William Beatty-Kingston - 1868

from Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character, pages 221-222:

I have heard him [Anton Rubinstein] transpose one of the most heart-breaking fugues (heart-breaking, of course, only from a mechanical point of view) of the "forty-eight" from a flat key into a sharp key, the latter not even being one of his own selection, but chosen by a fellow-pianist whom I shrewdly suspected at the time to be guilty of intending to set Rubinstein an impossible task. He played the fugue in question— which I had only too good reason to know by heart — without missing a note or omitting an emphasis. When it was over, I noticed…   more >>

cite as

William Beatty-Kingston, Music and manners; personal reminiscences and sketches of character, volume 1 (London, 1887), p. 221-222. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1451667578547 accessed: 4 December, 2024

Listeners

William Beatty-Kingston
journalist, Librettist, memoirist, Translation
1837-1900

Listening to

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Fugue performed by Anton Rubinstein

Experience Information

Date/Time 1868
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, in private, indoors

Originally submitted by Meg Barclay on Fri, 01 Jan 2016 16:59:40 +0000
Approved on Tue, 12 Jan 2016 09:23:47 +0000