Anton Rubinstein, a Russian musician, born in a frontier village of Bessarabia, Nov. 30, 1830. He is of Jewish descent, but was brought up by his father in the Greek faith. His mother was an excellent pianist, and instructed him and his brother Nicholas, since director of the conservatory at Moscow, in the elements of music. The family removed to Moscow while he was still a child, and there at the age of six he began the systematic study of music. At the age of nine he gave his first public concert in that city. The result was so encouraging that he was sent in August, 1840, with his teacher Villoing, to Paris, where Liszt heard him and prophesied for him a great career. Here he studied diligently for a year and a half, and then undertook his first artistic tour in England, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. After the close of this prosperous tour Rubinstein remained at home in Russia for a year, and then by the advice of Meyerbeer was placed under the instruction of the famous contrapuntist Dehn at Berlin. In 1846, left to his own resources, he went to Vienna, giving there for a year lessons upon the piano, at the close of which time he undertook a concert tour in Hungary with the flutist Heindl, and then went to Berlin, but on the breaking out of the revolutionary troubles of 1848 retired to St. Petersburg. In 1849 he wrote his first opera, Dmitri Donski, which was brought out in 1852. The grand duchess Helen now patronized the young composer, and at her instigation he wrote three one-act operas, "The Circassian," "The Siberian Hunters," and "Tom the Fool." Rubinstein founded and for nine years superintended the conservatory at St. Petersburg, and between 1850 and 1860 composed more than 50 works in various forms, many of them of the largest dimensions.

Among these were his "Ocean Symphony" and three other symphonies, six string quartets, his trios in G minor and B flat major, his oratorio "Paradise Lost," and a great variety of pianoforte compositions, including his two concertos in F and G for piano and orchestra, and many songs. He found time also to give concerts in Germany, Paris, and London, everywhere exciting the liveliest interest by his astonishing qualities as a pianist. In February, 1861, his German opera Die Kinder der Haide ("The Children of the Steppe ") was produced under his supervision at Vienna. Later he composed another German opera entitled Feramors. He made his first appearance in America at New York on Sept. 23, 1872. Daring the succeeding winter and spring he gave concerts in all the larger cities of the United States as far west as the Mississippi, meeting everywhere with the same success that attended his concert tours in Europe. Returning to Russia in 1873, he devoted himself anew to composition, producing on Jan. 25, 1875, at St. Petersburg, his fantastic opera "The Demon," founded on a legend by Lermontoff, and at Berlin, in April of the same year, another opera, Die Macca-bäer. Since Liszt ceased to play in public, Rubinstein has had no superior as a pianist.