Ashkenazy

Even though Vladimir Ashkenazy is most often celebrated for his brilliantly virtuosic interpretations of Romantic repertoire, his skills in playing works of the Classical era are just as worthy, as proved by this 10-disc set from London of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos. These performances span a period from 1966 to 1988, capturing a youthful and vigorous Ashkenazy playing and conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard, in approved Mozartian fashion. All of the keyboard concertos are here, including the official 27 concertos for piano and orchestra, the Concerto for two pianos in E flat major, K. 365, the Concerto for three pianos in F major, K. 242, as well as the two Rondos K. 382 and K. 386. Ashkenazy's elegant playing has been highly praised by critics and placed on a level with his esteemed contemporaries Murray Perahia, Daniel Barenboim, and Alfred Brendel, all past masters of Mozart's primary medium of expression.

With this disc, Vladimir Ashkenazy, celebrated for his readings of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, and his son, Vovka, take on music by Debussy and Ravel for two pianos, and the results, utterly unlike virtually anything Ashkenazy père has ever recorded before, make it a real winner. From the electric excitement of the opening En blanc et noir, through the hazy mysteries of Jeux, and the luminous colors of the Rapsodie espagnole, to the inexorable hysteria of La Valse, Ashkenazy père and fils turn in performances that match the music for poise, drive, and technical brilliance. Some might find their sonorities a bit hard-edged at points – should the opening of En blanc et noir and the close of La Valse really be hit so strongly? – but the results are so consistently thrilling that most listeners are likely to be swept away. Recorded in close but clear and vivid digital sound, this disc may not be for every Debussy and Ravel fan, but it should certainly appeal to fans of Ashkenazy.

The earliest piece on this disc is the delightful Pastorale, written in 1907, when Stravinsky was 25; the latest is the enigmatic Epitaphium, written 52 years later. In between come a clutch of pieces from that fascinating period of Stravinsky’s life when he was moving from Russianism to neo-classicism via jazz. The remaining two, the Octet of 1923 and the Septet of 1953, are both firmly in Stravinsky’s witty, poised neo-classical style, though the Septet is moving towards new, tougher territory. Stravinsky himself made classic recordings of these pieces in the Sixties, now reissued on CD on the Sony label. These are always electric, if sometimes a little untidy, and so closely recorded you feel the players are sitting in your lap. By that lofty benchmark this new recording measures up superbly. Tempos are just as brisk and alert as Stravinsky’s, the accents just as incisive. These qualities are combined with a beautiful soft-grained tone – a nice change from Stravinsky’s lemon-sharp sound.

Despite the recording dates, the sound and balance are superb, and there's nothing to cloud your sense of Ashkenazy's greatness in all these works. From him every page declares Rachmaninov's nationality, his indelibly Russian nature. What nobility of feeling and what dark regions of the imagination he relishes and explores in page after page of the Third Concerto. Significantly his opening is a very moderate Allegro ma non tanto, later allowing him an expansiveness and imaginative scope hard to find in other more 'driven' or hectic performances. His rubato is as natural as it's distinctive, and his way of easing from one idea to another shows him at his most intimately and romantically responsive.

During the 1970s, Vladimir Ashkenazy recorded virtually the entire standard piano repertoire, largely successfully. Then he turned to conducting, at which he's steadily become more successful. Although his initial efforts on the podium were not greeted with universal acclaim, you've got to respect the fact that he moved onto something new rather than attempting to revisit the same music again and risk not doing it nearly as well. Among his complete editions was this set of Prokofiev piano concertos, and they are among the best things that he did. At two discs for the price of one, it's a fine way to acquire all of these exciting works.

This two-disc set, one of numerous crossover collections released by the Decca/Universal family of labels, bears the name of Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy only in small print at the end of the list of pieces included. Newcomers to classical music can rest assured that they're getting a two-for-one bonus by purchasing Essential Chopin – not only an introduction to the Polish-French composer who helped elevate the small solo piano work to the pinnacle of musical art, but also a sampling of the talents of one of the great keyboard artists of our own time. Ashkenazy rumbles with power on the more extended Ballades and the "Revolutionary" Etude in C minor, Op. 10/2, while Chopin's lighter dance-rhythm pieces and lyrical Nocturnes sparkle under Ashkenazy's effortless hands.

It is very interesting, but also quite a shock, to play the contents of this disc in the wrong order. What a born Franckian Ashkenazy is, one thinks, listening to his account of Les Djinns and admiring both the boldness of outline and colour in the orchestral sections and the long-breathed nobility of phrasing that he brings to the piano theme that calms the music's turbulence. And the impression is redoubled by his voluptuous reading of Psyche (of its four orchestral movements, that is; the choral ones are as usual omitted, though Decca puzzlingly print Franck's synopsis of them in the accompanying booklet). What a fine control of sustained, arching line and of slowly built crescendo and, in the fourth movement, what a shrewd understanding of how much sensuality underlays Franck's image of pater seraphicus!