‘A tremendous affection for the music’

Vladimir Ashkenazy, the world-renowned pianist and conductor, has played with some of the world’s greatest classical musicians and held the baton before some of the world’s most respected orchestras. But he has a particular affection for the London-based Philharmonia Orchestra.

‘They were my first really great symphony orchestra I conducted,’ he enthuses, recalling his first conducting experience in London in the mid-1970s. ‘I had only [just] begun to conduct, and I was very underdeveloped…so they [the orchestra’s musicians] had a problem following me…but they were terribly kind to me, unbelievably kind,’ Ashkenazy recalls. ‘They said to me, “Look, we know you are just beginning, but we like what you want to do, your ideas…so please come back and conduct us again, because you will learn what to do and what not to do. But we like what you do, musically.” So they were very encouraging. I will always remember that.’

Ashkenazy is touring internationally to Australia and Singapore with the Philharmonia Orchestra – with whom he is currently Conductor Laureate – before returning to the UK in late September to perform at the Corn Exchange in Bedford and London’s Royal Festival Hall.

The pianist and conductor’s level of recognition and success was never planned, says a humble Ashkenazy, who, throughout the interview, emphasises that in every concert or recital, ‘I just try to do my best’. He does not single out any experience or concert as a highlight of his career. Music chose him, he says. And from a very young age, at that.

Born in Russia in 1937, Ashkenazy first sat down at the keyboard at the age of six. His father was a pianist, but was often on tour and therefore rarely at home. His mother, Ashkenazy recalls, asked if he would like to learn an instrument, so he chose the piano – ‘my father was pianist so in a small way it was natural’ – but it was not necessarily forced or encouraged, ‘it just happened.’

The first three decades of Ashkenazy’s career were devoted to piano playing. He trained at both the Central School of Music and the Moscow Conservatoire; an experience which he says – given Russia’s strong musical roots, especially in terms of producing some of the world’s finest pianists – was incredibly formative.

‘Many pianists come from the Russian school of piano playing and teaching,’ Ashkenazy notes, citing Rubenstein and Rachmaninov as particular examples of the Russia’s rich musical landscape. ‘So, I had wonderful teachers. It was very important, both [the] musical and technical side [of the training].’

However, he also embraces the opportunities that moving to the West has opened up for him.

‘I was fortunate when I was 26, I had a chance to stay in the West. We had no right of foreign travel in the Soviet Union, so you could only be sent [out of the country] by the Government basically. So I was sent on a tour to the UK, and I stayed there,’ Ashkenazy says, who gained a residency permit as his wife, although Icelandic, had lived in the UK since the 1940s.

‘It’s my belief, had I stayed in Russia…it could have been destructive. Because I think I had to face the world with open eyes, to absorb what the world has to offer. And the Soviet Union was an extremely isolated country, with a very self-righteous and abusive Government, that had not been allowed contact with the rest of the world.’ The life and musical experience brought about by living in the West, he recalls developed him into a ‘well-rounded’ human being.

Having won a string of awards in the 1950s and 1960s for his piano playing – including second prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1995; first prize in the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels in 1956, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962 – he toured the world, performing with chamber music greats such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Elizabeth Soderstroem. In the 1970s however, he made what he believes was a very natural progression into conducting. He has since held positions with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, as well as making guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia and Concertgebouw Orchestras.

There was no practical or pragmatic reason driving his foray into the world of conducting, Ashkenazy says – it was purely out of a love for the music of symphony orchestras. ‘It’s simply the music. I’m a musician, I was born a musician, I couldn’t resist making music with a symphony orchestra. There is no pragmatic reason, except for a tremendous affection for the music.’

At this point, he begins to tell a story told to him by the celebrated pianist, conductor and composer, André Previn, that he relates to his own experience and feelings of the path his career has taken.

As it goes, after composing several scores for Hollywood musicals before returning to the stage, Previn once overheard ‘a couple of Hollywood friends’ – who had been visiting him in England at the time – comment that Previn could be earning thousands more a year composing for the screen rather than the stage.

‘He laughed telling me this story,’ Ashkenazy recalls, ‘he said: “Well, I couldn’t do otherwise, because it [conducting symphony orchestras] attracted me so much, money was of no importance.”’

‘I enjoy making music very much, but it has never been my obsession, with making a spectacular career, being known here and there and making a mark here and there. I don’t know – my attitude to being a musician is simply try to make good music … self-promotion and making a deliberate career, has never been my obsession. If it happens, it happens.’

Vladimir Ashkenazy will conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra (playing Mendelssohn Overture, Die Schone Melusine; Bruch Violin Concerto; Mahler Symphony No 5) at the Bedford Corn Exchange, September 27 at 7.30pm.
Tickets: £25.00, £20.00, £17.00, £15.00, £9.00 from the Box Office: 01234 269519