Other Matters: Risk And Playing From The Heart

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How do you get to Carnegie Hall? “Practice,” the violinist Fritz Kreisler famously told a tourist who asked him that question on a New York street. But can a performer practice too much—practice the life out of a piece of music? No and yes, said one of Kreisler’s great contemporaries, pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982). Here is Rubinstein in a clip from a PBS documentary hosted by Robert MacNeil, discussing a proposition that serious musicians of all genres will always confront.

Here is Rubinstein in 1973 demonstrating by way of a Brahms capriccio

To see a generous sample of the Rubinstein documentary, go here.