This release by the 97-year-old pianist Ruth Slenczynska received plenty of publicity, understandably enough, and it landed on the best-seller charts in March of 2022. Slenczynska did not emerge from nowhere as a kind of old-age prodigy; she taught for many years at Southern Illinois University, wrote a raft of articles about piano pedagogy, and made some recordings, including a group for Deutsche Grammophon when she was in her eighties. As a child, Slenczynska studied with Alfred Cortot, Artur Schnabel, Josef Hofmann, and ...
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This release by the 97-year-old pianist Ruth Slenczynska received plenty of publicity, understandably enough, and it landed on the best-seller charts in March of 2022. Slenczynska did not emerge from nowhere as a kind of old-age prodigy; she taught for many years at Southern Illinois University, wrote a raft of articles about piano pedagogy, and made some recordings, including a group for Deutsche Grammophon when she was in her eighties. As a child, Slenczynska studied with Alfred Cortot, Artur Schnabel, Josef Hofmann, and Sergei Rachmaninov, and she is the last living student of the latter. This alone makes the album worth one's while, for it offers a direct link to Rachmaninov's own playing. Slenczynska leads off with a pair of Rachmaninov works, and she produces, or reproduces, a distinctive style, with lots of rubato on the small scale but not the large. She transfers it to other works where it is appropriate, like a pair by Barber. There are also Chopin, Grieg, Debussy, and finally Bach, and there...
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