Ruth Slenczynska: My Life in Music
Decca
If there's one word to describe the life and career of Ruth Slenczynska, it's extraordinary—and her playing ain't bad, either. Kidding aside, the pianist, ninety-seven years young, plays with the kind of poise and vitality we associate with musicians embarking on their professional careers. A child prodigy, she was born in Sacramento to Polish immigrants in 1925, made her concert debut at the age of four and two years later her European concert debut in Berlin. Years later, she played for Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, and Carter, and even dueted with Truman.
Incredibly, she still performs, most recently at a 2021 Chopin festival in New York and at a recital celebrating her birthday in Philadelphia two months ago. Among her claims to fame, one of her teachers was Sergei Rachmaninoff, and she was a fellow student and friend to Samuel Barber (they met when she was five years old, and she heard his iconic Adagio for Strings in the classroom before it received its title). In featuring pieces by both composers as well as material by Chopin, Grieg, Debussy, and Bach, it's only fitting her new album should be called My Life in Music.
Recorded on June 14, 2021 at New York's Cary Hall, the release marks Slenczynska's return to Decca, the label for which she recorded in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In an interesting twist, the producer for the new recording is David Frost, who follows in the footsteps of his father Thomas, one of her earliest producers. As evidenced by the inclusion of five Chopin pieces, she has a special connection to him too. Growing up, her father had her play the composer's etudes before breakfast each morning, and Slenczynska eventually performed one of the Chopin selections included here, the Prélude in F, Op. 28 No. 3, at the memorial service for Vladimir Horowitz.
The album aptly begins with two works each by Rachmaninoff and Barber. If the former's gentle reverie Daisies, Op. 38 No. 3 exudes nostalgia, there's good reason: the title evokes a period during his youth when he would visit his family's summer home Ivanovka, situated near a huge field of daisies. He wrote his Prelude in G, Op. 32 No. 5 in 1910 at that same summer home, and it too overflows with yearning. Whereas Barber's pensive Nocturne “Homage to John Field,” Op. 33 is characteristic of the composer's sensibility in its unpredictability and originality, “Let's Sit It Out, I'd Rather Watch” from his Fresh from West Chester set is as irreverent as its title implies.
Many pieces engage for their life-embracing spirit and buoyancy, including Grieg's Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65 No. 6 and Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C sharp, BWV 849, but if there's one performance that stands out, it's arguably Chopin's Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49 if for no other reason the stamina it demands from the pianist for its fourteen-minute realization. Other selections by the composer range from the charming Grand valse brillante in E flat, Op. 18 and wistful Berceuse in D flat, Op. 57 to the touching Étude in E, Op. 10 No. 3.
Barber once advised her, “When you play in front of the public, I want you to show them how beautiful the music is, not how well you play,” words she deemed “the best music lesson I ever had.” Certainly much of the material she performs here qualifies as beautiful, her eloquent rendering of Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair as good an illustration as any; however, it's also impossible to listen to My Life in Music and not be struck by the excellence of her playing. Photos included with the release show Slenczynska radiating joy, and that feeling comes through in the performances. In one photo, she's almost dwarfed by the size of the grand piano, but there's nothing small about her playing. In infusing the performances with personality and enthusiasm, her presence looms large throughout this splendid recital.April 2022