Ruth Slenczynska in ConcertHaydn • Brahms • Copland • Chopin • Rachmaninov

The Musicn -n Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Sonata No.47 in B minor, Hob.XVI:32

Joseph Haydn’s role as a pioneer in the development of the piano sonata has formany years been overshadowed by his extraordinary achievements as the “father”of the symphony and the string quartet. Only in the last twenty-five years has therebeen a reassessment of his contributions to the piano sonata, and as more scholar-ly editions are published of his keyboard works, Haydn’s works are more frequent-ly heard in our concert halls.

Depending on which edition one uses there seems to be a confusion as to howmany sonatas actually exist. In Haydn’s own“complete edition” there are only thirty-fourpiano sonatas. A collection edited by HugoRiemann, and published in London in 1895,added five more. In 1918, the now standard KarlPäsler edition contained fifty-two sonatas. Nor isthe accounting yet complete: in 1966, a newlypublished Vienna Urtext edition has upped thetotal again to sixty-two (including a fragment ofa sonata previously considered lost, and severalscores freshly discovered in Viennese andMoravian archives).

The Sonata No.47 in B minor (Hob.XVI:32)was originally published in 1776 as part on anedition of six sonatas “Opus 14”. Based on whatwe know, the six sonatas in this set were com-posed during a two year period, 1774 to 1776.Since the Sonata No.47 in B minor was the lastof the published set, most musicologists haveconcluded that it was written shortly before Joseph Haydn

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publication. In 1776 Haydn also wrote his marionette opera Dido, and SymphonyNo.61. His Sonata No.47 is a short work consisting of three movements. Haydnclearly abandons his early “divertimento” keyboard style in this work and moves towhat Haydn expert H.C. Robbins Landon calls his “expressionistic” style. RobbinsLandon finds this work to be one of the most beautiful sonatas in the set and remarksthat “Haydn’s writing shows remarkable authority, especially in the finale, fore-shadowing his mature period.”

�n Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Rhapsody in B minor, Opus 79, No. 1

Those who are fond of arranging and organizing things according to initial let-ters have called attention to the fact that the names of three great German mastersof music begin with the letter “B”. In chronolog-ical as well as alphabetical succession they are:Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. The first is the masterof polyphony and the fugue; the second of themonophonic style and sonata-form; the thirdwas a master of a more modern contrapuntalconstruction and of the forms of his classicalpredecessor, at the same time showing unusualpower to make the form fit the musical idea.

Brahms was a master builder. His music isoften spoken of as “architectural”, because, likea great cathedral, it is so carefully planned thatwe feel the mood, the dignity and grandeur ofthe whole, as well as the charm of the parts.“Much present-day music excites and thrills butdoes not exalt,” writes a wise man. Brahms’music does exalt. It has power to lift us highabove the dust of common roads. Slowly it grewin the heart and mind of the composer, slowly itmust grow in the heart and mind of the listener. Johannes Brahms

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But because it is a growing thing, deep-rooted and vital, it will always be there, freshand satisfying when the forced bulbs have withered and the artificial flowers havelost their specious charm. It is good music to grow up with and to grow old with,and as the years pass, those who love it understand what Arthur Whiting meantwhen he said, “The music of Brahms is fine in a concert hall, better in a small room,better still played alone, best of all, not played but remembered.”

Brahms composed the two Rhapsodies which form Opus 79 in 1879, betweenthe Violin Concerto and the Academic Festival Overture. The Rhapsody No.1 in Bminor distills the demonic Sturm und Drang of Brahms’ youthful sonatas and DMinor Piano Concerto. According to musicologist Lionel Salter, “Brahms hurls defi-ance at the world in this Rhapsody: its passionate rhetoric is offset by an episode oftender melancholy (in D minor) and a pastoral middle section (in B major) reminis-cent of a musette. The stormy mood is finally quietened in a poetic coda.”

�n Aaron Copland (1900-1990):Midsummer Nocturne (1947)

World renowned conductor, EugeneOrmandy called Aaron Copland “the dean ofAmerican composers,” and it is only fitting, aswe approach the 100th anniversary of thecomposer’s birth, that a Copland gem beincluded on this disc.

Aaron Copland almost always composed atthe piano. He was an accomplished pianistand the piano was, to him, what the typewriterwas to writers. Some of his most serious musi-cal expressions found their form as pianoworks — Piano Variations (1930), Piano Sonata(1939-41), and Piano Fantasy (1955-57). Colleague and critic, Virgil Thomson

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Aaron Copland

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agreed: “Copland has written his most expressive music for the keyboard.” If onedoes not include his own transcriptions of some of the orchestral works, Coplandcomposed a total of twenty-two original works for the piano. Among these is thelovely two-page Midsummer Nocturne. Composed in 1947, in Copland’s musicalstyle of pastoral Americana, it was discovered by Phillip Ramey in 1977 tuckedneatly away in Copland’s files. It was published with the dedication to Ramey: “ToPhillip...who unearthed this masterpiece while rummaging among my affairs!”

�n -n Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849): Sonata No.3 in B minor, Opus 58

Chopin composed three sonatas for piano. The Sonata No.1 in C minor, Opus 4was composed at the age of eighteen and israrely heard today, being considered a studentpiece and a work where Chopin’s style has notfully developed. The Sonata No.2 in B-flatminor, Opus 35 was composed in 1838 andbecame one of Chopin’s greatest triumphs,doubtless made famous by the fact that it con-tains the celebrated Funeral March, one of themost noble, lofty and majestic expressions ofgrief that has ever been written.

Chopin’s last work in this form, the SonataNo.3 in B minor, Opus 58 was written in 1844.It reveals at once great variety, an extraordi-nary wealth of imagination, and manymoments of lofty and luminous inspiration.The opening movement is in the classicalsonata allegro form. In it Chopin contrasts abold opening theme with several lyrical, noc-turne-like melodies. In this movement he isable to consistently organize the continuous

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Fryderyk Chopin

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renewal of the ideas into a coherent development. Some musicologists see the com-plexity and contrapuntal nature of the opening movement as Chopin’s tribute to theGerman tradition — seeing in it Bach’s influences and predicting Brahms’ essays inthe form. What follows is a graceful, airy, vivacious scherzo. The scherzo is in E flatmajor, with a B major middle section full of magical qualities. James Huneker statesin his entertaining analysis of the sonata that “The largo is tranquilly beautiful, andits revêrie, lovely as to its tune. The trio is reserved, almost hypnotic...” Paolo Petazzifinds that “The cantabile melody that emerges after the short, solemn introductionsuggests the human voice by the miraculous purity of its pattern.” The sonata’s fourthmovement is a rondo finale of force and brilliance. It opens with eight bars of a vig-orous introduction, and then the melody enters marked agitato. Twice again we getthis extraordinary theme. The first time it is accompanied in the bass by quavers ingroups of three; the second time the quavers are in groups of four; and at the lastreprise the melody is in octaves accompanied by galloping groups of six semiqua-vers. Between each section there are wonderful pages of brilliant passage work, andthe thrilling coda in B major brings the whole magnificent work to an aboundinglyhappy conclusion.

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Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943):Eight Preludesn C sharp minor, Opus 3, No.2n F sharp minor, Opus 23, No.1n D Major, Opus 23, No.4n E flat Major, Opus 23, No.6n C Major, Opus 32, No.1n B minor, Opus 32, No.10n G sharp minor, Opus 32, No.12n D flat Major, Opus 32, No.13

When Chopin wrote his twenty-fourPreludes in all the major and minor keys, heset about it as a tribute to Bach. Chopin’sOpus 28 forms a complete cycle of the majorand minor keys by pairing through tonal rel-atives — C major-A minor, the dominant, Gmajor, then its relative minor, and so onround the circle ending with F major and Dminor. Not so with Rachmaninov; he startedwith the resoundingly successful C-sharpminor Prelude, Opus 3 No.2, added much later the ten of Opus 23 in no particularorder of key, and finally completed the set with the thirteen of Opus 32. Chopin’swere clearly written so that they could be played in entirety, if desired, whileRachmaninov’s were equally clearly intended as individual pieces.

Rachmaninov used to complain that his famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, Opus3, No.2 was played to the complete exclusion of his other piano music. Thoughthis is not true today, he could still complain with some justification that nowadaysonly a fraction of his quite large output for the piano is ever played in concert halls.The Prelude in C-sharp minor is one of the most recognizable piano compositionsever written. Composed by Rachmaninov in 1892. In 1938 the composer tran-scribed it as a work for two pianos. In its original two-hand version it becameknown as “The Bells of Moscow.” Victor Seroff, one of Rachmaninov’s biographers,once asked him the inspiration of the piece. Rachmaninov responded, “Forty

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Sergei Rachmaninov

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rubles. My publisher offered me two hundred rubles for five short pieces for piano,and that Prelude was one of them.” When Rachmaninov recorded the piece onpiano roll, the Ampico Corporation provided the following notes with the roll: “It iswinter, stark and bleak. Moscow lies in the midst of a frozen plain. Her desolatestreets resound to the tread of Napoleon’s invading army. Suddenly the great bellsof the Kremlin sound. The city is a flame, the torch applied by the inhabitants them-selves who, with breaking hearts and mingled triumph and despair, glory in theirheroic sacrifice. The deep-throated bells boom on, sounding above the rush androar of the flame as, the cries of the fleeing populace, the shrieks of the dying andall the confused terror and frenzy of destruction. Napoleon’s dream of Winter quar-ters for his army is vanishing before his eyes. In the closing chords one hears thedying sigh of spent fury, and hush of utter darkness and desolation.”

The ten Preludes, Opus 23 were written by Rachmaninov in 1903, except forNo.5, which was written in 1901. The set was dedicated to his teacher and friend,Alexander Siloti. John Culshaw provides the following masterful analysis of the pre-ludes: “The first Prelude of Opus 23 is a curiously wayward little piece in F sharpminor. The bass motive maintains its rhythmic and to some extent its melodic out-line throughout: its gentle, balanced rise and fall being in contrast to the well-pro-portioned but leisurely melody in the treble. In the bass one can note the constantuse of a descending chromatic phrase, of the type frequently noticed in the accom-paniments of Rachmaninov’s songs. If ever Rachmaninov revealed a true ‘finger-print’ surely this fragment of a chromatic scale must be it. The D major Prelude,No.4, is a quiet, lyrical meditation on a tune of grace and simplicity. One pointworth mentioning is that the melody, which starts at the third bar, is not truly com-pleted until the last, and the dovetailing of the various sections and treatments is amatter of considerable interest. Particularly beautiful is the long passage where themelody, in the alto register, moves gracefully beneath a descant in triplets. The stylehere is not unlike that of Gabriel Fauré, but the flavor of the music is distinctlyRussian. The E flat major Prelude, No.6 is too reminiscent of passages from theSecond Concerto to be entirely convincing to anyone knowing the latter. The E flatPrelude is quite similar in melodic outline to the second subject (E flat again) in thefirst movement of the Concerto, and one phrase (bars 28-29 of the Prelude) mightalmost have been lifted bodily from that work.”

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The thirteen Preludes, Opus 32 were completed by Rachmaninov in 1910. The setopens with the robust Prelude in C Major, full of flashy brilliance, recalling the finaleof the Piano Concerto No.1. The tenth Prelude in the set, in B minor, is one of greatintrospection and searing in its spirit of self-revelation. According to BennoMoiseiwitsch, one of Rachmaninov’s closest friends and finest interpreters of hismusic, the music of this Prelude was originally inspired by Böcklin’s painting “TheReturn”, which makes this abstract piano piece in reality a tone-picture. The openingof the work reminds us of Schubert’s Impromptu in A flat Major. Eventually this moodof hesitant self-probing burgeons in a larger-than-life theme accompanied by pound-ing chords in triplets. The theme eventually returns, and the last three bars, accord-ing to Culshaw, “with their longing, nostalgic backward glance, bring to an end aPrelude of unique quality and extraordinary imagination.” One of Rachmaninov’smost lyrical Preludes is the twelfth in the set, in G-sharp minor. Over the shimmer-ing background, we hear a haunting, cello-like theme. The center section of thispiece, full of rubato and passionate outbursts, features a descending passage resem-bling the peal of bells. The shimmering returns and the Prelude ends with utmost easeand fluency on two single notes. The last of the Preludes is in D-flat Major. Ms.Slenczynska states that the theme of this great prelude “is almost an ascending inver-sion of the descending motif of the C sharp minor Prelude, bracketting and framingRachmaninov’s cycle and bringing it full circle to a fitting close.” According toCulshaw, “It is a grand, solemn piece, imbued with an almost religious majesty, andwhether the composer intended it or not, it recalls quite occasionally certainmoments from the best of the earlier Preludes... The last two pages of the D-flat majorPrelude, with its magnificent theme ringing out like the tolling of a great cathedralbell, bring to an end a set of Preludes worthy not only to stand beside those ofChopin, but to take an important place in the history of piano music.”

Ruth Slenczynska’s performance of these works by Haydn, Brahms, Copland,Chopin and Rachmaninov was recorded in concert at the Christ Church Cathedral,St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, April 8, 1984.

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The Artist

“Music’s message reaches people in devious ways: it can appeal primarily to the emotions, or to the senses, or to the intellect. Music can change a person’s

mood, but the person has to be pliable and willing to co-operate.”Ruth Slenczynska, Music at your Fingertips (1961)

Controlling and abusive, Josef Slenczynski was a mediocre violinist obsessedwith having a great musician in the family. Even before his daughter, RuthSlenczynska was born he was willing her to become a musician. A few hours afterher birth on January 15, 1925 he came into his wife’s hospital room on the mater-nity ward to inspect the newborn. Seizing the infant’s hands he examined the softtiny pink palms and fingers, proclaiming that they would suffice. From there Ruth’smusical destiny continued to unfold at an abnormally accelerated pace. Thoughshe was amused at her father’s fiddle scratching, her face beamed as she crawledpast his black wing tips across the carpet and pulled herself up to the parlor piano.Her father of course was determined to produce a violinist. By the time she wastwo years old, Ruth’s musicianship was evident to all. She was able to recognizeand hum (in the correct keys!) themes by Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. By the ageof three, she had mastered the rudiments of music theory and harmony. Oneevening Mr. Slenczynski calmly and matter-of-factly placed a quarter size violininto the tiny three year old’s hands. Ruth gazed down doe-eyed at the smooth lac-quered wood and bright metal strings. Defiantly she hurled the violin across theroom, wailing and weeping “But I love the piano, I want to play the PIANO!!!” Thisoutburst was received with a frozen expression and a quiet dismissal of “off to bed,no supper”…

The next morning at 6 a.m. Slenczynski pulled the slumbering Ruth with sleepdust still in her eyes from bed and sat her on the cool leather piano bench in hernightie. “If it’s the piano she likes then the piano it will be.” He was resolved. Hewould forge one of the greatest pianists of the century. His pedagogy was dictato-rial: six hours of scales executed to the exacting tick of a wind up metronome, fol-lowed by a time allowance for getting dressed and the first reward of the day, a

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meal. After this one-hour respite there was more practice at the keyboard until sup-per which if only if she had performed satisfactorily was she permitted to eat. A fewyears later an additional two hours of tutoring in school subjects followed by anoccasional walk around the block were added to the daily schedule. This was to beRuth’s musical regiment from the time she was three until her teens. She practiced9 hours a day every day. Ruthrecalls “If I missed a note, I gotwhacked across the cheek, orhurled from the bench. If the mis-take was very bad, I was ban-ished from the room for fiveminutes while I whimpered in mynightie, fearing that I would neverbe allowed to play again.” Thesedifficult years were eventuallychronicled by her in the poignantbook, Forbidden Childhood,which she wrote in collaborationwith Louis Biancolli.

On Sunday, March 16, 1930,Ruth gave a “farewell recital” atErlanger’s Columbia Theatre inSan Francisco. The programfeatured works by Bach,Mendelssohn, Grieg, C.P.E.Bach, Beethoven and Chopin.This concert by the five-year-oldwas her last appearance beforecommencing studies with JosefHofmann at the Curtis Institute inPhiladelphia. Hofmann taughther to lean into the piano keys onthe soft part of her fingers in Ruth Slenczynska in the 1980s

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order to produce the desired sound. She received only a few lessons from Hofmann,because of his busy concert schedule. Her primary study was with Madame IsabelleVengerova. Her older classmates were Shura Cherkassky, Jorge Bolet, Abbey Simon,and Samuel Barber. Despite this brief foray into a conservatory, Ruth’s father,remained her primary teacher.

The Bay Area musical community rallied around Ruth’s cause. Led by violinistMischa Elman, the community raised money for Ruth and her family to move andlive in Europe. Ruth was to study with the finest teachers upon the condition thatthere would be no public performances or concertizing of any kind. Slenczynskireneged on the terms of the agreement and in a few months had Ruth back on thestage. The monies assigned for Ruth’s lessons were quickly pocketed by Slenczynskias remuneration for his efforts. Subsequently all the lessons that Ruth enjoyed froma veritable who’s who of piano masters were free of charge. Slenczynski manipulat-ed the situation to his favor convincing each major artist who worked with Ruth thatto teach her was a rare privilege worthy of their donated services. Ruth’s mentor’sincluded: Josef Hofmann, Arthur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, Alexander Glazunov,George Enesco, Nadia Boulanger, Egon Petri, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Even thoughMr. Slenczynski repulsed all these great piano masters, they were charmed by Ruth,and saw their way around him to work, and help the child.

On the evening of November 13, 1933, the eight-year-old Ruth trotted confi-dently from the wings of New York’s Town Hall, poised herself on the very edge ofher piano seat and propelled a pair of tiny hands through an almost unbelievableperformance of masterpieces by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. Thiswas 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 whatnature had produced in one of her most bounteous moods.” At nine she filled anentire cancelled tour of the immortal Ignacy Jan Paderewski; had her story serial-ized in 18 daily chapters syndicated to 500 leading American newspapers;swapped riddles with Herbert Hoover; received floral tributes from Queen Astridof Belgium, Queen Marie of Romania, and King Christian X of Denmark; andearned more money than the President of the United States. Her musical careerwas to last another five years before she came to the heroic decision to withdrawfrom the concert stage.

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Ruth Slenczynska with the Golden Cross of Merit, the highest civilian award given by the Polish Government,awarded to Ms. Slenczynska for bringing the music of Chopin closer to the world.

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Years later Ruth was to write of how she had to get away from her father becausehe had pocketed her earnings and totally dominated her career, life and potentialfuture. Upon her separation from her father, she decided to become her own per-son. To do this she had to work at odd jobs to put herself through the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, where she earned a degree in psychology. She then served asprofessor of music at the College of Our Lady of Mercy in Burlingame, California.

In 1958, on the evening of November 13th, she returned to Town Hall to cele-brate 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. In1961, when the San Francisco Symphony was celebrating its Golden AnniversarySeason, she was invited to perform the Khachaturian piano concerto with the 25-year-old Seiji Ozawa conducting. She has performed more than 3000 recitals onboth hemispheres and appeared with most of the world’s greatest orchestras. In1984 she returned to New York’s Town Hall in celebration of over 50 years on theconcert stage. The New York Times critic, John Rockwell wrote: “unlike too manymachine-tooled young virtuosos today, Miss Slenczynska brought an appealing lyri-cism and musicality to her interpretations... her technique remains a commandingone.” Although in 1985 she returned to the far eastern countries of Korea,Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and the first visits to China and NewZealand, performing 115 concerts, she has pared back her concert schedule as fol-lows: “Every three years I play internationally — between fifty and sixty concerts.Every year I play between twenty-five and thirty concerts and workshops all over theUnited States.”

As an artist in residence at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Ms.Slenczynska still keeps a full and busy schedule teaching, performing and travelinginternationally. Now married for over 30 years to retired Political Science ProfessorJames Richard Kerr, their leisure time is infused with gourmet cooking, exotic glob-al travel, canine companionship from their pet boxer “Max” and collecting art fromall over the world.

— Program Notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, © 1999

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Credits

The music on this disc was recorded in concertat the Christ Church Cathedral,

St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, April 8, 1984

Recorded by: John M. Blaine

Executive Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Rebalance Engineer: Ed Thompson

Special thanks to the Michael Palm Foundation

Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin

Design: Communication Graphics

Cover Photo:Ruth Slenczynska in 1957, courtesy of Musical America Archive

Inside Tray Photo:Ruth Slenczynska in the 1980s, courtesy of the artist

®

Haydn: Sonata No.47 in B minor, Hob. XVI:32 11:26I. Allegro moderato 4:45II. Menuet 3:34III. Finale: Presto 3:06

Brahms: Rhapsody in B minor, Opus 79, No.1 Agitato 8:01

Copland: Midsummer Nocturne (1947)Slowly, poetically (and somewhat thoughtful) 1:45

Chopin: Sonata No.3 in B minor, Opus 58 23:40I. Allegro maestoso 8:10II. Molto vivace 2:23

III. Largo 8:20IV. Presto, non tanto 4:57

Rachmaninov: Eight PreludesC sharp minor, Opus 3, No.2 3:23F sharp minor, Opus 23, No.1 2:16D Major, Opus 23, No.4 3:23E flat Major, Opus 23, No.6 2:50C Major, Opus 32, No.1 1:17B minor, Opus 32, No.10 4:35G sharp minor, Opus 32, No.12 2:15D flat Major, Opus 32, No.13 4:35

Total Playing Time: 70:38

Recorded in Concert in Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis, Missouri, Sunday April 8, 1984Recorded by: John M. Blaine • Executive Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Rebalance Engineer: Ed Thompson

1999 Ivory Classics™ • All Rights Reserved.Ivory Classics™ • P.O. Box 341068

Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 U.S.A. Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799e-mail@ivoryclassics.com • Website: www.IvoryClassics.com

64405-70902 STEREO

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H AY D N � B R A H M S � C O P L A N D � C H O P I N � R A C H M A N I N O VH AY D N � B R A H M S � C O P L A N D � C H O P I N � R A C H M A N I N O V