Music: Rubinstein at 89

"Isn't it so, Nela?"

It was the day after one of the most remarkable recitals in the long history of New York's Carnegie Hall. Ever so gingerly Pianist Artur Rubinstein—at 89, four years older than Carnegie—was blowing his own horn. The huge hands (he can span a twelfth, which is an octave plus four white notes) were spread imploringly on the table. The gray-blue eyes gazed boyishly across the hotel room where his wife of 43 years, Aniela, his Nela, was reading on the sofa. In the inquiring way that some husbands have with...