somewhat new. The notion that Glenn Gould put forth, that one shouldn’t perform a work unless one consciously intended to perform it differently, was anathema to Rubinstein’s philosophy. As Daniel Barenboim said, Rubinstein put all of his musical ideas through a “strainer of naturalness” and if an idea didn’t pass through that strainer, Rubinstein rejected it. His early Chopin performances put off the old-schoolers, who expected a more personalized approach. Rubinstein once said that his masculine approach to Chopin, performed without the “swan dive into the keyboard” angered many critics – “they said my Chopin was ‘cold’”. But there were pianists before Rubinstein who rejected swan diving, including Hofmann and Rachmaninoff.
Although Rubinstein’s never recorded the complete Beethoven Sonatas or Mozart Concertos, his repertoire was vast stylistically – encompassing Bach to Szymanowski. And he seemed to play so much of it remarkably well, in the same suave, warm, uncluttered way his public came to expect. It’s no surprise that the concert going public, who felt fear/awe at Horowitz and respected Arrau, considered Rubinstein to be their “beloved Artur.”
It may be a false sense of causation by way of correlation on my part, but I feel that Rubinstein’s knowledge of various human cultures helped him musically. Born in Poland, he studied in Berlin and spent his adult years living in London, France, and the United States. He traveled so widely that he became fluent in eight languages. (He once stated that he would play anywhere except Tibet, because it was too high, or Germany, because it was too low. Contrary to popular belief, he was not referring to the Holocaust in his condemnation of Germany, but to that nation’s behavior during World War I. I have sometimes wondered if Rubinstein’s boycott of Germany is an underlying reason why some have never accepted him as a Beethoven interpreter – I can’t find a musical justification for the dismissal of some of his Beethoven.) It seems to me, also, that Rubinstein was able to play an uncommonly large swath of repertoire with a high degree of authenticity. Although it can fairly be pointed out that Rubinstein sometimes glossed over details - particularly with regard to dynamic markings - everything he played had a clear, high-level approach. Neither his German, French, nor Spanish repertoire was ever played with a Polish accent. His Chopin, appropriately, was. Yet even in his countryman’s music, he was more urbane and cosmopolitan than, say, Witold Małcużyński.
Now, following an era when normalcy gave way to stultification, it seems like interpretations are moving back into a more personalized approach - witness the explosion of pianists who play transcriptions (their own and others) and the very individualistic performances by pianists such as Lang Lang, Denis Matsuev, Alice Sara Ott, and others. But without the tradition of 19th Century performance practice as a foundation, many of these youngsters flounder in their attempts at individuality. Rubinstein was able to balance his individuality (that tone alone makes him instantly identifiable) and his romantic temperament with his innate classicism – note the small “r” and small “c”.
Arthur Rubinstein proved that Classicism and Romanticism, upper or lower case, are not opposing virtues.
By day: Cubicle drone. By night: Husband, uncle, Classical music enthusiast, pianist, blogger, dogwalker, home renovator, Trekker, good trouble-maker.
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