"I AM so accustomed to having you with me that you are like part of the family," said Artur Rubinstein. "After the story is finished, I won't know what to do without you."

The people who were working on this week's cover story could return the compliment with sincerity. For Artist Boris Chaliapin, the assignment brought warm memories of family: his father, the great Russian basso Feodor Chaliapin, was a close friend of Rubinstein's in Europe many years ago. Between them, for reasons only they really know, painter and pianist decided on the rather unusual garb of red coat and vest for the portrait. And why is the piano green? "You don't have to see it green," said Chaliapin. "It is black; perhaps it was an artistic liberty I took. Perhaps I thought that in that light, with the red jacket, the piano looked more green than black. The same for the hair; it seemed to me that there was more green in his white hair." Then, raising one brow slightly, Boris added: "When some TIME artists put colored spots all over, no one is surprised."

Reporter Christopher Porterfield was the member of the team to whom Rubinstein got most accustomed. In just over three weeks, Porterfield went along to New York, Boston, Toronto, Washington, Durham (N.C.), Columbia (S.C.) and Cincinnati, questioning and listening in airplanes, taxis, concert halls and at cocktail parties. In Columbia, where Rubinstein played a sonata that he had played two nights earlier in Durham, he seemed to be testing Porterfield. Striding backstage immediately after finishing the sonata, Rubinstein asked: "Did you notice any difference between this time and the night before last?" "Yes," said Porterfield, "this time was better." Rubinstein turned to walk back onstage to take his bows, saying as he went: "Then you are all right." While Porterfield's answer may have been the safe one, he had considerable basis for his judgment, since he has pursued music for 18 years, arranged and composed for his own band at Yale, and still plays a clear clarinet.

Researcher Virginia Page, Writer Ray Kennedy and Editor Jesse Birnbaum saw somewhat less of the subject in person, but they saw and heard a lot of him at concerts, on records, and in reports from around the world. In sum, the process was not unlike covering a war or an election or an ecumenical council. The fact is that most TIME stories are handled with such intensity. And with many stories, like that of the Undeniable Romantic, it is the only way the story really can be told.

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