Ruth Laredo
Ruth Laredo (November 20, 1937 – May 25, 2005) was an American classical pianist.
She became known in the 1970s in particular for her premiere recordings of the 10 sonatas of Scriabin and the complete solo piano works of Rachmaninoff, for her Ravel recordings and in the last 16 1⁄2 years before her death for her series in the Metropolitan Museum of Art “Concerts with Commentary”. She was often referred to as “America's First Lady of the Piano”.
Ruth Meckler was born on November 20, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan, the elder of two daughters of Miriam Meckler-Horowitz, a piano teacher, and Ben Meckler, an English teacher. When she was only two years old, she was already able to play God Bless America on the piano of her mother, without being taught.
When she was eight years old, her mother took her to a concert of Vladimir Horowitz in the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit. After the concert she vowed to become a concert pianist herself. Horowitz played Scriabin, and Laredo was so fascinated by this music that she developed a lifelong passion for Scriabin and other Russian composers, including Scriabin's contemporary Rachmaninoff.
In 1960 she moved to New York City and married the Bolivian-born violinist Jaime Laredo, who was three and a half years younger than she. She knew him at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and they performed together regularly until their divorce in 1974 (in some publications erroneously given as 1976). Their union produced a daughter in 1969, Jennifer, who is married to Paul Watkins, chief conductor and music director of the English Chamber Orchestra. Jennifer Laredo Watkins lives in London.
During the pregnancy and after the birth of her daughter, Ruth Laredo had to cut back on touring with her husband. Keen to record the music of Scriabin, she approached various record companies with the proposal to record all 10 sonatas by the composer. Alan Silver from the Connoisseur Society agreed to take the risk, although initially only for one LP (Sonatas No. 5, No. 7, “White Mass”, No. 9, “Black Mass”, Eight Etudes, Op. 42). After the success of this first recording, Connoisseur engaged her to record the remaining seven sonatas, thus making Laredo the first pianist to have recorded the complete sonatas of Scriabin. This milestone marked the beginning of her public acclaim as a solo artist.
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