Ivory Classics Online

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Disc.Contnets

Franz Schubert (1797-1828):

Four Impromptus, Op. 142 (D. 935)

• [01] Impromptu No. 1 in F minor (Allegro moderato) 08:10 ('28)
• [02] Impromptu No. 2 in A flat major (Allegretto) 04:00 ('28)
• [03] Impromptu No. 3 in B flat major (Andante) 06:52 ('28)
• [04] Impromptu No. 4 in F minor (Allegro scherzando) 03:50 ('28)

Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 94 (D. 780)

• [05] Moments Musicaux No. 1 in C major (Moderato) 03:17 ('28)
• [06] Moments Musicaux No. 2 in A flat major (Andantino) 05:20 ('28)
• [07] Moments Musicaux No. 3 in F minor (Allegretto moderato) 01:37 ('28)
• [08] Moments Musicaux No. 4 in C sharp minor (Moderato) 03:58 ('28)
• [09] Moments Musicaux No. 5 in F minor (Allegro vivace) 02:42 ('28)
• [10] Moments Musicaux No. 6 in A flat Major (Allegretto) 05:25 ('28)
• [11] Marche Militaire in D major, Op. 51 No. 1 (D. 733) 06:19 ('28)

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849):

• [12] Polonaise in A major, Op. 40 No. 1 03:53 ('27)
• [13] Prelude in D flat major, Op. 28 No. 15 ('Raindrop') 04:01 ('27)

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943):

• [14] Prelude in G minor, Op. 23 No. 5 03:59 ('26)
• [15] Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2 03:42 ('26)

Franz Liszt (1811-1886):

• [16] Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8 in F sharp minor (S244/R106) 05:37 ('26)

Disc.Reviews

From the other 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 practiced 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 misdemeanors resulted in a lost meal. Indeed, her meals were to be seen, not as a right but as a reward for eventual good musical behavior.

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 "characterization". Yet playing it straight will not work either, and what two listeners will agree totally where characterization 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.

Leginska's name has always been more honoured in the breach. A notable propagandist for women musicians - she was a composer and a conductor as well as a pianist - her reputation suffered inevitable decline, one exacerbated by the relative paucity of her recordings. The fact is that she had a most distinguished pedigree; a Leschetizky pupil until she was sixteen, studies in Berlin, a performance of the Henselt Concerto with Henry Wood whilst still in her mid-teens. Following her (failed) marriage she went to America where she continued to study - theory with Rubin Goldmark and composition with Ernest Bloch (three operas of hers, Gale, The Rose and the Ring and Joan of Arc, were written in the 1930s - she seems also to have excelled at orchestral works). Like Iturbi shortly after her, conducting became a passion and at thirty-seven she studied its technicalities with Robert Heger and Eugene Goossens (an old friend) and in time became known as one of the first major women conductors with a string of prestigious engagements. She conducted - opera as well as orchestral concerts - in London, Salzburg, New York and Boston. In 1932-33 she was conductor of the Montreal Opera Company.

Leginska was born Ethel Liggins in Hull in 1886. It was the snobbish Lady Maud Warrender who suggested the Slavic name to enhance her career though she was hardly unique in feeling that an English name was a hindrance to wider acceptability, not least in her own country. She was one of the most interesting and picaresque of British pianists born between Harold Bauer (b.1873) and Myra Hess (b.1890) - though one arguably less talented than her now little known contemporary, the superb Winifred Christie (b.1882). Like Bauer and Hess she gravitated fairly early to America (Hess was appreciated early in America; her iconic status in British musical life was not as secure as it now retrospectively seems always to have been). This is apparently the first time that her American Columbias, recorded in New York, have been reissued en bloc and they disclose a musician of distinct and considerable - though not unproblematic - gifts; sensitive, tonally splendid, with a command of phraseology that is frequently compelling. Schubert, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Liszt are the four composers represented on these early electrics. The Four Impromptus date from 1928 and were issued as Set No. 93. The B flat major embodies a genuine nobility - albeit in a rather deadpan sort of way - but the concluding F minor (No. 4 - Allegro scherzando) generates its own internal momentum and is full of contrast, both colouristic and in terms of depth of sound. The Six Moments Musicaux, together with the Impromptus, represent her primary contribution to the discography but are uneven. The first is full of fluency and tonal sagacity with strong architectural wisdom but the second, in A flat major, is rather earthbound with hints of metricality. The little F minor makes little impression in her performance but the C sharp minor is a fine reading - sonority, span and phrasing held in excellent equilibrium and no sign of any sectionality in a piece that can tend to buckle in less perspicacious hands. She is quite emphatic in the F minor (No. 5) and cultivates a rather rugged view of the concluding Allegretto though not one without interest. I was less taken by the Schubert-Tausig; rather finicky phrasing to my ears - italicised and stolid. I admired the way she abjured the speciously virtuosic, the overemphatic blunderbuss approach and the contrast she cultivates between rigidity and the flowing central panel of the music but I think it comes at too much of an overall cost.

Her Chopin is only so-so. The Prelude in D flat major in particular fails to convince because of insufficient engagement and poor tempo relationships. The Rachmaninov lacks fire; she seems to value architecture at the expense of leonine drama (which is not the same as vulgarity) so there's a lack of dramatic etching in the G minor Prelude and whilst her technique seems quite adequate for this and the C sharp minor, no sparks fly. The Liszt is not unattractive, there's some beautiful treble-orientated sonority but again she hardly comes across as a romantic virtuoso of declamatory vision.

Notwithstanding these critical observations this is a genuinely useful release. It restores important recordings to the catalogue and does so moreover in a helpful and attractive way. The transfers have been expertly handled and the booklet is both handsome and full of pertinent biographical information; period photographs only serve to enhance the attractiveness of the design - something of a model booklet. Bonus points to the imaginative mind that thought to reproduce the Columbia 78 label of one of the Moments Musicaux as part of the jewel case. A class act.