Music: Parent’s Pronouncement

In Toronto while his bouncing 11-year-old daughter Ruth sat by and listened proudly, Josef Slenczynski gave an interview last week to Newshawk Knowles oi the Toronto Daily Star. Father Slenczynski was shell-shocked in the War, abandoned his ambition to become a concert violinist. Said he: “Myself disabled, I deliberately got married, intending to have a child who would take my place in the world of music. … I chose Ruth’s mother for Ruth’s sake. I chose the mother for the child. She is just an old-fashioned mother, no personal ambitions, no society cravings, no genius—I took good care of that.” Ever since her debut Pianist Ruth Slenczynski has been a source of amazement, partly because of her prodigious talent, partly because of her complete self-assurance (TIME, Nov. 20, 1933 et seq.}. Father Slenczynski has made it easy for her to think well of herself. Said he to Reporter Knowles: “Only last Sunday she played the concerto from Beethoven in the Metropolitan Opera House—and without rehearsal, suddenly called upon, and accompanied by orchestra. That’s something even Paderewski couldn’t have done.” Reporter Knowles was flabbergasted when Father Slenczynski, insisting that young Ruth was greater than the master Pole, said: “My daughter ranks with Liszt and Beethoven.”