Ruth Slenczynska SCHUMANN

Transcription

1 Ruth Slenczynska SCHUMANN CARNAVAL KINDERSZENEN SONATA No.2 RECORDED IN 1999

2 Schumann Carnaval Kinderszenen Sonata No.2 Carnaval ( Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes ), Opus 9 28:46 1 Préambule. Quasi maestoso Più moto Animato Vivo Presto 2:12 2 Pierrot. Moderato 0:51 3 Arlequin. Vivo 1:03 4 Valse noble. Un poco maestoso 2:01 5 Eusebius. Adagio 1:30 6 Florestan. Passionato 0:55 7 Coquette. Vivo 1:02 8 Réplique. L istesso tempo 0:25 9 Papillons. Prestissimo 0:53 10 A.S.C.H.-S.C.H.A. (letteres dansantes). Presto 0:57 11 Chiarina. Passionato 1:18 12 Chopin. Agitato 1:36 13 Estrella. Con affetto 0:29 14 Reconnaissance. Animato 1:46 15 Pantalon et Colombine. Presto 0:56 16 Valse allemande. Molto vivace 1:02 17 Paganini. Intermezzo. Presto 1:29 18 Aveu. Passionato 1:14 19 Promenade. Comodo 2:48 20 Pause. Vivo 0:18 21 Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins. Non Allegro Molto più vivo Animato Vivo Animato molto Vivo Più stretto 3:51 2

3 Ruth Slenczynska, Pianist Original 24-Bit Master Kinderszenen ( Scenes from Childhood ), Opus 15 18:15 22 I. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Foreign lands and people) 1:58 23 II. Kuriose Geschichte (Curious story) 1:08 24 III. Hasche-Mann (Catch me if you can) 0:33 25 IV. Bittendes Kind (Pleading child) 1:02 26 V. Glückes genug (Happiness) 1:08 27 VI. Wichtige Begebenheit (Important Event) 0:49 28 VII. Träumerei (Dreaming) 2:42 29 VIII. Am Kamin (By the fireside) 0:59 30 IX.Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the hobby-horse) 0:40 31 X. Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious) 1:53 32 XI. Fürchtenmachen (Frightening) 1:10 33 XII. Kind im Einschlummern (Child falling asleep) 2:03 34 XIII. Der Dichter spricht (The poet speaks) 2:14 Sonata No.2 in G Minor, Opus 22 18:50 35 I. So rasch wie möglich 7:20 36 II. Andantino (Getragen) 3:48 37 III. Scherzo: Sehr rasch und Markiert 1:48 38 IV. Rondo: Presto 5:54 Total Playing Time: 66:07 3

4 Robert Schumann In the introduction to his critical writing, Robert Schumann bewailed the lack of good contemporary music. On the stage Rossini reigned; at the piano nothing was heard but Herz and Hunten; and yet but a few years had passed since Beethoven, Schubert and Weber had lived among us. That was written about 1833, when Schumann founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and was also well started on a noble series of piano works. As editor of the Neue Zeitschrift it was Schumann s fancy often to sign his reviews with pen names, and people them with pen names that stood for his friends. Wherever Zilia or Chiarina appears, Clara Wieck (later to become Schumann s wife) is understood. Meritas refers to Felix Mendelssohn; Florestan and Eusebius reflect the passionate or reflective sides of Schumann s nature. And so on. While editing the Zeitschrift, Schumann also was doing his best to write piano music that would be a corrective to Herz and Hünten. The Carnaval, Opus 9, which dates from , is subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes. But why tiny scenes on four notes? Well, Schumann had fallen in love with a girl named Ernestine von Fricken, and she came from a town named Asch. Each of the four letters in the name of that town has, a musical equivalent in German. S is the same as Es, which is our E flat. The German H is our B natural. These four letters ASCH also occur in Schumann s name. Moreover, As in German is A flat. Thus Schumann exuberantly went to work, devising a triple set of themes A, E flat, C, B; A flat, C, B; E flat, C, B, A. The first group of notes in nearly every piece of the Carnaval is based on one of those three combinations. Let me make a few observations regarding this composition, wrote Schumann, which owed its origin to pure chance. The name of a city in which a musical friend of mine lived consisted of letters belonging to the scale which are also contained in my name, and this suggested one of those musical games that are no longer new, since Bach provided the model. One piece after the other was completed during the carnival season of 1835, in a serious mood, by the way, and under peculiar circumstances. I afterwards gave titles to the numbers, and named the entire collection Carnaval. The work opens with a spirited Préambule. After the trumpet-call opening, a brillante section follows, ending in a kind of Gilbert and Sullivan summation. Then Pierrot, the stumbling clown makes his pompous way across the stage, joined by Arlequin in the next number. A Valse noble follows where right hand octaves introduce the expressive melody. Next the 4

5 dual parts of Schumann s personality are paired off: Eusebius (the title is Schumann s alias for the softer side of his own personality) and Florestan (Schumann the man of action). It is interesting to note that Florestan has the same initial sequence of notes as the Valse noble, but how differently Schumann treats the two! Coquette comes on stage, traipsing right out of Florestan in a flirty waltz; there is a reply (Réplique); and then the funny little Sphinxes appear which are never played, nor are they meant to be, but which give the clue to the Carnaval by printing the three thematic combinations that Schumann evolved from the good city of Asch. Three forms of the musical cryptogram are given in Sphinxes. First is a four note idea, E flat, C, B, A, standing for SCHA, an abbreviation for Robert and Clara Schumann Schumann (SCHumAnn). Then come the three notes A flat, C, B, standing for Asch, using A flat as AS. The third is a four note phrase A, E flat, C, B, standing again for Asch. The game doesn t end there, though, for each piece is as well a miniature cartoon or caricature of a friend, a composer, or one of the figures of Italian comedy, with an occasional valse or mood piece thrown in. The whole is then wrapped up as a document of the Davidsbündler, Schumann s imaginary 5

6 society for the prevention of cruelty to Romantic composers. In the music the sequence continues as follows: Papillons (a fluttery version of Schumann s butterflies), Lettres Dansantes (in which the cryptogram ASCH and SCHA become the subject now of a slightly frenzied dance that ends abruptly), Chiarina (this waltz is meant to be a characteristic description of Clara Wieck, later to become Schumann s wife. Annotators have remarked that even here the composer seems to have given her a favored position and musical treatment), Chopin (in which Schumann, as a tribute, imitates the composer s delicate nocturne-like writing), and Estrella (Ernestine von Fricken). Next come the Reconnaissance, one of the most delightful of the pieces. Its title can be taken to mean acknowledgement or recognition but could also mean a reconnaissance in the sense of military reconnoitering of a personal kind. It is followed by those two good carnival figures, Pantalon et Colombine, providing us with more Italian comics before the footlights. A Valse Allemande is interrupted by none other than Paganini, bowing violently away. Then there is the tender Aveu, a short, simple confession. It is followed by a Promenade, a three-quarter time stroll in a peaceful, somewhat idealistic garden. Pause is next this pause is, rather, a short headlong dive into the conclusion. The finale is entitled Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins. The Davidsbündler was a typical Schumannesque invention, supposed to represent a group consisting of the composer and his friends a band dedicated to artistic ideals and the prevention of cruelty to Romantic composers. Liszt introduced Carnaval in a Leipzig concert but the work proved too full of startling ideas compactly presented to be immediately heard for what it is. As Liszt later wrote: The musicians, as well as the so-called musical experts, with few exceptions, still wore a thick mask over their ears, which prevented them from comprehending this piece, so charming, so bejewelled, and, through artistic imagination, so variously and harmoniously put together. The miracle of the Carnaval, Opus 9 is the bewildering variety Schumann achieves despite the limiting factor of the three themes to which he confined himself. To many, this work is the cornerstone of the romantic period in music. The programme is secondary: it is mildly amusing and even wistful, these sophisticated days. As pure music, forgetting entirely about the programme, the Carnaval is a glowing, nostalgic, passionate and idealistic outpouring from one of the most poetic musicians who ever lived. Music, as Schumann composed it, was meant to be expressive in itself. He possessed not only a rare spiritual affinity to poetry, but also the soul and imagination of a poet. In his sets 6

7 of descriptive piano pieces bearing individual titles ( Fantasiestücke, Opus 12 in 1837 was the first among them) he in effect created the equivalent of song cycles for the piano, as colorful and poetic as the best inspirations of his celebrated lieder. Kinderszenen, Opus 15 dates from 1838, when Schumann was twenty-eight. It was a particularly happy and productive year for the composer. Thoughts of Clara Wieck had filled his mind and guided his pen. Composing prodigiously, he dashed off the entire set in a matter of days. I felt as if I had wings, and wrote about thirty pretty little things from which I have chosen twelve and called them Kinderszenen. I am very proud of them... These are not virtuoso pieces, nor were they meant to be. But they were not intended for children, either. Rather, they express the gentle, understanding feelings of an adult observing the world of a child, linking the two worlds in an intimate relationship. A yearning for a then still unattainable domestic happiness might well have been the true inspiration of this collection. The first two pieces, Von fremden Ländern und Menschen and Kuriose Geschichte, may keep the listener puzzled as to the strange places and people depicted in the former and the nature of the story told in the latter. The composer offers not a program but a mood and invites us to follow his flights of imagination. Easier to identify is the merry game of chase (Blindman s Bluff) that is the subject of Hasche-Mann and the touching vignette called Bittendes Kind with its truly inspired stroke of suspended ending. Following the gentle but irresistible hint of the child s plea, Glückes genug brings relief with a feeling of joyous satisfaction. In Wichtige Begebenheit, an important event in the day of a child is set forth in a manner of mock seriousness. Träumerei is, of course, too well known to require comment, except that it takes on a special meaning of gentleness and innocence when heard in this context. Am Kamin pictures a feeling of quiet contentment that adults would wish to share with a child. The programmatic Ritter vom Steckenpferd is clearly illustrated in whimsical tempo, while Fast zu ernst ( Almost too Serious ) is a perfect title for something that music can express so much better than words. In Fürchtenmachen, childhood s mysterious fears are captured in the alternating moods of the music. And then comes Kind im Einschlummern, its rocking, quiet melody that signals approaching sleep, and the suggestion of a concluding gentle sigh. Here the scenes of childhood come to an appropriate close, but enters the poet Der Dichter spricht who talks in plaintive tones, not so much to the sleeping child but to his listeners, creating a meaningful piano postlude for the set. Schumann, as a youth, lived in a never-changing atmosphere of feminine adulation. He 7

8 made no secret of his affections, and published them in the dedications of his music, in thinly disguised musical acrostics, and in his letters. He examined and recorded the fluctuating states of his passion with cool detachment despite the depth of emotion. It seems that he lived in the third person singular, so analytical are his epistolary descriptions of his own feelings. He confided his loves to his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted. He often wrote to one of his feminine friends confessing admiration for another. And once he wrote to a perfect stranger, declaring in a curt sentence: Clara Wieck loves, and is loved. At that time he was going through the torturing battle of sentiment with Clara s father who opposed Schumann s marriage to Clara to the bitter end. Two other women besides Clara occupied Schumann s mind during this early period of his life. One was Ernestine von Fricken, his first romantic love, the other, Henriette Voigt who played the role of a confidante. Ernestine was Estrella, the starlet of Schumann s imaginary anti-philistine Society of David. She was immortalized in the dancing letters of Carnaval, which spell the name of her native town. She was a pupilboarder at the house of Clara s father, who never suspected that she and Schumann kept clandestine rendezvous at the house of Henriette Voigt, the confidante. The attitude of Captain von Fricken towards Ernestine was peculiar. He wrote her: Play duets with Schumann, but be careful not to do anything that might disturb your peace of mind or harm your good name. But when Schumann went to Asch, ready to sanction his relations by marriage, he found out to his dismay that Ernestine was an illegitimate child adopted by the Captain, and not an heir to his fortune. But the romance was already on the wane. Clara, although only sixteen, now occupied Schumann s full attention. To make sure of the indivisibility of that attention, Clara wrote to Ernestine asking her whether she had any claims on Schumann, and received an admirably unselfish reply that she had none. Much later, analyzing his mental state in retrospect, Schumann wrote to Clara: I feel strongly that Ernestine has been wronged. She was the victim of circumstances, and I know well that I was at fault. But he found an explanation that mitigated his consciousness of guilt: Ernestine drove Clara from Schumann s heart without being aware of it, and thus the priority of love was merely re-established when Schumann returned to Clara. Ernestine herself, strangely self-denying creature that she must have been, wrote to Schumann and told him she had always believed that he could love no one but Clara. Ernestine married an old aristocrat even before Schumann s marriage to Clara; her husband soon died, and she followed him, a victim of a typhoid epidemic. Robert Schumann dedicated the Piano Sonata No.2 in G Minor, Opus 22 to Henriette 8

9 Voigt, the accommodating confidante. Writing to Henriette in 1834, Schumann said she was an A-flat major soul, but her soul must have changed key, for the Sonata is in G Minor! Schumann was slow in composing this Sonata, and it took him nearly five years to bring it to completion. The Sonata is in the orthodox four movements, but each movement individually is far from orthodox. The first movement is feverishly impetuous. The tempo is marked as fast as possible, but towards the end of the movement there are further impellents, piu mosso, and ancora piu animato. The second movement is an uncommonly short, Andantino in 6/8, nominally in the key of C Major, but too fluctuating to convey a definite impression of tonality. Then follows a nervous, syncopated Scherzo, in the tonic key of G Minor. The last movement is a Rondo. The technical style is characteristic of the post-beethoven period of piano literature. The accompanying figures contain wide intervals, awkward to play; there are elements or polyphony that suggest the mental image of an orchestra. Yet the Sonata is very pianistic, in the transcendental sense and pre-eminent among the works of the period as a highly successful composition expressing the new free and romantic spirit in a form inalienably identified with classical abstraction. Notes by Marina and Victor Ledin, Copyright 1990 and

10 The Artist She knows what she is doing every minute of the time. It is amazing! Josef Hofmann after hearing Ruth Slenczynska in her New York debut at Town Hall, 1933 Ruth Slenczynska was born in Sacramento, California on January 15, From the time she was two years old, Ruth s musicianship was evident to all. She was able to recognize and hum (in the correct keys!) themes by Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. By the age of three, she had mastered the rudiments of music theory and harmony. She began her studies with her father, a violin teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, and gave her first public recital at the age of four, on May 10, 1929, at Mills College in Oakland. On Sunday, March 16, 1930, she gave a farewell recital at Erlanger s Columbia Theatre in San Francisco. The program featured works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Grieg, C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. She was awarded a scholarship by Josef Hofmann to study at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and this concert by the five-year-old was her last appearance before commencing studies. Hofmann taught her to lean into the piano keys on the soft part of her fingers in order to produce the desired sound. Although she received a few lessons from Hofmann, because of his busy concert schedule, she actually studied with Madame Isabelle Vengerova. Her older classmates were Shura Cherkassky, Jorge Bolet and Samuel Barber. Despite this brief foray into a conservatory, Ruth s father, Josef Slenczynski, remained her primary teacher. Bay Area socialites, rallied by violinist Mischa Elman, raised money for Ruth s study abroad under such masters as Egon Petri, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot and Sergei Rachmaninov. When she was six, long lines formed around the historic Bachsaal in Berlin for her German debut. The cabled report to The New York Times declared her to be the most astounding of all prodigies heard in recent years on either side of the ocean. After her Berlin concert, the German critics mounted the stage to examine the full-sized piano on which the legs and pedal mechanisms had been shortened to enable her to play. They were seeking some sort of concealed mechanism or wires to account for the undersized six-year-old s ability to produce the glorious sounds she had just drawn from the instrument. Apologizing for their disbelief, they departed just as dumbfounded as the rest of the frenzied audience. On the evening of November 13, 1933, the eight-year-old Ruth trotted confidently from 10

11 the wings of New York s Town Hall, poised herself on the very edge of her piano seat and propelled a pair of tiny hands through an almost unbelievable performance of masterpieces by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. This was 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 what nature had produced in one of her most bounteous moods. At nine she filled an entire cancelled tour of the immortal Ignacy Jan Paderewski; had her story serialized in 18 daily chapters syndicated to 500 leading American newspapers; swapped riddles with Herbert Hoover; received floral tributes from Queen Astrid of Belgium, Queen Marie of Ruth Slenczynska Romania, and King Christian X of Denmark; and earned more money than the President of the United States. Her musical career was to last another five years before she came to the heroic decision to withdraw from the concert stage. This was followed by a period of maturation, reassessment and personal growth. She worked at odd jobs to put herself through the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a degree in psychology. She then served as professor of music at the College of Our Lady of Mercy in Burlingame, California. Ruth Slenczynska returned to the concert stage at the Carmel Bach Festival in California in This appearance led to a performance with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops in San Francisco. Ruth was then invited to play in 11

12 Boston and was also asked to go on tour with the Boston Pops that following winter. The tour would require Ruth to perform with the orchestra for a threemonth period, performing every night, and twice-a-day on Saturdays and Sundays. The gruelling schedule would require that she travel every day by bus between concert venues. Nervous about forsaking her teaching position at the College of Our Lady of Mercy, she sought the advice of Artur Rubinstein in Los Angeles. Rubinstein encouraged Ruth to pursue the Boston Pops invitation. The first year of touring Earl Wild and Ruth Slenczynska, 1999 led to three more years with the Boston Pops. During that period she gave more than 360 performances with the orchestra a record number of appearances by one artist with an orchestra! In 1956 she performed the Chopin F Minor Concerto with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos at Carnegie Hall. Mitropoulos, who had conducted her appearance with the Minneapolis Orchestra when she was twelve, considered this 1956 engagement as the discovery of a brilliant new artist on the threshold of a great career ahead. He inscribed a photograph to her: To a great pianist and musician. In May of that year, some 35 million television viewers watched and listened with amazement as Ralph Edwards applied his unique This Is Your Life formula to Ruth Slenczynska s stranger-than-fiction real life story. Six months later it was set forth again, when the best-of This Is Your Life was highlighted on Arlene Francis coast-to-coast NBC Home Show. Also in 1956, her profile, sculptured by famed Malvina Hoffman, was designated as the symbol of achievement for the 1956 Kimber Award in Instrumental Music of the San Francisco Foundation. Delta Omicron, the 12

13 Ivory Classics recording team after Ruth Slenczynska recording sessions, October Edd Kolakowski, Ed Thompson, Ruth Slenczynska, Michael Rolland Davis and Earl Wild International Music Fraternity founded in 1909, elected her to national honorary membership, conferring the title to a musician who has attained outstanding recognition in the field of music. In 1958, on the evening of November 13th, she returned to Town Hall to celebrate 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. In 1961, when the San Francisco Symphony was celebrating its Golden Anniversary Season, she was invited to perform the Khachaturian piano concerto with the 25-year-old Seiji Ozawa conducting. She has performed more than 3000 recitals on both hemispheres and appeared with most of the world s greatest orchestras. In 1984 she returned to New York s Town Hall in celebration of over 50 years on the concert stage. The New York Times critic, John Rockwell wrote: unlike too many machine-tooled young virtuosos today, Miss Slenczynska brought an appealing lyricism and musicality to her interpretations... her technique remains a commanding one. Although in 1985 she returned to the far eastern countries of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and the first visits to China and New Zealand, performing 115 concerts, she has pared back her concert schedule as follows: 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 the United States. Although Ms. Slenczynska tried to retire from concertizing and teaching a couple of years ago, she has been unable to do so because of the 13

14 constant demand for her concert performances and master classes. Today she still maintains an active teaching schedule at Southern Illinois University as well as conducting workshops and master classes around the country. Ruth Slenczynska is married to retired political science professor James Richard Kerr and resides in Glen Carbon, Illinois. They are avid gardeners and dog lovers and collect art from all over the world. This recording marks Ruth Slenczynska s return to the recording studio after an absence of many years and continues Ivory Classics commitment to documenting her incredible musical career. Recordings by Ruth Slenczynska on Ivory Classics : The Legacy of a Genius Ivory Classics Bach: Italian Concerto; Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, Toccata in C minor; and Sonata in D Major Chopin/Liszt: Six Chants Polonais, Op.74 Liszt: Consolation No.1 in E Major; Hungarian Rhapsody No.15 in A minor ( Rákóczy March ) Ruth Slenczynska in Concert Ivory Classics Haydn: Sonata No.47 in B minor Brahms: Rhapsody in B minor, Op.79, No.1 Copland: Midsummer Nocturne (1947) Chopin: Sonata No.3 in B minor, Op.58 Rachmaninov: Eight Preludes 14

15 CREDITS l l l l l l l l Recorded at Fernleaf Abbey, Columbus, Ohio, October 5-7, 1999 Original 24-Bit Master Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Recording Engineer: Ed Thompson Piano Technician: Edd Kolakowski Generous assistance came from the Michael Palm Foundation and Ivory Classics Foundation Liner Notes: Marina and Victor Ledin Design: Communication Graphics Inside Tray Photo: Ruth Slenczynska Cover Photo: Ruth Slenczynska in 1999 (Photo by Michael Rolland Davis) To place an order or to be included on mailing list: Ivory Classics P.O. Box Columbus, Ohio Phone: IVORY or Fax: @ivoryclassics.com Website: 15

16 Ruth Slenczynska Schumann Carnaval Kinderszenen Sonata No.2-21 Carnaval ( Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes ), Opus 9 28:46-34 Kinderszenen ( Scenes from Childhood ), Opus 15 18:15-38 Sonata No.2 in G Minor, Opus 22 18:50 Total Playing Time: 66:07 Original 24-Bit Master Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Engineer: Ed Thompson 2000 Ivory Classics All Rights Reserved STEREO Ivory Classics P.O. Box Columbus, Ohio U.S.A. Phone: IVORY or Fax: @ivoryclassics.com Website: