One of the most solid and ubiquitous pianists on the musical circuit of the last six decades, Vladimir Ashkenazy, celebrated his 85e birthday on July 6th. On this occasion, Decca finally publishes all of his solo recordings, a monumental edition of 89 CDs. What can we conclude about the legacy of the pianist of Russian origin? Is such an investment justified for the discophile?
Vladimir Ashkenazy’s discography is simple and complex. Simple, because Ashkenazy became a Decca artist very early in his career. The “Decca legacy” therefore represents the immense part of his recording heritage. Complex, because his very diverse talents make him both a soloist, a chamber music partner and a conductor. His discography, multiple, represents well over 200 CDs, leading to selective or segmented reissues.
Decca blended the two. Segmentation, on the one hand, with, for its 80th anniversary, The Complete Piano Concerto Recordings (2017), followed by this set of Complete Solo Recordings. Selectivity, on the other hand, with Ashkenazy, 50 Years on Decca (2013) et Artist Choice. The Solo & Chamber Recordings (2017). The new release puts us in front of a puzzle reminiscent of the Boulez integral at DGbut three times more complex…
Talents multiples
To understand the art of Vladimir Ashkenazy, it is useful to mention a few bibliographic references. The winner of the Queen Elisabeth (1956) and Tchaikovsky (1962) competitions, second in the Chopin Competition (1955) was a prodigy of his generation. The emergence of Ashkenazy, born in 1937, slightly precedes those of Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire and Mitsuko Uchida.
Ashkenazy married, in 1961, an Icelandic, Thorunn Sofia Johannisdottir, who was studying at the Moscow Conservatory. He fled the Soviet Union with his wife in 1963, initially settling in London. Having become Icelandic in 1972 after having immigrated there in 1968, he was able, out of sight, to practice a subsidiary activity: conducting an orchestra. The Ashkenazy family then settled in Switzerland (1978), the conductor and pianist also adopting this nationality. He returned to Russia for the first time in November 1989.
Ashkenazy’s first major musical directorship was in 1987, with the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra, and then in 1989, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The rise of his activity as a conductor coincided with Decca’s need to quickly feed its catalog of compact discs (CD technology being commercialized in 1982-1983). Unlike Daniel Barenboim, another pianist converted to conducting, Ashkenazy’s piano level has not eroded due to his hyperactivity. He has largely preserved the image of a pianist-conductor, rather than a conductor who still plays the piano incidentally.
Ashkenazy first entered a recording studio for Decca in November 1963 to cut three Studies-Paintings op. 39 by Rachmaninoff. When it came, in 2013, to celebrate the 50e anniversary of this collaborationDecca drew on music for solo piano, chamber music, concertos and symphonic music.
In 2017, for the conductor’s 80th birthday, Decca published, on the one hand, the complete concertos engraved by the pianist and, on the other hand, Artist Choicea selection made by Ashkenazy from his solo and chamber music recordings.
For fans who bought the 50 box seteor Artist Choice, even tumbling down an integral is a source of frustration because of duplicates. For the commentator, it is an intense jubilation, since having at hand the box Artist Choice, it’s being able to confront one’s view of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s discography with the pianist’s critical view of himself!
Among the 56 CDs ofArtist Choice, Ashkenazy had chosen 32 solo piano discs. Knowing that the complete is 89 CDs, he had therefore left 57 aside. Moreover, of the 14 piano CDs of Ashkenazy’s 50th anniversary with Decca, 10 match the musician’s choices made four years later. The four “rejected” CDs are the Studies of Chopin, the Hammer piano of Beethoven (second recording), the Sonates no 1, 5, 6 et 7 by Beethoven and the CD Arabesque, Butterflies, Symphonic Studies the Schumann.
What was very important to Ashkenazy in 2017 was his contribution to the defense of Russian heritage. He certainly wanted to show that his love of the culture of his country of origin was proportional to his hatred of the political regime he had fled.
Highlighted as follows: all of his Shostakovich recordings (Preludes and Fugues and anthology of works for piano); them Pictures at an exhibition with other Russian scores; Seasons by Tchaikovsky; three of his four Scriabin recordings (all including sonatas); four of the seven CDs of his complete Rachmaninoff and all his Prokofiev recordings, with the duplicate of Sonates n° 7 et 8. It is an extremely strong profession of faith.
Of the 17 “Western” music CDs, three were occupied by the complete Well-tempered keyboard of Bach, a belated love of Ashkenazy. Three Chopin records: his first two (Ballades, Scherzos) and its second version of Preludeswith the 3e sonata. De Schumann, a 3 CD, Fancy (twice), Symphonic studies, Kreisleriana, Variations Abegg, Carnaval de Vienne, Humoreske (the latter, his best Schumann). From Schubert, the Sonatas D. 664, 784 and especially, 850one of his great accomplishments in all repertoires.
On the remaining four CDs we find the music of Howard Blake, the 3e sonata of Brahms, the Sonates K. 311, 457 et 570 of Mozart and, of Beethoven, the Variations Diabelli.
This draws us a portrait of Ashkenazy seen by himself. The trace he wants to leave, primarily in Russian music, is that of the pupil of Lev Oborine, first winner of the Chopin Competition, with a less massive sound and less emphatic expression than other Russians of his time. This transmission was also made in Chopin, which brought Ashkenazy initial notoriety in the West.
Sound wandering
The integral reminds us that Ashkenazy engraved all of Chopin, all of Rachmaninoff. It is interesting to see that what immediately distinguishes, in Beethoven, these Variations Diabelli that he “saves” is the adequacy of the sound with the musical purpose.
Indeed, and this is the major lesson of the integral, despite the notoriety of Decca in the technical field, the piano recordings of Vladimir Ashkenazy failed to impose a sound aesthetic linked to the pianist. There is an “Arrau sound”, a “Brendel sound”, but no “Ashkenazy sound”, apart from a sort of melting-pot of compromises, so heterogeneous, especially within the same projects (Sonatas of Beethoven), that one wonders what the pianist really liked.
In our time, which has clearly associated, with pianists like Arcadi Volodos, Louis Lortie, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Nelson Goerner or Pavel Kolesnikov, a musical message and its pianistic sound, many recordings by Ashkenazy, without being dishonouring, sound like enigmas. . Riddles he let pass and publish.
However, we can guess its “line” by the style. For this, we must set aside the first. The fact of being Russian stuck to the interpreter’s skin at a time when there was so much effort to catalog pianists by “schools” instead of seeing their individuality. Ashkenazy is not cold, tough, flashy and indifferent “Russian style”; it is in fact an intelligent “factual” (less radical than Zoltan Kocsis), which seeks an efficiency born from the score and not from what one could add to it.
In this spirit, there is more musical food in the hearing of this integral than what we imagined. The fact remains that Decca certainly shot itself in the foot with its previous editions.
As for the contents of the box, it does not bring us any surprises, novelties or great rarities. We can see in retrospect that Ashkenazy touched Liszt only once and reasonably revived some of Beethoven’s great Sonatas, Beethovens as reissued as his Chopin and Rachmaninoff.
Attention, the works for two pianos, like the Rachmaninoffs with Previn, are not there. They will be found in the future box “ Ashkenazy — Complete Chamber Recordings “. The one who precedes Ashkenazy — Complete Orchestral Recordings »…