The Problem with Ashkenazy (as pianist)

Listening to Ashkenazy's 2nd recording of the Chopin Etudes on Decca helps me pinpoint why he has never been a favorite of mine. I suspect that pianistically, he reached his peak in the early 60s. The first thing to go, when a finely-honed pianist reduces his/her practice schedule is fine control of key-speed, fluency, pliancy or musically speaking - tone quality and legato.

Ashkenazy emerged, to my ears, as time went on, as a banger - perhaps London / Decca's engineering amplified that quality somewhat, however having seen Ashkenazy live at that time confirmed the impression that he had coarsened in his physical approach to the keyboard.

Listen to say, a Gilels at his most wild - in Tchaikovsky's PC #2, live with Kondrashin. Gilels could produce a collassal sound, yet there was never a feeling of banging or harshness in the sound. This is not to say that a pointed tone is NEVER appropriate, but certainly not in the places where Ashkenazy so frequently applies it.

Now, I'm not questioning Vladimir Ashkenazy's tremendous musical abilities - or why he made the career decisions he made - just observing the belief that even a very big talent can be spread too thin - and this is probably the very reason why Rachmaninoff refused to divide his musical life between pianism and conducting.

I have part of an old Gilels Tchaik #2 - I don't know who the conductor is/was. I presume it was a live performance because Gilels has a horrendous memory lapse in the last movement. The orch. goes on without him for a minute or so with rather feeble flute playing. Quite funny, actually. Is this the recording you are referring to.?

John Gavin wrote

'Gilels could produce a collassal sound, yet there was never a feeling of banging or harshness in the sound.'

agreed - it's one of the most remarkable aspects of his playing - this incredibly huge sound without the crashing and abusive bashing that is often present.

even at tremendous levels of volume and force, there is still a clarity which is pretty amazing...

Well, Gilels was known as 'The Butcher' among contemporaries in Russia owing to his habit of trying to pound the piano through the stage on occasions. His 2 CD GPOC set is particularly bad in this respect, the Ravel in particular. Not that I don't think he was a great pianist, I do, but he was fallible in this area IMHO. Clattery engineering doesn't help of course.

There's also some very aggressive playing to be found among his DG Beethoven sonatas (e.g. Op. 2/3/i and 10/3/i) which one might describe as bang-y (perhaps exaggerated by the recording). This is not a complaint - I think it's entirely appropriate for the music, and they're among my favorite recordings of it. My problem with Ashkenazy has nothing to do with whether he bangs but with the middle-of-the-road blandness of so many of his recordings - he all too often seems to be trying not to offend, not to disturb the status quo, not to suprise.

That sums up my complaint. He doesn't seem to excel in any area for me, whether beauty or force. If you have time Mr. Roberts, I would enjoy discussing possibilities for recordings to place my Ashkenazy Beethoven Concerti (the ones where he conducts Cleveland) on London.

Regards,

I would start with Kovacevich in a couple of Philips Duos (or perhaps his EMI remakes,if you can find them), still probably my favorite stereo studio set.

Thank you for responding, Mr. Roberts. I will spring for these when I can find a good deal. Mr. Roberts, how are the Violin Concerto, Triple Concerto, and Woo4 concerto on the second duo?

Regards,

Ashkenasy has all but given up piano playing now because of arthritis. He spoke about this in a recent UK interview.

That's odd, - didn't he recently record the Rachmaninoff Transcriptions? Not repertoire I would choose if I had arthritis!!

You could be a trifle less formal....

They're extremely good in their way, but interpretatively a bit on the staid side (this isn't how I like those two concertos performed) and not as characterful as Kovacevich's way with the piano concertos.