"I play the piano in every country of the world but two," Artur Rubinstein often says. "Tibet, because it is too high, and Germany, because it is too low." To this, he stiffly adds that his Teutonopho-bia is a sturdy vintage '14—under Hitler it merely matured. It was the atrocities in Belgium during World War I that first moved Rubinstein to swear "a solemn and heavy oath" he would smash his fingers before playing again in Germany, and the oath grew heavier in World War
II when only three of the immense family of Rubinsteins at home in Poland es...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
