Ruth Slenczynska “The Legacy of a Genius” • Music by Bach, Liszt, and Chopin/Liszt the Artist “She Knows What She Is Doing Every Minute of the Time
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uth lenczynska Historic Performances of Bach, Liszt and Chopin/Liszt Ruth Slenczynska “The Legacy of a Genius” • Music by Bach, Liszt, and Chopin/Liszt The Artist “She knows what she is doing every minute of the time. It is amazing!” – Josef Hofmann after hearing Ruth Slenczynska in her New York debut at Town Hall, 1933. Ruth Slenczynska was born in Sacramento, California on January 15, 1925. From the time she was two years old, Ruth’s musicianship was evident to all. She was able to recognize and hum (in the correct keys!) themes by Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. By the age of three, she had mastered the rudi- ments of music theory and harmony. She began her studies with her father, a violin teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, and gave her first public recital at the age of four, on May 10, 1929, at Mills College in Oakland. On Sunday, March 16, 1930, she gave a “farewell recital” at Erlanger’s Columbia Theatre in San Francisco. The program fea- tured works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Grieg, C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. She was awarded a scholarship by Josef Hofmann to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and this concert by the five-year-old was her last appearance before commencing studies. Ruth Slenczynska, age 11, in 1936 Hofmann taught her to lean into the piano keys on the soft part of her fingers in order to produce the desired sound. Although she received a few lessons from Hofmann, because of his busy concert schedule, she actually studied with Madame Isabelle Vengerova. Her older classmates were Shura Cherkassky, Jorge Bolet and Samuel Barber. – 2 – Despite this brief foray into a conservatory, Ruth’s father, Josef Slenczynski, remained her primary teacher. He was incessantly pushing the child, determined to make her the finest pianist in the world. She was awakened at six o’clock every morning to begin practicing in her nightgown, in often icy- cold temperatures and before breakfast. She eventually practiced at least nine hours a day. His reg- imen was quite simple and direct – every mistake earned a slap across her cheek; more serious infractions or any sign of rebellion were punished by denied meals. In fact, each meal she ate was treated as a reward. Until she reached her teen years Ruth Slenczynska practiced in her petticoat, no matter who might be present, so as not to spoil her dresses with perspiration. Those difficult years were eventually chronicled by her in the poignant book, Forbidden Childhood, which she wrote in collaboration with Louis Biancolli. Bay Area socialites, rallied by violinist Mischa Elman, raised money for Slenczynska’s study abroad under such masters as Egon Petri, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot and Sergei Rachmaninov. When she was six, long lines formed around the historic Bachsaal in Berlin for her German debut. The cabled report to The New York Times declared her to be “the most astounding of all prodigies heard in recent years on either side of the ocean.” After her Berlin concert, the German critics mounted the stage to examine the full-sized piano on which the pedal mechanism had been raised to enable her to reach them. They, obviously, were seeking some sort of concealed mechanism or wires to account for the undersized six-year-old’s ability to produce the glorious sounds she had just drawn from the instrument. Apologizing for their disbelief, they departed just as dumbfounded as the rest of the frenzied audience. On the evening of November 13, 1933, the eight-year-old Ruth Slenczynska trotted confident- ly from the wings of New York’s Town Hall, poised herself on the very edge of her piano seat and propelled a pair of tiny hands through an almost unbelievable performance of masterpieces by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. This was her New York debut. The next day, The New York Times declared the playing “an electrifying experience, full of the excitement and wonder of hearing what nature had produced in one of her most bounteous moods.” At nine she filled an entire cancelled tour of the immortal Ignacy Jan Paderewski; had her story serialized in 18 daily chapters syndicated to 500 leading American newspapers; swapped riddles with Herbert Hoover; received floral tributes from Queen Astrid of Belgium, Queen Marie of Romania, and King Christian X of Denmark; and earned more money than the President of the United States. Her musical career was to last another five years before she came to the heroic decision to withdraw from the concert stage. – 3 – In Forbidden Childhood, Slenczynska con- fides that she had to get away from her Svengali- like father who had pocketed her earnings and totally dominated her life and career. She had to work at odd jobs to put herself through the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a degree in psychology. She then served as professor of music at the College of Our Lady of Mercy in Burlingame, California. Ruth Slenczynska returned to the concert stage at the Carmel Bach Festival in California in 1951. This appearance led to a performance with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops in San Francisco. Miss Slenczynska was then invited to play in Boston and was also asked to go on tour with the Boston Pops that following winter. The tour would require her to perform with the orchestra for a three-month period, performing every night, and twice-a-day on Saturdays and Sundays. The gruelling schedule would require that she travel every day by bus between concert venues. Nervous about forsaking her teaching Ruth, age 10, returns to America with her father, Josef, in 1935 to begin her American tour position at the College of Our Lady of Mercy, she sought the advice of Artur Rubinstein in Los Angeles. Rubinstein encouraged her to pursue the Boston Pops invitation. The first year of touring led to three more years with the Boston Pops. During that period she gave more than 360 perfor- mances with the orchestra — a record number of appearances by one artist with an orchestra! In 1956 she performed the Chopin F Minor Concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos at Carnegie Hall. Mitropoulos, who had conducted her appearance with the Minneapolis Orchestra when she was twelve, considered this 1956 engagement as the “discov- ery of a brilliant new artist on the threshold of a great career ahead.” He inscribed a photograph to her: “To a great pianist and musician.” In May of that year, some 35 million television viewers watched and listened with amazement as Ralph Edwards applied his unique “This Is Your Life” – 4 – formula to Ruth Slenczynska’s stranger-than-fiction real life story. Six months later it was set forth again, when the “best-of” “This Is Your Life” was highlighted on Arlene Francis’ coast-to-coast NBC “Home Show.” Also in 1956, her profile, sculpted by famed artist Malvina Hoffman, was des- ignated as the symbol of achievement for the 1956 Kimber Award in Instrumental Music of the San Francisco Foundation. Delta Omicron, the International Music Fraternity founded in 1909, elect- ed her to national honorary membership, conferring the title “musician who has attained out- standing recognition in the field of music.” In 1958, on the evening of November 13th, she returned to Town Hall to celebrate her Silver Jubilee. That same year she crossed the country, playing in 56 cities, in 20 different states, with appearances with six major symphony orchestras. In 1961, when the San Francisco Symphony was celebrating its Golden Anniversary Season, she was invited to perform the Khachaturian piano con- certo with the 25-year-old Seiji Ozawa conducting. She has performed more than 3000 recitals on both hemispheres and appeared with most of the world’s greatest orchestras. In 1984 she returned to New York’s Town Hall in celebration of over 50 years on the concert stage. The New York Times crit- ic, John Rockwell wrote: “unlike too many machine-tooled young virtuosos today, Miss Slenczynska brought an appealing lyricism and musicality to her interpretations... her technique remains a com- manding one.” Although in 1985 she returned to the far eastern countries of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and the first visits to China and New Zealand, performing 115 concerts, she has pared back her concert schedule as follows: “Every three years I play internationally – between fifty and sixty concerts. Every year I play between twenty-five and thirty concerts and work- shops all over the United States.” Although she retired from the concert stage at the age of 70, she still maintains an active teaching schedule, conducting workshops and leading master classes. She continues to teach at Southern Illinois University, where she takes a working interest in piano stu- dents from all over the world. Ruth Slenczynska is married to political science professor James Richard Kerr. They are avid gardeners and dog lovers and collect art from all over the world. The Music “Music is a living language, more eloquent than any spoken tongue. The performer is the translator, the interpreter.” – Ruth Slenczynska, Music at your Fingertips (1961) The music of Johann Sebastian Bach always occupied an enormously important place in Ruth Slenczynska’s concert programs. Her earliest programs from 1929/30 began with a prelude and – 5 – fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier and a group of Two-Part Inventions. At her New York Town Hall debut in 1933 she performed the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and twelve days later at the same venue she opened her recital with three preludes and fugues fol- lowed by the Italian Concerto.