Vladimir Ashkenazy

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

On this occasion are castaways the celebrated concert pianist Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter0:37

Mr. Ashkenazi, did you find it difficult to choose just eight records, this meagre eight?

Vladimir Ashkenazy0:42

Yes, very difficult, yes. I could have chosen probably close to a hundred. What's the first one you have then? Rachmaninov's Second Symphony. Why do you choose it? I think that Rachmaninov is uh to my mind is perhaps the most Russian of Russian composers. Uh uh I can't really impress my opinion. It it can be i quite irrational. I just simply feel that his expression is the most Russian. Yes. Most complete also.

Presenter1:09

Yes.

Presenter2:13

The opening of the slow movement of the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony, Andrei Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter2:20

Now, you were born in Russia in the town of Gorky. That wasn't the original name of the town, was it?

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:26

Yeah.

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:27

Um the original name was Nizhny Novgorod. A and it was renamed after the writer. After the writer, correct.

Presenter2:33

You moved to m

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:34

Moscow when you were very little? Yes, when I was three, I think. And there was a lot of music in your home? My father is a pianist and um there was some music in our home, not very much, and it wasn't classical, it was popular. And your mother is she musical? Uh no, my mother is not.

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:50

But she was the one who noticed that I was rather interested in music.

Presenter2:55

You started what, to play the piano.

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:57

To teach yourself the piano.

Vladimir Ashkenazy2:59

N no, we didn't have an instrument.

Vladimir Ashkenazy3:02

Uh only when I was six I remember my mother asked me whether I would like to start studying, mhm, playing an instrument. And I said yes, and she asked me what instrument I said, the the piano, because my father was a pianist.

Vladimir Ashkenazy3:15

So, that's how it started.

Presenter3:18

Uh music teaching in in Russia is is is rather more intensive than here.

Vladimir Ashkenazy3:24

Yes, the system is uh such that gifted children are easily channelled to good music schools. Mm. It it's a very good system in that respect.

Presenter3:35

You went on to the the Moscow Conservatory.

Presenter3:39

You began taking part in a lot of competitions. Was this a standard part of the Russian musical education? At 18, you.

Presenter3:46

You won the second prize in in in in the Shopping competition.

Vladimir Ashkenazy3:49

Yeah.

Presenter3:50

Yeah.

Vladimir Ashkenazy3:51

It's not a standard part of the education. It's um let's say it is the most desirable path for a young musician to be a winner of an international competition. And um the system is somehow geared to that. That unless you win a competition you have no chance uh of being on a concert platform. And um I was uh simply a cog in the wheels, you know. And I went to those competitions because I was sent there.

Presenter4:18

There's one that you won in Belgium, a competition which sounds terribly growling, but for the Queen Elizabeth Prize.

Vladimir Ashkenazy4:26

Yes, it is a very difficult one. The range of repertoire is enormous and you have to learn a new piece in the final round, uh a new unknown piece written specially for the competition in eight days and play it with the orchestra. Mhm. So that's difficult.

Presenter4:44

Are you a quick study? Can you memorize easily?

Vladimir Ashkenazy4:48

Yes, I'm rather quick, fortunately that's

Presenter4:50

Yeah.

Presenter4:51

A gift from nature. You had some very distinguished judges in that competition.

Vladimir Ashkenazy4:55

Yes, we had Rubinstein, Kazadisu and um Yeah.

Presenter4:59

And that earned you a tour of the United States.

Presenter5:04

Yeah. Uh

Vladimir Ashkenazy5:04

Um

Presenter5:04

Mm.

Vladimir Ashkenazy5:05

I suppose so, yes. I suppose that was the most important element.

Presenter5:11

Of course, you still haven't graduated. You had to go back to the Conservatoire. And I think it was in your

Presenter5:17

Final year there, the Jup

Presenter5:19

You met an Icelandic student who began to mean rather a lot to you.

Vladimir Ashkenazy5:24

No. We met in nineteen fifty eight when um when she came to participate in the first Tchaikovsky competition, in which I did not participate. Then she came back in nineteen sixty to study in the conservatory with the same piano teacher as I was studying with, uh mister Lev Oborin. And that's when uh we met a lot and we got married in nineteen sixty one. And I graduated from the conservatory actually at the end of nineteen sixty.

Presenter5:30

Yeah.

Presenter5:52

Let's have your second record. What will that be?

Vladimir Ashkenazy5:54

Oh, the second I got this uh Mozart piano concerto, Kevil five nine five. Mhm. The piece is so sublime that uh one really fails to find the right words. I like almost all Mozart concertos enormously, but this one

Vladimir Ashkenazy6:11

has something special and I I don't want to try to describe it. So I'll stop there.

Presenter6:17

Who is the soloist on this reporting?

Vladimir Ashkenazy6:19

Here is um Daniel Barnbohm with English Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter6:23

who was a very good friend of yours.

Vladimir Ashkenazy6:24

Yes, he is.

Presenter7:26

Part of the first movement of the Mozart Piano Concerto, number twenty seven, in B flat major, Kirkel five nine five, Daniel Baremboen playing and conducting the English Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter7:38

Now your career was getting well very well under way. You were a a married man, and and you took part yourself in the second international Tchaikovsky competition.

Vladimir Ashkenazy7:48

That's right. And you won it. Yes, I I it was really against my will. I never wanted to participate. Uh the the authorities simply said to me a couple of times, on a very high level, that unless you participate, uh you might as well forget about your career.

Presenter8:05

The Russians wanted a Russian to win it. Was that the idea?

Vladimir Ashkenazy8:08

They needed a very strong team and they needed a leader, so they were trying to gather the strongest they had at that moment, and I belonged to that category at that moment.

Presenter8:10

I'm ready.

Vladimir Ashkenazy8:19

And uh I married a foreigner, which is already an anathema in Russia, you see. And um they they uh what do they say, banked on it, yes. Yes, banked on it. Yes, they said, Well, you know what's happening with you and um if you if you don't participate, you can count your international career finished.

Speaker 18:22

Yeah.

Presenter8:22

Yeah.

Presenter8:29

Yeah, it's a bank done.

Presenter8:40

So what can you do? Right. Well, you you entered and you won, although in fact you you tied for the first prize with an Englishman, John Ogden.

Vladimir Ashkenazy8:49

Yes, uh well uh for practical purposes there's no difference whether you whether I tried or not. The most important was that I was also a winner, you see. And for practical reasons uh that was enough. Because having won the first prize, I was in a position to count on international tours. Although I was married to a foreigner, you see. There are degrees in life in Russia where you know that this helps you and this doesn't. And if even if you have some negative circumstances, you know which kind of a positive circumstance might uh tip the balance in your favor. And that was it, you see.

Presenter8:57

Yeah, you see. Yeah.

Presenter9:02

Yeah.

Presenter9:26

So it did lead to a lot more overseas engagements. Now there was a complication. Your wife, Thorin, didn't enjoy living in Russia.

Vladimir Ashkenazy9:36

No. Well, it's not surprising.

Vladimir Ashkenazy9:39

It's difficult to adapt yourself to those circumstances.

Presenter9:44

Although Icelandic, she had been brought up in England.

Vladimir Ashkenazy9:47

Yes, that's true, basically in England, but she's very much Icelandic, of course. Um, well, it it was hard to to to live in Russia. It's hard for Russians to live in Russia and it's

Vladimir Ashkenazy9:58

infinitely harder for foreigners to try to live there. But the problems aren't just the lack of um the usual freedoms which we take for granted in the West. It's not only that, but um the problem with her was also that um many Russians became suspicious that she wanted to actually live in Russia. They don't expect that foreigners would like to live in Russia and would like to openly try to adapt themselves. Uh it's very strange and um i i it's it's n there isn't enough time really to explain it. But when she in fact took up Soviet citizenship, which was also actually imposed on us, the the people in the conservatory even suddenly

Vladimir Ashkenazy10:45

became unfriendly.'Cause when she was a visitor, a foreigner, uh, it was one thing, but when a foreigner tries to be one of those, that's a different thing. They wouldn't like to mix with her. And that upset her very much. She didn't expect that.

Presenter10:58

So you decided to live in the West. This, of course, wasn't a political decision at all. It was simply. Well, an emotional one.

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:07

Hey.

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:08

Yes, initially it was very, very much emotional. But I was aware that any decision of this kind will have great political repercussions,'cause anything concerning um the West with Russia has political

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:24

Undertones and overtones and everything. It everything is politically colored.

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:28

And Kosai was right. It was taken very much politically in Russia.

Presenter11:32

Yeah.

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:33

What should we have?

Vladimir Ashkenazy11:38

The next one is the one of the most sublime works. It's a Schubert string quintet in C major. I like the slow movement particularly there. Again, I failed to describe, but I think music will speak for itself.

Presenter12:55

The closing passage of the slow movement of the Schubert Shrine quintet in C major by the augmented Vienna Philharmonic Quartet.

Presenter13:03

How much of the year do you spend travelling?

Presenter13:06

I think seven or eight months.

Vladimir Ashkenazy13:07

Uh

Presenter13:08

It's a long time to be away from home. And home, incidentally, now you moved your base to Reykjavik, to Iceland. That must be rather badly positioned for for w

Vladimir Ashkenazy13:17

Well travel.

Vladimir Ashkenazy13:18

Yes, it isn't i it isn't so well positioned. And in fact, we have now divided our time between uh Iceland and Switzerland.'Cause Switzerland is so centrally located. So we're sort of in between.

Presenter13:31

You've done a great deal for musical life in Iceland.

Vladimir Ashkenazy13:33

Oh, I I wouldn't like to evaluate what I've been trying to do in Iceland. I simply participated in the in the musical life of Iceland as much as I could. I tried to organize a festival, bring some very well known and wonderful artists, most of whom actually are friends of mine, so it was rather easy for me to get them there. And um I played a few times there and conducted the local orchestra. Uh but I don't attach too much value to what I've done, it's only natural.

Presenter14:07

Uh you believe in in in the casual approach. I saw you playing a Mozart concerto the other evening at the

Presenter14:13

a festival hall.

Presenter14:15

There were forty members of the London Symphony Orchestra sitting around in white tie and tails. You had a dinner jacket and a sweater.

Vladimir Ashkenazy14:22

It's not exactly a sweater. Oh, you call it sweater. It's a a white poloneck. Yes. You call it a sweater. Okay, fine, okay. Um, I think one should play in something very simple and ordinary. And comfortable. Uncomfortable. And what I wear, I think, is quite ordinary, quite simple, and it's comfortable at the same time. I think tails should uh sort of go away soon. I I think it's almost like a masquerade. It it doesn't relate to music at all, I think. Oh, no, no. Why those things hanging behind you and the bow tie?

Presenter14:26

Yes. You call this fit.

Speaker 214:29

Uh

Vladimir Ashkenazy14:55

Sometimes they look like waiters, I think. There's no point in that. I think we should really drop it one day.

Presenter15:02

Right. Well, you're leading the move. Top.

Vladimir Ashkenazy15:05

Uh

Presenter15:05

Another record.

Vladimir Ashkenazy15:07

Well, it's a very well known piece, Bram's Fourth Symphony. Mhm. And the performance is wonderful here by Berlin Philharmonic and Kara Jan. When I listened to it again today I thought, Yes, that's really wonderful and uh

Vladimir Ashkenazy15:23

If if I were to conduct this symphony, this is the way I would hope to bring it off.

Presenter16:30

Part of the second movement.

Presenter16:32

of the Brahms Fourth Symphony.

Presenter16:35

Herbert von Karian and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter16:39

Now an important part of every concert artist's work is recording. When did you make your very first record, before you left Russia?

Vladimir Ashkenazy16:46

Yes, I recorded in Russia, after the Chopin competition and again before and after the Tchaikovsky competition.

Presenter16:54

Have you any idea how many records you've made altogether? It's a very large number, isn't it?

Vladimir Ashkenazy16:59

Yes, um I don't know.

Presenter17:01

Yeah.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:01

whether I should be proud of it.'Cause not everything is good in my recordings, but

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:06

Uh yes, it is something like sixty discs or something. For a for a pianist it's quite a lot.

Presenter17:13

You've recorded all the Beethoven, Rechmananov, Brokofiev concertos, and you have some very ambitious recording projects that you're working on which are going to keep you busy for a long time. You're going to do all the Chopin pieces.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:25

Hith.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:26

and all the Beethoven sonatas and um the bartock concertos.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:32

Oh, it's a lot to do, yes. I look forward

Presenter17:33

What did

Presenter17:35

And now of course conducting is is a is quite a

Presenter17:38

growing part in your career. You like conducting very much.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:42

Yes, I enjoy it very, very much, otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Presenter17:45

No. And your recording as a conductor.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:48

Yes, a little bit.

Presenter17:49

There there's a a new recording of of yours of of of Tchaikospy a Fifth Symphony which

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:49

Yeah.

Presenter17:55

you've conducted, which is, I believe, going very, very well indeed.

Vladimir Ashkenazy17:59

That's nice to hear.

Presenter18:01

Uh

Vladimir Ashkenazy18:01

Well I when I listen to it I hear all the faults, it's terrible. Well that's always with all my recordings, piano or not piano. It's very difficult for me to enjoy any of that. It's a little easier with orchestral recordings because although you conduct, you're not really producing the sound yourself. And so when you enjoy certain passages in an orchestral recording, somebody else is doing that. Next record, Peter. The next record is um

Vladimir Ashkenazy18:32

uh one of the songs from Schumann's cycle Round Libu and Leven. It is the fourth song, During and Meinenfinger. It is sung by Ellie Ameling with Dalton Baldwin at the piano.

Speaker 218:48

King of mine and finger, my Lord and Singer mine.

Speaker 218:59

If only from the bed of the sands.

Speaker 219:12

Fish hot tinos get rid.

Speaker 219:19

Keep tight feet, make free and drown.

Speaker 219:25

Under light that went

Speaker 219:39

We got mine and see.

Presenter19:44

Elle Ameling in a song from Schumann's Fraun Liebenund Leibel.

Presenter19:50

How many concerts do you play a year? Do you

Presenter19:53

Restrict yourself to a certain number.

Vladimir Ashkenazy19:55

I don't uh usually plan in terms of how many concerts I should play. I plan in terms of what repertoire I want to play and how many times I want to play a certain piece before I either record it or play it in London or in New York, in very important places. And this brings me usually to over a hundred concerts a year.

Presenter20:17

That's a lot of hot. Oh yes. What proportion of those are with an orchestra?

Vladimir Ashkenazy20:18

Oh yes.

Vladimir Ashkenazy20:22

Oh, you mean conducting or no concerto?

Presenter20:24

Consider as a as a player, as a pianist.

Vladimir Ashkenazy20:27

I think it's it's I think it's really evenly divided, roughly. Seems half Yeah.

Presenter20:33

Yeah. How much does contemporary music interest you?

Vladimir Ashkenazy20:33

How much

Vladimir Ashkenazy20:37

As information uh about what's happening in music, it interests me a lot. As material for performing, not so much, because I don't find many inspired works written for the piano. The piano is very often an old-fashioned producer of sound, so to speak, for the for the modern composers. They need very often new sources of sound. Electronics. Oh yes, all sorts of things. And if it's the piano, then it has to be sort of broken to pieces and and uh interfered with, you know, in a v most unnatural way. So there isn't so much, I don't think, for the piano anymore.

Presenter21:06

Oh yes.

Presenter21:20

You don't fancy Ashkenazi and his electric piano. I laughed.

Vladimir Ashkenazy21:25

To study it all over again in that case, huh?

Presenter21:28

I think we've got to record number six. What's that to be?

Vladimir Ashkenazy21:33

This is uh one of Beethoven's last quartets. Uh this is the A minor quartet. And um I particularly enjoy that part of the finale where the key changes from A minor to A major. It's very close to the end of the quartet and the effect produced by that change is uh quite indescribable. The enlightenment uh that uh surrounds the A major there is so wonderful that it always sends me in a different state of mind.

Presenter23:08

Part of the last movement of the Beethoven Quartet in A minor, opus one hundred and thirty two, by the Juilliard Quartet.

Presenter23:16

How are you going to manage on this island? Can you look after yourself?

Vladimir Ashkenazy23:20

I don't know. I think I'm quite self uh sufficient and uh and also I'm quite an efficient person. I I do things uh when I decide to do

Presenter23:31

Would you try to escape? Yes, maybe. This is so hypothetical. Let's get back to music. We've got to record number seven. What's that?

Vladimir Ashkenazy23:36

Yeah, so let's get

Vladimir Ashkenazy23:39

This is uh Sibelius Symphony No. Two. It has a special meaning for me because when we were married in nineteen sixty one my wife actually introduced me to Sibelius. I didn't know much of Sibelius, very little in fact, just the violin concerto and Finlandia or something, uh those popular pieces. Uh but the second symphony I hadn't heard before and my wife had a tape of Anthony Collins' performance with the L S O and I fell in love with that music just just about as much as I was in love with my wife.

Presenter25:17

The opening of the Sibelius Second Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Collins.

Presenter25:23

Does your wife still play the piano?

Presenter25:26

Uh she

Vladimir Ashkenazy25:27

Can and she could. No, but she doesn't. She'd have

Presenter25:30

hasn't pursued her career.

Vladimir Ashkenazy25:31

No, she decided to drop it entirely when we got married. And I think she was very wise. Otherwise

Vladimir Ashkenazy25:38

It would have been a very difficult marriage, two concert artists sort of tend not to meet too often. You have three children, is that right? We have no, we have four. Four. We're expecting the fifth.

Presenter25:50

Is there any musical talent showing in the older ones? They're all musical.

Vladimir Ashkenazy25:55

And uh I think they have

Vladimir Ashkenazy25:57

certain gifts in music, uh but it's hard to say how big and large gifts are sort of studying a little bit.

Presenter26:06

No.

Presenter26:08

You'll be playing Septets one day. Oh, bye. Last record.

Vladimir Ashkenazy26:11

Boom.

Vladimir Ashkenazy26:15

Is it the last note? Oh yes, it is the last note. Oh, what a shame. This is um Saint Matthew's Passion, the last number of Saint Matthew's Passion, performed by Berlin Philharmonic with Cara Jan.

Presenter26:15

Oh yeah.

Vladimir Ashkenazy26:29

Again.

Presenter27:22

The beginning of the Last Chorus from Bach's Saint Matthew Passion.

Presenter27:27

Carrion conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.

Presenter27:29

If you could take just one disc out of the eight you've played us, which would it be?

Vladimir Ashkenazy27:34

I think it will be the Mozart concert on Five Nine Five.

Presenter27:37

Right. And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to the island, something of no practical use at all.

Vladimir Ashkenazy27:43

Well, how about a well-programmed robot?

Vladimir Ashkenazy27:48

Robot

Vladimir Ashkenazy27:50

Not exactly a servant, but

Vladimir Ashkenazy27:53

Well, it depends on your definition of a servant, but um a helping kind of entity.

Presenter27:58

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already on the island, and we don't allow multi volume encyclopedias.

Vladimir Ashkenazy28:05

I must confess honestly I could not think of any other book that I would like to have if I already have the Bible and Shakespeare.

Vladimir Ashkenazy28:17

Well, maybe I should have just a blank book and I could perhaps write something in it. Write your own book. Just for myself, my own consumption, you know. Not so arrogant as to think it could be of any value.

Presenter28:23

Uh Alright.

Presenter28:25

So are you

Presenter28:28

To others. Thank you, Vladimir Ashkenazi, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Vladimir Ashkenazy28:34

Oh, it's my pleasure, and uh I'm very grateful that you invited me. Thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 128:48

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.