Ruth Slenczynska (piano)
Complete American Decca Recordings
rec. 1956-1963
ELOQUENCE 4841302 [10 CDs: 445:00]
Released to mark her 96th birthday, Ruth Slenczynska survived a child prodigy life that might have felled a lesser person. The victim of a ruthless, dictatorial, and abusive father who beat her viciously, but always spared her hands, and was himself a failed violinist (she was later drily to note that as a musician he couldn’t count), her spectacularly revealing autobiography Forbidden Childhood was published in 1957 when she was still only thirty-two.
She had lessons, of longer or shorter duration, with a phalanx of greats including Rachmaninov at the age of nine, and after her prodigy years had ended, with Hofmann, Petri, Schnabel and Cortot. She made a sequence of recordings for Decca Gold in America that are appearing for the first time on CD in this ten-disc box.
The focus of most of the recordings is on Chopin in a sequence of discs recorded between 1956-63. The Etudes Opp 10 and 25 take pride of place in the first two discs, compellingly argued examples of her art – personal yet never indulged. Her sense of drama and pointing in the earlier set is very noticeable – of which the A minor is an especially fine example – whilst in Op 25 the sense of characterisation is, if anything, even more pronounced with the clarity of the F minor, the sparkling G-sharp minor and the passionate intensity of the C-sharp minor all equally powerful instances of her balanced pianism.
In his extensive notes Stephen Siek goes into some detail regarding a very negative review given by Harold Schonberg in the New York Times to a New York Town Hall recital that the pianist gave. He claimed her Chopin playing in the Etudes was ‘too erratic to be taken seriously’ going on to deprecate ‘a basic lack of technical control’ and ‘intellectual focus’. The ritards he censured don’t seem to be a part of her recorded legacy and the element of waywardness is not apparent either. Certainly, there is independence of conception and some personalised touches throughout but nothing beyond sensible latitude. Perhaps there was an aesthetic gulf between the performer and the critic, or perhaps she had an off day. The Scherzos are perhaps the only place where one can feel the force of any element of Schonberg’s criticism as some of her rubati and occasional instances of excessive speed can serve to sectionalise and exaggerate the music, albeit she always remains a passionate player of the scherzos.
There’s a canny selection of Waltzes, played with brio and characterful rhythmic control, always projected with humanity and warmth, but of even greater interest is her approach to the narrative challenges of the Ballades. Here one finds poetry alongside declamatory robustness but also a virtuosic intensity tinged, in the Second Ballade, with a manic edge. Her Chopin recordings enshrine a body of performances that goes a long way to refute Schonberg’s criticisms, should such a refutation be thought necessary – critics have off days too – and show how attuned she was to the composer.
This applies to the hyphenated Chopin-Liszt arrangements as well as to the seventh CD in this set, in which she proves technically eloquent, stylistically adept and full of colour in her readings of the Rhapsodie espagnole. As for the Paganini etudes, here she is frequently magisterial with an alluring sense of the music’s sonic values. Feux follets is a triumph and even Horowitz was deeply impressed by her playing of this set. There are two miscellaneous albums, A 25th Anniversary program and Encore! One finds two examples of her Bach in these discs, the Prelude in E major, BWV937 and the rather more substantial, if also rather more overblown Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor. There are two examples drawn from the man who gave her some lessons when she was nine in the form of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, and a lyrically deft Prelude in A minor, Op 23/6, a rivetingly stormy Hungarian Rhapsody No 15 and an equally committed Prokofiev Suggestion diabolique – Prokofiev was about as far forward chronologically as she goes in these recordings. She plays Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat major which she was later to play in 1962 on her Preludes album, where she was significantly more athletic in tempo.
The only relative disappoint comes in the final disc which consists of two concertos. In Liszt’s First Concerto, Carl Melles conducts the Vienna Symphony. Melles is not much remembered and seems to have had a limited studio career, but he did accompany so fine a player as Ingrid Haebler. He’s an efficient but not especially imaginative accompanist, the recording balance is not optimum, and the performance doesn’t really find the soloist at her best. When it came to Saint-Saëns’ Second Concerto, she had a superior accompanist in the form of Henry Swoboda who directs the Symphony of the Air in the Manhattan Center in June 1959, though once again one senses that Slenczynska is at her best as a solo artist; Moura Lympany, for example, is the more exuberant practitioner of music such as this.
Like so many players of her generation and earlier there are a few examples of textual emendation but this is not, in general, a conspicuous feature of these recordings.
The discs are housed in now-familiar miniaturised LP covers and there is a customarily fine booklet note from Siek. There are numerous excellently reproduced photographic reproductions, copies of her programmes, posters, advertisements and of two of the original American Decca LP covers – because the ones used in the box are of the DG releases. The transfers are accomplished.
It is Slenczynska’s Chopin, in particular, for which this box should be prized. From her grim prodigy upbringing she grew into a player of singular individuality and command. These Deccas have been largely overlooked and offer a vivid insight into her musicianship whilst still only in her 30s and should be snapped up by discerning pianophiles.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
CD 1
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849)
12 Études, Op 10
Impromptu No 1 in A-flat major, Op 29
Impromptu No 2 in F-sharp major, Op 36
CD 2
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
12 Études, Op 25
Impromptu No 3 in G-flat major, Op 51
Impromptu No 4 in C-sharp minor, Op 66 ‘Fantasie-Impromptu’
CD 3
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Scherzo No 1 in B minor, Op 20
Scherzo No 2 in B-flat minor, Op 31
Scherzo No 3 in C-sharp minor, Op 39
Scherzo No 4 in E major, Op 54
CD 4
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Grande Valse brillante in E-flat major, Op 18
Three Waltzes, Op 34
Waltz in A-flat major, Op 42 ‘Grande Valse’
Three Waltzes, Op 64
Two Waltzes, Op 69
Three Waltzes, Op posth 70
Waltz in E-flat major, Op posth
Waltz in E major, Op posth
Waltz in E minor, Op posth
CD 5
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
24 Preludes, Op 28
Polonaise in A-flat major, Op 53
CD 6
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Ballade No 1 in G minor, Op 23
Ballade No 2 in F major, Op 38
Ballade No 3 in A-flat major, Op 47
Ballade No 4 in F minor, Op 52
FRANZ LISZT (1811–1886)
Six Chants polonaise de Frédéric Chopin, S.480
Transcriptions for piano of songs from Chopin’s Op 74
CD 7
FRANZ LISZT
Rhapsodie espagnole, S.254
Feux follets (No 5 of 12 Études d’exécution transcendante)
Six Grandes Études de Paganini, S.141
CD 8
J.S. BACH (1685–1750)
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op 9 No 1
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809–1847)
Rondo capriccioso in E major, Op 14
SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873–1943)
Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op 3 No 2
DOMENICO SCARLATTI (1685–1757)
Sonata in G major, Kk 455
BÉLA BARTÓK (1881–1945)
Six Romanian Folk Dances, BB 68 (Sz.56)
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856)
Arranged by Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
Liebeslied (Widmung), S.566
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
La fille aux cheveux de lin (Préludes: Book I)
FRANZ LISZT
Hungarian Rhapsody No 15
CD 9
J.S. BACH
Prelude in E major, BWV 937
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Spinning Song, Op 67 No 1
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Moment musical in F minor, Op 94 No 3
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953)
Suggestion diabolique
FRANZ LISZT
Hungarian Rhapsody No 12
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
Prelude in A minor, Op 23 No 6
MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839–1881)
Hopak (Sorochintsy Fair)
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Der Kontrabandiste (arr. Tausig)
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Clair de lune (Suite bergamasque)
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959)
Moreninha (Prole do Bebe)
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Polonaise No 6 in A-flat major, Op 53
CD 10
FRANZ LISZT
Piano Concerto No 1 in E-flat major, S. 124
Wiener Symphoniker/Carl Melles
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835–1921)
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 22
Symphony of the Air/Henry Swoboda
Recording Information
CD 1
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, July 1956–September 1956
Original American Decca Release: DL 9890
CD 2
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, July–September 1956
Original Release: DL 9891
CD 3
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, June and September 1957
Original American Release: DL 9961
CD 4
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, 13–15 May 1959
Original Release: DL 710017
CD 5
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, 16–18 May 1962
Original Release: DL 710059
CD 6
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, 3–6 May 1960
Original Release: DL 710029
CD 7
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: Pythian Temple Studio, New York, USA, 22–28 July 1958
Original American Decca Release: DL 71000
CD 8
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: USA, 23-25, 27 September 1957
Original American Decca Release: DL 79991
CD 9
Recording Producer: Israel Horowitz
Balance Engineers: Decca Staff engineers
Recording Location: USA, 15–17 April 1958
Transfers and Restoration: Mark Obert-Thorn
Original American Decca Release: DL 79991
CD 10
Recording Producers: unknown (Liszt); Israel Horowitz (Saint-Saëns)
Balance Engineers: Symphonia Studio (Liszt); Decca Studio engineers (Saint-Saëns)
Recording Locations:, Konzerthaus, Mozartsaal, Vienna, 9–10 April 1963 (Liszt); Manhattan Center, New York, USA, 26 June 1959 (Saint-Saëns)
Original American Decca Release: DL 10084
