Anton Rubinstein - Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 70 (1864)

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (Russian: Анто́н Григо́рьевич Рубинште́йн, tr. Anton Grigorevich Rubinshtein; November 28 [O.S. November 16] 1829 – November 20 [O.S. November 8] 1894) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein who founded the Moscow Conservatory.

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Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor, Op. 70 (1864)
dedicated to Ferdinand David

1. Moderato assai (0:00)
2. Andante (12:08)
3. Allegro (22:00)

Raymond Lewenthal, piano and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eleazar de Carvalho
recording never released on CD

Description by Robert Cummings [-]
Much of Rubinstein's output was quite popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even rivaling the appeal of Tchaikovsky's works. He preceded Tchaikovsky in the cosmopolitan (as opposed to nationalist) space in Russian music of his time, but infused that space with nowhere near Tchaikovsky's passion. His reputation faded by the middle of the twentieth century, but this D minor effort has remained his most enduring large composition and has hovered near the fringes of the standard repertory. Echoes of the work abound in Tchaikovsky's writing for piano.

The work's relative success is easy to understand; the piano writing is assured and colorful, actually quite dazzling in places, and this half-hour three-movement work offers strong thematic and harmonic appeal, as well as imaginative orchestration. The first movement, marked Moderato assai, features a stately but melancholy main theme of Russian character that is reworked in a lovely, flowing variation form. The powerful cadenza near the end of the movement is quite Lisztian, both in sound and in its technical demands.

The middle panel, marked Andante, features a beautiful, gentle theme in the outer sections that encloses a dramatic, restless central episode. The Allegro finale brims with energy and effervescence, its driving and colorful dance rhythms and rippling piano part yielding only briefly to relatively calmer music. Again the flavors are Russian, and now the mood is mostly joyous. The coda is brilliant, featuring breathtaking piano writing whose dramatic depth and virtuoso acrobatics combine for sonic thrills that never veer toward the bombastic but instead suggest the most satisfying encore before the fact. In sum, this is a fine composition, perhaps a major masterpiece. The composer arranged the concerto for two pianos in 1866.