Vladimir Dawidowitsch Ashkenazi

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Vladimir Ashkenazi (2007)

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazi ( Russian Владимир Давидович Ашкенази , scientific transliteration. Vladimir Davidovič Askenazi , even under the English transliteration Vladimir Ashkenazy known; *  6. July 1937 in Gorky , Soviet Union ) is a Russian pianist and conductor with Icelandic citizenship from 1972. Since 1978 lives he in Meggen LU , Switzerland .

Life

Ashkenazi comes from a musical family. His Jewish father, David Ashkenazi, was a pianist in the entertainment industry; his mother Evstolia Grigoryevna, née Plotnowa, was an actress and daughter of a Russian farm worker family. In 1943 the family moved to Moscow , where the family had to share an apartment with other families for 13 years. Ashkenazi began playing the piano at the age of six and showed himself to be an early talent. As a graduate of the renowned Moscow Conservatory , he won second prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955 . In 1956 he was allowed to travel to the West for the first time to take part in the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels . There he won first prize, as well as at the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In 1961 he married the Icelander Þórunn (Dódý) Jóhannsdóttir, who studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory. During his stay in his wife's country of birth from 1968 to 1978 he developed his skills as a conductor.

Aschkenazy and his wife have five children, including two sons who continue the family's musical tradition: Dimitri Ashkenazy performs as a clarinetist , Wowka Aschkenazi as a pianist.

Musical work

Ashkenazi has a traditional, very extensive piano repertoire, but avoids contemporary music . According to his own statements, he has small hands and short fingers, but also plays many works designed for large hands, like most of Rachmaninoff's .

His pianistic recording activity is very extensive, starting with both volumes of the Well-Tempered Clavier, through all Mozart piano concertos , Beethoven's all piano, violin and cello sonatas (the latter with Itzhak Perlman and Lynn Harrell ), piano concertos and piano trios (the latter with Itzhak Perlman and Lynn Harrell), most of the piano works by Chopin and Schumann , all Scriabin piano sonatas up to all Prokofiev and Bartók piano concertos and many other works. Another focus is the work of Sergej Rachmaninoff: Here Aschkenasi has not only recorded all essential solo piano works and all piano concertos (these up to four times), but also all songs (with Elisabeth Söderström ), almost all works for two pianos (with André Previn ) as well as the main orchestral works including the piano concertos (the latter with Jean-Yves Thibaudet at the piano) as conductor. He was also the first president of the Rachmaninoff Society .

From 1978 Aschkenasi began his activity as a conductor. From 1987 to 1994 he was director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . From 1989 to 1999 he also led the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin as the successor to Riccardo Chailly . After that he was director of the Czech Philharmonic until 2003 and until 2007 he was director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo. From 2009 to 2014 he was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra .

Sound recordings as a conductor include all the symphonies by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Jean Sibelius , Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninov and, above all, Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as many orchestral works by Richard Strauss .

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the former home of the pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli .
  2. ↑ Andrea Thilo: I have a dream: Vladimir Ashkenazy. In: The time . No. 18/2006.
  3. ↑ Rachmaninoff Society. About us ( Memento from September 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). The Rachmaninoff Network.
personal data
SURNAME Ashkenazi, Vladimir Dawidowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ашкенази, Владимир Давидович (Russian); Aškenazi, Vladimir Davidovič (scientific transliteration); Ashkenazy, Vladimir (English transcription)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian pianist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Gorky , Soviet Union