Melody

The Melody in F is the first of the Deux melodies opus 3, published in 1852, when Anton Rubinstein was in his early twenties and still building the career that would make him the most travelled pianist of his generation after Liszt. It was the piece that followed him everywhere: audiences demanded it as an encore for the rest of his life, and its arrangements for violin, cello, orchestra and salon ensemble outnumber those of anything else he wrote. Rubinstein, who founded the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1862, came to resent its popularity.