I had lunch with Ruth last week. Ruth is now retired from concert work. She speaks softly so that at times I miss a word or two but she has two trips coming up. The first is a trip to Korea to teach some master classes. It seems Korea would like to produce some first place winners as did some of the last students that Ruth taught. Then she will be home for a few weeks and then off again to Spain. We agreed to meet for lunch again between these two trips. So heres a tidbit for you. She continues to practice the way S. Rachmaninoff taught her...slow and without pedal. When she first visited SVR she and her father heard someone practicing agonizingly slow and Ruth's father made some type of criticism about it. It was SVR they soon learned. Ruth still enjoys telling the story of how this very tall man looked down upon this little girl pointing a long finger and asking incredulously, "You mean THAT plays the piano?". I've been in touch with a member of the St Petersburg version of the Rachmainoff Society and I told Ruth how interested the society was in her and also of the interest in Siloti. Her eyes brightened and she said, oh Siloti, I knew him!" After lunch we walked by the hotel where Ruth would meet Siloti as a little girl and he would help her choose her concert programs. I told her of having located Siloti's final resting place. After lunch Ruth had a little bit of time but would have to start working on her Prokovief Sonata. She invited me in and had a little surprise for me. I had to wait while she readied a CD and I wasn't allowed to look. I was to guess the player. The sound was far too good to be an old recording so I guessed that it was her. Wrong. The first piece was Chopin. The next piece was SVR's C# minor prelude and Ruth commented that no one plays like that anymore, giving me the clue that it was an old recording. My second guess was correct that it was SVR but that it couldn't be because the recording was far too good. Ruth had an advance copy of a re engineered CD of SVR and let me tell you, you have not heard a recording of SVR until you hear this one. It will be on the market in a few months and they will premier it at Steinway Hall on 9/17. Ruth will be in Korea unfortunately on that date. After hearing the recording Ruth needed to get to work but I asked her to play something for me. She choose her Steinway (knowing I like the Steinway) over her Bosendorfer that she prefers, I think for my sake. She sat down and played a Brahms piece from her last recording session. Although it was perfect she said that it wasn't really worked up for performance. I told her I enjoyed it and thanked her and that I would call again. She gave me a DVD of a concert she gave in Japan in 2004 and said it would be alright by her to post some of it on You Tube. So I'll see if I can get my son to post some of it.

How exciting!

And what a privilege!

I can't wait to hear more of this luncheon date, this weekend.

And to hear the SVR recording.

Roberta, And so you shall. BTW I'm riding with Dan.

Great story, LJC! What a privilege to spend some time with Ruth Slenczynska!

It certainly was, Joe. Too bad you could not make it to Ori's place last weekend.

Great story. What I would give to hear her live. Silotti had an interesting life - quite an extraordinary pianist as well. Of course, he had a teacher I would have loved to have heard...

KLURRS--I posted some of Ruth's 2003 concert in Japan on You Tube. The concert was all 24 Chopin preludes however my friend and I posted only about 8 minutes. Ruth gave me this DVD and it is the only copy.