Vladimir Ashkenazy: "Nothing by Halves"

Vladimir Ashkenazy is one of the finest pianists this century has produced, and he has in the past decade become a formidable conductor as well. Born in the Soviet Union, but having lived in the West since 1963, he is a man who has not only devoted his life to music, but has also searched for absolute values upon which to base his life--values distinct from the vastly different but nonetheless often compromised standards of both Soviet and Western society. His life and his insights, as well as his superlative music-making, are a continuing source of soul-searching and inspiration.

Ashkenazy was born on July 6, 1937, in the city of Gorki, about 250 miles east of Moscow on the river Volga. His father David was of Jewish lineage, but did not retain his forefathers' faith or traditions. Ashkenazy's mother, Evstolia, was of pure Russian descent. The infant Vladimir was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, and he says he still feels close to Orthodox Christian ideas, at least in principle.

Ashkenazy's father was a variety-show pianist of astonishing improvisational ability and versatility. Because he was almost constantly away on tour, it was Ashkenazy's mother who brought him up and oversaw his education. The family moved to Moscow, where at the age of six Ashkenazy began studying the piano. He showed extraordinary talent, and when he was eight, after a rigorous examination before a panel of professors, he was accepted into the Central Music School, which acts as a kind of junior school for the Moscow Conservatoire.

Ashkenazy's teacher at the Central Music School was Anaida Sumbatian, and she had a profound influence on his musical development. In the biography/autobiography Beyond Frontiers, co-authored by Ashkenazy and his long-time agent and friend Jasper Parrott, (New York: Atheneum, 1985), Ashkenazy remembers that Sumbatian "inspired the imagination of her pupils with all sorts of associative ideas." She encouraged young Ashkenazy to attend orchestral concerts so that he would learn to think orchestrally at the piano--something he does to this day. This avid concert-going, he speculates, may have formed the subliminal basis for his conducting later on.

Sumbatian made sure that when Ashkenazy moved on to the Moscow Conservatoire his teacher was Boris Zemlyansky. "It was Zemlyansky, I suppose, who really made music my life," Ashkenazy reflects in Beyond Frontiers. Zemlyansky's lessons were "infused with the certainty that what one did, or at least tried to do, had a fundamental importance in an absolute sense." It was from Zemlyansky, and from his mother as well, that Ashkenazy learned the habit of rigorous self-discipline and hard work that has sustained him throughout his career.

In an interview Mr. Ashkenazy granted THE WORLD & I in Strasbourg, France, he was asked if the reason why so many great interpreters come from the Soviet Union is because the regime trains performers to win international competitions. "No," he replied. "It's a very good musical tradition which goes back more than a hundred years. It's a big nation, so it has a lot of talent…. [It's] a very talented nation, a very clever nation, so there are many people to choose from. And education is very well established….All this goes to produce very good players. As for great players--great talents are few. Few and far between. So in Russia there are also very few of great talent. The discipline is very strong, the education is very, very good. The Russian musical establishment prepares musicians for international competitions because they want to have prestige for the country. Very much pressure is applied to have hat, so the result is a lot of good players."

But he does not perceive a distinctly Russian school of interpretation. "With a great talent, that belongs to an individual, and with a great player it's difficult to identify to which school he belongs…. A great individual has his own view of the world. But when there is a certain uniformity, then one can identify to which country it belongs. But there it becomes unnecessary to identify it, because it is no longer interesting--it's uniform, you see….And in Russia there is a lot of uniformity. A lot of the time it's difficult to tell which players is playing, because they play without much face. They play very well, uniformly well."

Despite the emphasis on producing players of immaculate technical prowess and little personality, some teachers in the Soviet Union do manage to instill in their most sensitive students a consciousness of a deeper dimension at work in the creative process. Ashkenazy comments in Beyond Frontiers that Zemlyansky "very much encouraged a high idealism in the thinking of his best pupils and tried to nurture the loftiest aspirations as part of the basic psychological equipment of the artist."

Such idealism, however, is inimical to the Soviet system, where, in Ashkenazy's words, "the most unprincipled and self-seeking amongst the community [are the ones] who succeed the best." In a society where the average person must habitually lie, deceive others, and compromise with the dictates of the Party in every aspect of life merely in order to survive--a lifestyle revealed with chilling detail in Beyond Frontiers--the search for true values becomes by necessity a highly personal, silent one.

Ashkenazy entered his first foreign piano competition in 1955, at the age of sixteen, when the regime selected him among others to represent the Soviet Union in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. There Ashkenazy just barely missed winning the first prize, and the came home with the second prize instead.

One year later he won the first prize at the Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians Piano Competition in Brussels. It was the first time he had gone to a noncommunist country, and he found the experience of doing as he wanted without permission from anyone an eye-opener.

His victory in Brussels encouraged impresario Sol Hurok to engage him for a tour of the United States in 1958. During the tour Ashkenazy was closely scrutinized by a "companion" assigned by the Ministry of Culture to travel with him. Upon his return, this KGB agent--for such he was--handed in a negative report on Ashkenazy's attitudes. A mock trial before the ministry resulted in Ashkenazy's being banned from touring abroad.

This ban was lifted, however, when Ashkenazy won the coveted first prize at the second International Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow in 1962.

In the meantime, Ashkenazy had met and in 1961 married a gifted Icelandic pianist who had come to study at the Moscow Conservatoire, Thorunn Johannsdottir (affectionately known as Dody). It was a dangerous thing to marry a foreigner, and Ashkenazy was many times warned against it, but the couple remained steadfast in their love. Although Mrs. Ashkenazy gave up the piano when she married, her constant companionship on future tours provided her husband not only with valuable support, but also with a critical objectivity and truthfulness he finds essential. He can always count on her for a frank appraisal of a performance. In Beyond Frontiers, Parrott observes: "Over the years Dody's constant presence at concerts, rehearsals and recordings, and her unfailing and unfussy smoothing of the path for Ashkenazy both at home and on tour, has made it possible for him to build his life and career on the surest of foundations." She also greatly helped him to adjust to life in the free world.

The Ashkenazys had to endure a prolonged cat-and-mouse game with the Soviet government in order to be able to live in the West. In 1962 Ashkenazy made a second tour of the United States while his wife and newborn son were allowed to visit her parents, who had lived for many years in London. At that time the couple were not seriously considering living in the West. In 1963, when Ashkenazy went on a tour of Britain, he insisted that his wife and son go with him, but in fact he had to go on alone. Mrs. Ashkenazy had been tricked into relinquishing her Icelandic citizenship upon marriage, when the Soviets threatened that Ashkenazy's career would be thwarted if she did not. When the Ministry of Culture would not produce her tickets to Britain, she threatened to go to the Icelandic Embassy and cause a public scandal. The same day she and her son were issued passports and tickets. In London, the Ashkenazys contacted the British Home Office about acquiring residency permits. Moscow then decided to give the Ashkenazys an unprecedented re-entry visa valid for six months, which would supposedly allow them in and out of the Soviet Union at will. Still undecided, the Ashkenazys returned to Moscow in May 1963, but took the precaution of leaving their infant son with Mrs. Ashkenazy's parents.

In Moscow, the couple had to confront Ashkenazy's parents and friends, who were aghast at their inclination to live in the West. His mother had always been what is called "a good Soviet"--her attitude had been, in Ashkenazy's words, "this is the way our country is run, so just conform, don't think too much, life is hard enough." Having enjoyed for a few years a position of real standing in the Soviet system, his family did not savor the consequences of falling into political disfavor.

Meanwhile the Soviet authorities tried to make as much capital as possible out of the Ashkenazys' return and "asked" Ashkenazy to play concerts to prove to people in Russia and abroad that they had chosen of their own free will to live in the Soviet Union after having seen the West. The Ashkenazys pretended that this was indeed the case, and told authorities that they wanted to return to London only to pick up their son Vovka and to show that they had decided to stay in the Soviet Union of their own accord. "I felt we had to lie like that in order to get out; it was certainly the greatest lie of my life," Ashkenazy records in his autobiography.

The Ashkenazys departed for London in July 1963, with luggage only for a short visit. They never returned. Ashkenazy did not ask for political asylum in the West, however, and for many years he did not publicly criticize the Soviet Union because he feared repercussions for his parents and his younger sister, Elena, who was an aspiring pianist in Russia. (Even so, she was not allowed to attend the Conservatoire or to enter competitions because of her brother.) Also to prevent further suffering by his family Ashkenazy maintained his Soviet passport until 1972, when the Soviets injudiciously cited him as an example of a Soviet citizen who was free to go between the Soviet Union and the West. Ashkenazy then let the truth be publicly known, and became a citizen of Iceland.

Until 1968 the Ashkenazys lived in London, then a thriving artistic center where young performers enjoyed a unique, if transitory, feeling of fraternity and mutual support. But constant interruptions interfered with family life, so the Ashkenazys moved to Iceland, where they lived until 1978.

In Iceland Ashkenazy became artistic adviser to the Reykjavik Festival, helping to bring top musical talents to the biennial event. During this time he also decided, after much pondering, that he should take up conducting. This was partly justified by the fact that he could be of use to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. But the symphony also presented him with the opportunity to hone his conducting skill on a semi-professional but competent ensemble. Ashkenazy refused to be paid for these orchestral concerts so that money could be available to attract interesting soloists.

In 1978 the Ashkenazys reluctantly decided that they would have to move their principle place of residence, because it was difficult to return to isolated Iceland between engagements. The Ashkenazy family has resided in Lucerne, Switzerland, ever since.

During Ashkenazy's performances, listeners can sense a vibrant connection with his wife and family that is rare in a performing artist; this adds a dimension of depth, solidity, and warmth to his concerts. One reason for this feeling is that not only does his wife go with him on his concert tours, but when they were small enough, all of his five children did, too. Parrot observes in Beyond Frontiers that for Ashkenazy "family life has certainly been a great bulwark against the loneliness and insecurity from which many successful artists suffer all their lives. His marriage, built on complete trust and loyalty, has blossomed in a manner increasingly rare in the volatile world of music." The Ashkenazys' five children are Vovka (Vladimir) born in 1961, Nadia (1963), Dimitri or Dimka (1969), Sonia (1974), and Sasha, born in 1979. Vovka, the eldest, has already begun his own career as a pianist.

Ashkenazy is by nature shy and retiring, and puts a high premium on honesty. Parrott says that relations between him and Ashkenazy were rather formal until the young agent made a dreadful mistake, and with much trepidation immediately confessed. This disarmed Ashkenazy, and they have shared an unusual rapport ever sine.

Of Ashkenazy's character, Parrott observes in the biography: "If at first impression Ashkenazy's reserve, intensity, attention to detail and occasional sharpness are most striking, those who get to know him better soon discover with pleasure how much more there is to be found in him. His shyness can give way to the most winning warmth and charm; the intensity of his concentration can be redirected from its normal fixation on music to a generous and unstinting interest in his friends, not to mention his family. His kindness, loyalty and generosity, not only to close friends, but even to passing acquaintances are remarkable."

Ashkenazy is extremely well-read in world literature, and his knowledge of music--both pianistic and orchestral--is enormous.

In his musical interpretations, critics have often found a kind of transparency characteristic of Ashkenazy's piano playing, as if he were but a veil through which one could perceive the composer. In Strasbourg he told THE WORLD & I, "I feel, naturally, humble before the great composers, and so it's humbleness for the composer, but not for the score. The score is only the product of the composer. Naturally I want to be faithful to what the composer wanted to say."

Ashkenazy prefers not to attempt to draw the audience to him or the score, but to give out to them. "If you try to bring the audience to the score, it means you're not projecting. But you have to project, always. When you project, then they participate in the music-making process. If you hope that by playing something they will listen and involve themselves in the score, something is wrong with you."

He admits it is more challenging in the studio. "It's not that simple when you record. During the recording I'm thinking about projecting. I don't do it just for the silence of the studio. For the public, in any case, music has to be projected in order to be appreciated; otherwise it's dead."

Although Ashkenazy has made over a hundred recordings, and has been called a "studio artist" by some critics, he has great consideration for the public he serves and maintains a grueling concert schedule. In fact, over the last twenty years he has canceled only three or four concerts, and then only when strictly confined to bed. Most performers can't make it through three months of work without a cancellation or two. It's not that Ashkenazy is less prone to aliments than other artists, although he does keep a careful watch on his health--he doesn't smoke, rarely drinks and then only wine, and conserves his strength--but for him the inability to meet commitments is not only a failure in duty to the public, which he takes quite seriously, but in the artist's duty to himself.

On tours, says Parrott in Beyond Frontiers, "day after day, in addition to full rehearsals and concerts, he will practice for several hours, even using up the breaks in orchestral rehearsals to work at the piano, as though not a second can be lost."

Ashkenazy does not take students, because they require a special commitment. In Strasbourg he commented, "I have very little time [for students] and I'm not interested. I think that if you teach, you have to devote all your life to it. If you give attention to a pupil only sometimes, I don't think it's productive. It's a little dishonest, I think. So if you really want to teach, you really have to do it continuously; for that I really have no time."

If he had time and the opportunity, he knows what the spirit behind his teaching would be. "It would simply be to give everything I had to a promising student and do everything possible for his or her development. That means give all my life and energy. I don't believe in doing things by halves. You do it, or you don't do it. I would be giving everything I had and hoping for the best. Great talents are very few, you see; so if I [were to] begin to teach the not-very-talented, I feel that would be a waste of time."

Since he took up conducting in Iceland, Ashkenazy has led some of the foremost ensembles of the world in concerts, including the English Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. When asked about communication techniques in orchestral conducting he replies, "As long as the musicians see that you are devoted to the music, and that that is the principle reason you are conducting, and that your musical ideas are valid, there is no problem about rapport. They feel straight away what you want. The musicians understand me very soon and usually like what I want to do. I'm very lucky. I have no problems."

In the winter of 1981 and the spring of 1982 he made a new orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The textual errors that Ravel had carried over from an inaccurate piano edition had always bothered him, as had the general tone color of Ravel's version. "The Ravel is fantastic, incredible, but it's removed from the spirit of Mussorgsky; there's more the spirit of Ravel--which is great -but I'd prefer to hear it in Rhapsodie espanole and Daphnis et Chloe….In Mussorgsky's case, it's a little bit more heavy and dirty in the use of the orchestra. This is what I tried to do….I thought I'd like to make it more muddy." He cites Boris Godonov as an example of how Mussorgsky would have orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition. Parrott observes in Beyond Frontiers, "The almost Asiatic, old-Russian flavour of the work in Ashkenazy's conception contrasts dramatically with the brilliantly urbane, but perhaps over-cultivated images created by Ravel."

The fact that he grew up in the Soviet Union and has lived for nearly a quarter of a century in the West has given Ashkenazy an unusual vantage point to see the good and bad points of both worlds. The devastating effect of the communist system on the human spirit he elucidates clearly in Beyond Frontiers--the book is in fact quite an education in the reality of everyday life in the Soviet Union.

His primary criticism of the communist system is that "it has effectively suppressed, perhaps even eradicated, an objective moral sense in the mass of the people and replaced it with a view of life based on how to get by, how to jump the queue, how to avoid trouble," he says in the autobiography. Any thinking person knows that what is happening in Russia is a disaster, and must make the desperate decision about whether he or she will go along with it or try to change it. Trying to change things will only result in terrible consequences for that person, his family, and those closest to him. "But if you decide for these reasons you really can't do anything, you are already making a big compromise with your conscience, and that can destroy a person," he says. "Of course, one should avoid ascribing to the Soviet system those negative properties in human nature which you find in mankind throughout history regardless of political regime--things like greed, pride, ambition, hypocrisy. The only difference is that in the Soviet Union they have become institutionalized."

Music training and specialized education in other fields for children of primary and secondary school age is highly developed in the Soviet Union, and he feels that the West should likewise offer widespread specialized education for children who show extraordinary talent. But he is quick to point out that in the Soviet Union such talents are cultivated only for the good of the state, and if music were at any time thought to be no longer of value as a propaganda tool it would neglected or entirely suppressed. Education in the Soviet Union emphasizes training a person to fulfill a function well--to become an excellent sportsman or pianist or the like--but there is little room left for the inner development of the individual. In the Soviet Union, he says, "You cannot find any way of being yourself except secretly."

The essential difference he perceives between communist countries and the West is the respect and concern for the development of the individual evident in free societies. In America, however, where immigrants came basically to make good, he sees that the emphasis on individual achievement has also had its negative side. "The most important element in American society became fame," he reflects in Beyond Frontiers. "Many things in the musical world in America are dominated by hyperbole, sensationalism, and the desire for effect….Marketing often seems to be more important then what is being sold….Artists, performances, emotions tend to be assessed according to easily identifiable categories. All of this, in my view, leads to dangerously sterile type of uniformity, even though it may on first sight appear to be quite the reverse."

Yet he sees that there is also a reaction against materialism in American society, though it often takes confused or unproductive forms. "American materialism is the very antithesis of a spiritual life, but all sorts of incredible sects and religions mushroom all over the States. I don't think the nation has found a real scale of values, and yet there is a constant but totally chaotic search for some solid under-pinning for people's lives," he says in the autobiography. He notes moreover that involvement in the art, humanities, or in the human rights movement, which in the Soviet Union provokes in certain people an intense and relentless search for fundamental values, in the West often dissipates in an unfocused search for questions rather than for answers.

From a political viewpoint, however, Ashkenazy looks to the United States, in Parrott's words, "as the last safe retreat in the face of the inexorable process of Soviet subversion." He is distressed to see in Europe a fatal willingness to appease the Soviet Union in the interests of short-term economic advantages. As Parrott describes it, Ashkenazy "favors a policy of confrontation for the West, since he is convinced that it is only through strength, both military and moral, that the West can preserve its liberties."

As for his personal future, as he said in Strasbourg, Ashkenazy does not follow a grand design or strategy. "If I enjoy doing something, I just do it." But he does not simply mark time. He constantly strives to improve his art, and each performance for him is a challenge to try to achieve what he has in mind. The end of Beyond Frontiers is philosophical about his future: "I shall continue to try to seek out the truth in music… There must be, after all, a connection between truth in music, on the most exalted plane of experience, and truth in everyday things, a true relationship to oneself in one's normal environment. I don't anticipate any dramatic changes in my way of life -I'll just see how it works. If things go well, maybe I'll change even more, who knows?"