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Ruth Slenczynska | |
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 Slenczynska, c. 1957 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | January 15, 1925 Sacramento, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instrument | Piano |
| Labels | Decca Records |
Ruth Slenczynska (born January 15, 1925) is an American classical pianist.
Slenczynska was born in Sacramento, California. Her Polish father, Joseph Slenczynski (Józef Ślenczyński), was a violinist. Pushed by her father and starting at age three, Slenczynska was forced to practice the piano relentlessly. [1] When she was four, she began her piano studies in Europe, later studying with Artur Schnabel, Egon Petri, Alfred Cortot, Josef Hofmann, and Sergei Rachmaninoff (Slenczynska is Rachmanioff’s last living pupil). She played her debut in Berlin at age six and made her debut in Paris with a full orchestra at seven years of age. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
At the age of fifteen, Slenczynska was overwhelmed by the pressure of a career as a concert pianist. To escape the pressure, she left home, abandoned her career as a musician, and attended studies at the University of California, Berkeley. [7] In 1944, when she was 19, she married a student named George Born, but the marriage ended in a divorce in 1953. [1] After the divorce, Slenczynska started teaching piano for a living. She returned to performing in concerts in 1951 after a break of more than ten years. That same year, she took part in the Carmel Bach Festival. [8] [9]
Slenczynska was accepted as a music student by the University of California, Berkeley. In 1964, she accepted a full-time position at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville as Artist in Residence, a title she retained until 1987. [10] A large assortment of her memorabilia and recordings constitutes a Special Collection in the Lovejoy Library at SIUE. [11]
In 1957 she published a book of memoirs, Forbidden Childhood, which deals with life as a child prodigy, and a book on piano technique, Music at Your Fingertips: Aspects of Pianoforte Technique. [12] [1]
In 2022, at age 97, she recorded her first album in nearly 60 years for Decca Classics. [13] She turned 100 on January 15, 2025. [14]
Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Soviet-born Icelandic pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists. In addition, he has recorded a large repertoire of classical and romantic works. His recordings have earned him seven Grammy Awards and Iceland's Order of the Falcon.
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean and American pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The term may also refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio.
Six moments musicaux, Op. 16, is a set of solo piano pieces composed by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff between October and December 1896. Each Moment musical reproduces a musical form characteristic of a previous musical era. The forms that appear in Rachmaninoff's incarnation are the nocturne, song without words, barcarolle, virtuoso étude, and theme and variations.
Shura Cherkassky was a Russian-American concert pianist known for his performances of the romantic repertoire. His playing was characterized by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone. For much of his later life, Cherkassky resided in London.
Dame Moura Lympany DBE was an English concert pianist.
Ignaz Friedman was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics and colleagues alike placed him among the supreme piano virtuosi of his day, alongside Leopold Godowsky, Moriz Rosenthal, Ferruccio Busoni, Josef Hofmann and Josef Lhévinne.
Andrei Gavrilov is a Russian-Swiss pianist.
Grigory Romanovich Ginzburg was a Soviet pianist.
Sergio Fiorentino was a 20th-century Italian classical pianist whose sporadic performing career spanned five decades. There is quite a bit of footage of his playing that survives, in addition to audio recordings. Recently, a complete concert recorded on video in 1994 has surfaced.
Raffi Besalyan is an Armenian-American Concert Pianist. Besalyan studied at the Tchaikovsky Special Music School for Gifted Children in Yerevan, and received Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Yerevan State Musical Conservatory. He received an additional master's degree from Rowan University, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music with legendary American pianist Byron Janis.
Rustem Hayroudinoff is a Russian concert pianist. Tatar by nationality, he was born in Kazan, Russian Federation. His father, Afzal Hayroudinoff is a Professor of Cello at the Kazan State Conservatory. His sister, Halida Hayrutdinova, is also an acclaimed concert pianist.
The composer Sergei Rachmaninoff produced a number of solo piano pieces that were either lost, unpublished, or not assigned an opus number. While often disregarded in the concert repertoire, they are nevertheless part of his oeuvre. Sixteen of these pieces are extant; all others are lost. Ten of these pieces were composed before he completed his Piano Concerto No. 1, his first opus, and the rest interspersed throughout his later life. In these casual works, he draws upon the influence of other composers, including Frédéric Chopin and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The more substantial works, the Three Nocturnes and Four Pieces, are sets of well-thought out pieces that are his first attempts at cohesive structure among multiple pieces. Oriental Sketch and Prelude in D minor, two pieces he composed very late in his life, are short works that exemplify his style as a mature composer. Whether completed as a child or adult, these pieces cover a wide spectrum of forms while maintaining his characteristic Russian style.
Joseph Alfidi was an American pianist, composer, and conductor and initially a child prodigy. He was born in Yonkers, New York, as the son of American-born parents of Italian descent. His father, Frank Alfidi, was an accordion player who ran a music school in Yonkers. Known as "Joey" in his childhood, he was three when he started to play several instruments in his father's studio. By the age of four, he frequently improvised little compositions at the piano, and soon became fascinated by symphonic music as well.
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanovsky is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist resident in Italy. Romanovsky self-identifies as Russian while performing in Russia, and in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
Santiago Rodriguez is a Cuban-American pianist. Rodriguez is an exclusive recording artist for Élan Recordings. His Rachmaninov recordings received the Rosette award in The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music and he is a silver medalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Anna Borysivna Fedorova is a Ukrainian concert pianist. Fedorova performs as soloist, chamber musician and with symphony orchestras in the major concert halls of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Ukraine, Poland, the US, Mexico, Argentina, and parts of Asia. Fedorova is a David Young Piano Prize Holder supported by a Soiree d'Or Award and Keyboard Trust.
The Études-Tableaux, Op. 33, is the first of two sets of piano études composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. They were intended to be "picture pieces", essentially "musical evocations of external visual stimuli". But Rachmaninoff did not disclose what inspired each one, stating: "I do not believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let [the listener] paint for themselves what it most suggests." However, he willingly shared sources for a few of these études with the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi when Respighi orchestrated them in 1930.
• "The Music Show, ABC, Ruth Slenczynska Interview with Andrew Ford". Australian Broadcasting Corporation . 5 December 2020.
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