When Arthur Rubinstein died last December at the age of ninety-five, there was remarkably little feeling of loss in the musical community. As had been the case with his life, Rubinstein’s death too seemed natural, another fulfillment of the kind which appeared (at least to onlookers) always to have been his lot.

Rubinstein enjoyed a long and splendid career. Born in 1887, he was before the public from the 1890’s to the 1970’s, a period beginning with the vigorous manhood of Claude Debussy and ending with the old age of John Cage. Despite this almost unparalleled longevity as a performer, he was never, even during the years of his phenomenal success, perceived as the world’s greatest pianist. During the 1920’s, for example, this title was shared by Josef Hofmann and Sergei Rachmaninoff; from the mid-1930’s to the present day, the undisputed champion has been Vladimir Horowitz. And if the applicable title were to be not the world’s greatest pianist but the world’s greatest musician-pianist, the names of Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, and Edwin Fischer would seem, for most music lovers, beyond compare.