A useful disc. Born in New York, Eugenie Russo has studied under (amongst others) Elisabeth Leonskaja in Salzburg and Hans Graf in Vienna. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1986 and is currently head of the keyboard department at the Josef-Matthias-Hauer Conservatory in Vienna Neustadt. Russo’s thoughtful, undemonstrative brand of pianism works especially well in the gentler numbers of Rodeo (“Corral Nocturne” and “Saturday Night Waltz”), and she is equally sympathetic in the Four Piano Blues. Moreover, hers is an extremely assured, notably concentrated interpretation of the powerful Sonata (1941), full of subtle colour and nuance (I’m not sure that the rather close, airless sound does adequate justice to her refined tonal palette).
Of course, Rodeo is heard here in Copland’s own 1962 arrangement, whereas a penniless 21-year-old Harvard graduate by the name of Leonard Bernstein was responsible for the vivid reworking of El salon Mexico (he was paid the princely sum of $25 for his efforts). One has perhaps heard more sheerly charismatic accounts of this last item, but Russo’s advocacy is certainly enjoyable in its idiomatically poised, honest-to-goodness way.'