The British police
on Thursday evening released Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known
as Prince Andrew, after taking him into custody for several hours,
intensifying a long-running crisis for the monarchy over his ties to the
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The
detention and questioning of Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, once seen as a
dashing war hero and the favorite son of Queen Elizabeth II, was a
staggering blow for the monarchy. It was the first time in modern
history that a member of the British royal family had been arrested. The
last time was in 1649, when Charles I was executed for treason during
the English Civil War.
The opening sequence in “ Eat Drink Man Woman,” in which a delectable Taiwanese banquet is prepared by a master chef, is guaranteed to make you contemplate the non-buttered popcorn in your lap and cry. Not quite as delicious -- but nonetheless enjoyable—is the repast that follows: Ang (“The Wedding Banquet”) Lee’s amiable family farce about generational tension and, of course, food.
If there was an award for the pianist who came closest to the artistic ideal in the widest repertoire, it would almost certainly go to Rubinstein. Whether playing Fauré or Brahms, Albéniz or Beethoven, Ravel or Schubert, the results were sublime. Yet he is most celebrated for his Chopin. That composer's aristocratic poise and elegance found a perfect match in Rubinstein’s own interpretative genius.
His golden tone, exquisite sense of timing and sensitivity to phrase and structure were tailor-made for Chopin's nocturnes, waltzes and mazurkas. Yet remarkably he sustained that same level of musical intuitiveness and profound eloquence throughout the more heated virtuosity of the concertos, scherzos, ballades, preludes, sonatas and polonaises.
There was seemingly nothing that Rubinstein could not play at the
highest levels of distinction. This ranged from concertos and solo
recitals to forming two ‘million dollar’ piano trios, first with Jascha Heifetz
and Emanuel Feuermann and then with Henryk Szeryng and Pierre Fournier,
with whom he made outstanding recordings of Brahms, Schubert and
Schumann.
Incredibly, as witness sublime video recordings of concertos by Grieg, Saint-Saëns,
Chopin, Beethoven and Brahms, he was still playing like an angel in his
eighties. Rubinstein was one of the most widely recorded of pianists.
That said, his love affair with the gramophone got off to a shaky start.
He refused to record for the early acoustic process as he felt it made
the piano ‘sound like a banjo’.
