Conversation with Ruth Slenczynska

It was a true honor (and really, a possibility I owe to this Covid/Zoom era), to have been able to have an informal conversation with the ever-youthful 96 year old Ruth Slencyznska on Sunday, January 31st, 2021. One of the most legendary pianists of her time, and one of the last living students of Rachmaninoff and Cortot, I became familiar with Ruth in 2007 after stumbling across her book “Music at Your Fingertips“. In those pages I found descriptions of incredibly intriguing and severe work procedures, practice methods, and strategies for coping with musical and pianistic difficulties. Serious, strategic, and straightforward stuff -- very different from the “Relax“, and “Positive thinking, deep breathing, visualization, etc“ advice that seems commonplace today. I had grown intrigued by many things in this book, and had managed to track Ms. Slencyznska down during this period to ask her further questions, and I’m grateful she happily obliged. Since I was afraid the Zoom meeting would not continue to recor