Customer Reviews

Ruth Slenczynska in Concert

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I have several recordings by Ms Slenczynska, and for the most part do not hear what others say about her. For one thing, her big bold sound is the whole point - we're talking a female version of Mark Hambourg here, and I can't believe all the know-it-all reviewers don't jump to point out the obvious. After the shock of hearing such massive tonalities in a stereo recording, tonalities that stay this side of banging and clanging for the most part, the next feature of her playing is Slenczynska's style - it's modeled on playing of a now largely bygone era!

So we have something of a stylistic time machine, with some of the vagaries of a past not nearly so obsessed with today's scrupulous concern for period touches, but also some glorious qualities largely absent in modern playing.

The selections on this Cd are from a live 1984 concert - the once child prodigy is nearly sixty. The first piece right out of the box, a Haydn sonata, the great B minor, No.47, offers us quite a surprising choice for a late Romantic stylist. While I'm sure most music-lovers would recognize the composer, I doubt if any have ever heard the music played with so warm and full a tone as this. Had Rosenthal played Haydn it might have sounded something like this, a full plush plump piano sound and all scaled up fully to match. She does keep things from becoming obscene, but it's strange stuff.

The Brahns Rhapsody finds her volumes turned all the way up - a little of this can go a long way, and when I furst heard this album this performance really had me worried - was this pretty much it - big loud volume and some rough rubato?

Fortunately Slenczynska calmed down for Copland's peaceful Midsummer Nocturne, and then on into the Chopin Sonata.

I confess I did not care for the first movement, finding her rhythms lacking in finesse, and her control and presentation of Chopin's architecture dodgy. The grandioise sound remained, but then came the Molto vivace, which was a revelation! What colors at those speeds! All those years of 9 hour days of practice as a young girl came rushing back - this horse was made to gallop, not walk! And when she makes it to the Presto matters improved to the point I encored it. There are a few moments where her tone hardens under the demands, and for a brief moment she seems a bit ill at ease during the slower short build up of chords Chopin puts in for contrast, but overall she plays it like a champ. Slenczynska's forte passages climaxing the long runs would have frightened Chopin to death! The live audience loves it!

The remainder of the concert is given over to Rachmaninov Preludes, eight of them, which for me is rather heavy sledding. However, Slenczynska takes them full on, seems comfortable with their technical demands in ways she was not in the slower sections of Chopin, and if at times it sounds like her powers of interpretation are tested in this extremely introverted and often tragic music, her beautiful sounds and full tone offer consolation.

Given that this Cd is taken from a live concert my review has veered to the cautious - I've tried to point out the pianist's strong points, and these certainly are impressive enough. While I would not consider her a major artist - there are too many little inconsistencies of phrasing for that - she has major talent. Many fine pianists will never be remotely as interesting as Slenczyska at her best.

If you like her Chopin there is an entire Cd - recorded in 1988 in concert given over to Slenczyska playing the Ballades and Twelve Etudes, with Liszt's La Campanella thrown in for an encore. Ruth Slenczynska Plays Chopin & Liszt Live! There are several pages of notes about the pianist's life as a child prodigy and comments about major pianists she encountered during those earliest days of her career. Again, when drive and forward momentum are called for Slenczynska delivers the goods in her striking sound. Her playing seems more assured in the slower passages of the Ballades than here in the sonata. And oh yes, there are some more of her titantic outbursts of volume that swell up and engulf everything. There's no review on the Amazon listing, but you can hear samples.