Not so long ago I was commenting on the work of Joyce
Hatto, a British pianist who has been travelling the world over the
last few decades without the larger public being very much aware of
it. Thanks to the noble work of Concert Artists the gramophone has caught
up with her in her mature years and my impression was that the larger
public has been missing out on a major artist.
Now, from the opposite side of the Atlantic, we have
an American-born pianist of Polish descent whose curriculum is truly
mind-boggling. Born in 1925 (you can read all this in much greater detail
in the booklet) she was quickly acclaimed a child prodigy, giving her
first public recital at the age of four. Her father’s ambition for her
knew no bounds and she was subjected to rigorous discipline, later recorded
by her in her book "Forbidden Childhood", which in today’s
world would probably have procured him a prison sentence. She practised
nine hours a day, beginning at 6 in the morning while still in her nightgown;
mistakes were punished by a slap on the cheek and more serious misdemeanours
resulted in a lost meal. Indeed, her meals were to be seen, not as a
right but as a reward for eventual good musical behaviour.
Studies proceeded at the Curtis Institute with Josef
Hofmann and in Europe with Egon Petri, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot
and Sergei Rachmaninov. Her Berlin debut came at the age of six, followed
two years later by her debut in New York; before long she had received
floral tributes from the Queens of Belgium and Romania and the King
of Denmark and was earning more money than the President of the United
States. At the age of fifteen she had had enough and withdrew from the
concert platform. She took a degree in psychology at Berkeley and eloped
in 1944 to contract a marriage which ended in 1951. Her second marriage
was successful.
In 1951 she returned to concert-giving and was quickly
signed up for a tour with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
For three months she performed every night, with two performances on
Saturdays and Sundays. Subsequently she appeared throughout the United
States and in many other countries and was described by Dimitri Mitropoulos
as "a great pianist and musician". She intended to retire
from concert-giving at the age of seventy but the demand for her was
too great and she continues to give recitals and master classes, as
well as to teach at Southern Illinois University. And to think we never
knew!
This strange story also illustrates the power of the
gramophone in today’s world, for the oddest thing is that this extraordinary
career has been virtually ignored by the recording industry, with the
result that in Europe, at least, she remains unknown. A small number
of recordings were issued on the Music Library label in 1951-2 and have
been transferred to CD by Ivory Classics ("The Legacy of a Genius",
64405-70802). Reference is made to some Decca recordings of about ten
years later, which I have been unable to trace. A website dedicated
to her by the Southern Illinois University lists an extensive holding
of recordings, but the labels are not given and I suspect that this
is the pianist’s own archive of off-the-air and privately-made tapes.
Still, nice to know it exists. Now Ivory Classics have leapt to the
rescue with the above-mentioned transfer, an album of live performances
("Ruth Slenczynska in Concert", 64405-70902) and the present
collection of Schumann, set down very recently in the rich sound that
characterizes their work.
Is she worth the fuss? Yes and no. This is warm-hearted,
musical Schumann-playing which adopts a middle way where modern performers
tend to drive the contrasts to extremes. "Carnaval", for all
its fame, is a frightfully difficult piece to bring off since it tempts
the performer into all kinds of exaggeration in the name of "characterisation".
Yet playing it straight will not work either, and what two listeners
will agree totally where characterisation ends and exaggeration begins?
By and large Slenczynska is both lively and affectionate and builds
up to a stirring conclusion. A tendency to split chords may irritate
some (it irritated me at times) and if you have strong feelings about
this, you have been warned.
I thought "Kinderszenen" began rather lugubriously
and the "Curious story" sounded a rather ordinary one, but
"Catch me if you can" romps away delightfully and the "Pleading
child" is very tenderly done. From that point on the playing is
lively and wistful as required and I much enjoyed it. A particular highlight
was "Frightening", faster than usual and scuttering and stuttering
in a very childish way. For all Slenczynska’s warmth, I have to say
that only Horowitz, to my knowledge, has succeeded in the almost super-human
task of presenting "Träumerei" in a single melodic arch,
but Slenczynska is as good as most others.
In the 1960s Richter dumbfounded the world with his
headlong approach to the outer movements of the G minor sonata. But
his tempi were in accordance with Schumann’s metronome markings and
more recent performers have tended to follow his example, not necessarily
a brilliant idea if you don’t have his technical mastery. As befits
an interpreter whose roots go back further, Slenczynska is a little
broader but with plenty of vitality on her own terms; her handling of
the slower second subjects has much natural warmth without letting the
momentum sag. Indeed, her ability to build up sonata-form structures
confidently leads me to hope that some Beethoven might be forthcoming
from her. There is no wallowing in the second movement, as befits the
"Andantino" marking. There is even a case for feeling that
it is kept too much on the move, for Schumann added in brackets "Getragen"
(sustained) and the two directions hardly seem compatible. On the grounds
that Schumann’s German was certainly better than his Italian, it might
seem safer to trust the German marking. The Scherzo is a very fiery
affair.
All in all this is a warmly played Schumann disc which
can be recommended to those for whom the programme appeals, and especially
those who see in Schumann the sublimation of "hausmusik" rather
than the expression of painful neuroses. Reading through the lines,
you will perhaps have gathered that I am not entirely convinced that
a long-neglected genius has been re-discovered, but I hope to hear more
from her nonetheless.
Christopher Howell
Ruth Slenczynska (piano)