Music: Oh, Poles!

Artur Rubinstein struck the final chords of a Chopin Polonaise, lifted his grey-fringed head, rose to acknowledge the applause. The audience rose with him. "May he live a hundred years," they sang, and clapped and stamped until he had walked ten times with ramrod dignity from the wings and bowed misty-eyed to the packed hall. After 20 years, 69-year-old Pianist Rubinstein was back in the country of his birth and in the city—Warsaw—where he played his first concert 63 years ago.

Until World War II, Rubinstein toured Poland occasionally, and long after he became a U.S. citizen, the Poles continued to claim...

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