[upbeat piano music] [speaking English] [piano music more subdued] [piano music continues] [piece ends abruptly] [upbeat violin concerto] [audience cheers and applause] [gentle piano music] [Christopher] This man was born in Gorky in 1937.

He has lived in the Soviet Union, in England, in Iceland, and in Switzerland, but he spends most of his professional life traveling.

[gentle piano music continues] He is unusually private and unassuming for his profession, and yet he is known and affectionately remembered by millions of people all over the world.

[gentle piano music continues] His name is Vladimir Ashkenazy, and he is one of the foremost pianists of our time.

[gentle piano music continues] [audience applauding] -Very good, very good!

-[indistinct].

[both laughing] [Christopher] It all started here with Daniel Barenboim backstage at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, when they played Mozart's Double Concerto together for the first time on the 11th of March 1966.

[upbeat piano music] [upbeat classical music] [playful piano music] Ashkenazy: an artist, a traveler, and a Russian.

The son of a professional light music pianist, he grew up in Moscow, where he studied at the famous ten-year music school, but since 1963, he has lived in the West, almost constantly on tour, a Russian with an Icelandic wife and a house in London, but no real home and still very much a Russian.

I feel that I come from the Russian cultural background.

I feel that, you know, the vital juices in me come from Russia.

Um, but I believe... Well, I... I... I hope that I've developed further than just being inspired by the Russian's cul... Russian cultural background, because, um, perfor... performing art can't really be in the frames of one country's cultural background.

But I find myself... if I hadn't been in the West for these five years, probably I wouldn't have got even where I am now, because you simply have to be in the atmosphere of the great masters of the past who understood this music.

My family still lives in Russia.

So I have some kind of practical ties.

Yes, of course, I correspond and I write to my friends.

But I don't go there.

[upbeat piano music] [Christopher] Instead, he has spent five years touring in the West on a Russian passport, and with hardly a break until June 1968, when he decided to move to Iceland.

[upbeat piano music continues] [Ashkenazy] You can't imagine.

Yes, you can't imagine all this travel noise and all the difficulties and luggages and planes and hotels and everything.

And, in the midst of a tour, I sometimes think, "God, "I can't... you know, I can't stand it anymore.

I have to go and rest somewhere."

[seabird squawking] Really, you know, even... even when I have a day or two, if I feel really tired, I'll just take a plane and go to Iceland for one day, you know?

But I wouldn't have gone to London for one day because there I won't rest.

And this is a, this is an ideal place for such a retreat.

It's... it's already marvelous.

You feel already much healthier.

And that is very important, because playing is not just mental work, it's also physical work.

You have to be in good form always... too bad.

You have to have energy and vitamin C.

[Ashkenazy chuckling] So you come here for the snow and midnight sun and waterfalls and green mountains and snowy mountains, and it's worth it.

It's worth having this.

[gentle piano music] My wife couldn't really buy this house without me, but she already saw it; and then, in January, I had literally one evening free.

So we decided to fly here for a few hours.

In fact, it was just for three hours, so that I could see the house and to go next morning to Copenhagen.

I had to play Copenhagen.

So I came here in the middle of the polar night.

[Ashkenazy chuckling] It's very romantic, you know?

Circumstances were very romantic, I must say.

So we chose this house.

Now, we came here just for a few days, and we thought we could put all our furniture and stuff and things, but nothing has arrived.

So it's all I am to look.

I have my [indistinct] here.

That's... [chuckling] I haven't had time to unpack it.

Look, there's nothing in the house, absolutely.

I mean, just parquet, nothing else.

I couldn't offer you a cup of tea or, like, a long breakfast.

First time we could stay here and there is nothing.

It's a bit stuffy here, though.

Darling?

[Christopher] So once again, Ashkenazy has no real home.

And instead of bringing his children here to Reykjavik, as he had planned, he decides to charter a plane and to fly north to Isafjordur, where they are staying, to join them there.

[Ashkenazy] You know, there is another advantage of Iceland.

In England, the children... children go to school until the end of July... and they start in the middle of September or something, I think, middle of September or October at least definitely.

So they have very little time for summer holidays.

I, myself, personally think it's crazy.

But now, having Iceland as our base, children will go to school here and they will end school in the middle of May and come back at the beginning of October.

Hello!

Hello... [chuckling] Hello!

[speaking in foreign language] You mustn't... You mustn't hurt my leg.

No.

How are you?

-[Dody] Beautiful!

-Okay?

You're a good girl.

You're a good girl.

-[Dody] There you are.

-Are you?

[Ashkenazy] How was your cold?

[gentle piano music] [Ashkenazy] But, you know, we travel all the time almost.

So more I travel without them, more I want to see them.

And, you know, um, older they grow, more I want to see them anyway; it's the funniest feeling.

You know, it's not what you call family life.

You know, family life has some funny connotations.

You know, that you sit in front of a fire, you know, have your tea with children around you or something like that, play with them.

To play with them?

I don't know.

I'm not so interested in playing with their toys with them.

I don't care much about that, but I want to spend some time with them, to talk to them, you know, to tell them what I feel about things and to know what they feel about things and, you know, to grow together somehow, well, like human beings with a human being.

And, if the children see that, that's already a good thing.

And it's a pity we don't see them more, of course.

But what could I do?

I couldn't stop playing, right?

And, now, when I go to London now, I will do as I... what I ever do in London, but at least I will feel much better.

Because I know that when I go to Iceland again for those five days, I'll see the children every day for hours and hours and hours.

So in London I'll do the same things as ever.

But that's just before the end, yes?

Yeah.

[upbeat violin music] -[Ashkenazy] Yeah, yeah... -[Perlman] Yeah.

[Christopher] London, July: the Decca Recording Studios to record the César Franck Sonata with Itzhak Perlman.

This is their first recording together.

[speaking English] Do you want to run the [imitating notes] -just before I start?

-[Ashkenazy] Yes.

Do you want to accelerate that way?

[energetic piano music] [Ashkenazy] No, it should be that.

It could be, yeah.

[imitating notes] [Ashkenazy] Yeah, it could be a little... [imitating notes] A little staccatissimo.

[dramatic classical music] I think you're right.

It's refreshing to hear.

-Hm?

-[laughs] [Perlman laughs] [dramatic classical music continues] [dramatic classical music continues] [music stops] You know, [imitating rumbling], that's all.

[Perlman laughing] [dramatic classical music] [piece ends] [waves crashing] [Ashkenazy] It's no good to say that you can plan your days in London.

No, it's quite impossible to plan them because there are so many things that you have to do.

I have to record.

Of course, yes?

Then somebody from some radio station will phone me and say, "Look, can we have an interview?"

They say, so, okay, we have an inter... Then some program is going on in television.

And somebody will come.

"Could we have just five minutes "of you saying something?

That'll take half a day, hmm?"

And I can't tell you everything.

Because, you know, as always, life brings you things.

And, in London, life can bring you so much more than anywhere else, you see?

-[Ashkenazy chuckling] -[kids chattering indistinctly] I don't know.

[Ashkenazy] Again, when I come to London, children won't be there.

I know that I come to London now simply to be part of the artistic life in London, and to play myself, and to enjoy that marvelous, stimulating center of art, you see?

[boat horn honking] [Christopher] London again: August the 14th for the first season of Southbank Summer Music in the new Elizabeth Hall to play duos with Itzhak Perlman and Stravinsky's own arrangement of The Rite of Spring with Daniel Barenboim.

[gentle piano music] [energetic piano music] Hard!

[energetic piano music continues] [indistinct chattering] [energetic piano music continues] Let's play something else, that goes [indistinct].

And that's all right, huh?

Shall we play just some of this?

Yeah, let's play from around here.

-Yes.

-First time.

-No, second.

-Second time.

[energetic piano music] Who's going to buy a new piano for this hall?

Oh, it's hard, isn't it?

So... let's play the very end now.

Well, maybe we'll play for something slow, huh?

Hmm?

-Let's play something slow.

-[Barenboim] Like this?

-[gentle piano music] -[Barenboim giggling] -Where... where was that?

-Let me play that.

Nothing... [dreamy, but unsettling piano music] [Ashkenazy] [speaking English] [energetic piano music] Good!

[Barenboim giggling] [energetic piano music] [piece ends] -So... -[Ashkenazy sighing heavily] [Christopher] Antwerp, October the 29th: this is the start of a ten-day-tour in which he is to play seven concerts in six cities.

In a sense, his success in the West began in Belgium, when he won the Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians Prize in 1956 at the age of 18.

His first recital on this tour is in the Queen Elisabeth Hall in Antwerp's famous zoo.

- [monkeys chittering] -[flamingos squawking] [faint dramatic piano music] [dramatic piano music continues] [traffic roaring] [indistinct chattering] [Fourth movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No.3 plays] [piece ends] [audience applauding] [Ashkenazy] You know, I decided, at some point, well, just do your best and the rest is in the hands of God, so to speak.

I can't judge because I'm too involved and I can't be objective.

We're going to go now.

The world can't judge because they have preconceptions always about every repertoire, about every piece, about every style and everything.

I trust very few close friends.

I trust my wife when she tells me about my performances, and some friends, very few, and that's all.

And the rest?

Just do your best and see what happens.

[applause ends] [upbeat piano music] [Ashkenazy] Chopin's expression is so refined.

Chopin is always so subtle, very often elegant.

I believe in great simplicity in Chopin.

It presents a terrific challenge to me as to anybody else and, if I try to say why Chopin's music is so great and why I want to play it because it's so great, I'll never explain well enough anyway.

So you have to take it as it is.

[upbeat piano music] [audience applauding] [train rumbling] [Christopher] Rotterdam, the next day: to play a Beethoven concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

- [breaks squealing] -[indistinct chattering] [Christopher] As an artist, one of his major problems has been coming to terms with the traditions of Western music and playing the great composers of the West to Western audiences.

[Ashkenazy] The attitude to that great music is rather patronizing in Russia, I think.

I had no idea how to play.

No, even... even worse, I had no idea how the... how great this music was because in Russia, unfortunately, they can't teach you this music.

They don't understand it.

They don't have any tradition... Uh, Bach is generally just, uh, mathematic.

It's not music, you know.

It's all mechanical, mathematic exercises, and so on to Mozart and Beethoven.

Beethoven was, well, you know, probably a little more imaginative, but still too square, you know?

[chuckling] I mean, how far can you go?

And this still exists.

I think I understand it, and I think now I managed to express this understanding; a few years ago, I couldn't.

[Christopher] The heart of Rotterdam was destroyed in 1940 and, in rebuilding it, the Dutch have created a modern civic center and given pride of place to their new concert hall: De Doelen.

[Ashkenazy] But, even now, you know, it's sometimes difficult to insist on playing a Beethoven concerto somewhere, because it will be natural to us that Ashkenazy plays Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky.

By the way, I don't play Tchaikovsky anymore at all.

[Ashkenazy laughing] But on those few instances when I insisted on playing, I found that I could play another Beethoven concerto next time, which is encouraging.

[De Waart] [imitating notes] [Man] [speaking Dutch] [Ashkenazy] The dynamic is [indistinct].

[Christopher] The conductor is Edo de Waart.

[Man] [speaking Dutch] [speaking English] I think it should be [indistinct].

-Yeah, okay?

Okay, good.

-Yeah, sure.

[de Waart imitating notes] Almost mezzo forte.

[orchestra tuning] [de Waal speaking foreign language] [rousing classical music] [Ashkenazy] The question is whether you have something personal to express.

I believe I do have now.

You see, it's very interesting that in Russia, when you're a teenager, at least at my time, you are so much conditioned by the Russian music.

You're so much taught that... not even taught, but some of the atmosphere is that Russian music is... so important and so emotional and really the best music in the world.

And one never forgets that Mussorgsky, for instance, said about Bach's Fugue that they're just mathematical exercises, you know?

And, you know, Bach is one of the foundations of the Western music.

And, being conditioned like that, obviously, when you come to the West and live in the West, your attitude is changing very much and you find the new significance.

And if you play Beethoven or Mozart, you can't really say you played in the Russian way.

It's ridiculous.

There's only one way.

It's Beethoven way.

[energetic piano music] [gentle classical music] [rousing classical music] Well, this is... being Russian, it's... The other people know that you're Russian.

And they think that if you have studied in Russia, then you just simply can't, being of Slav origin, play Beethoven.

You know, in this... in the program notes, they say that "This soloist has studied in Russia".

That's it; the critic who comes to the concert and sees the program notes?

"Oh, he's from Russia.

He can't play Beethoven.

He can't play Mozart."

Nothing.

Even... even if I managed to play that particular evening pretty well, even in style, whatever you say, he'll still say, "Oh, of course, "this Slav nature and it was all too much of that, too much of that, and not enough of that."

You know, you can't escape it.

Now, I don't think in these terms, and I'm not inhibited anymore.

I think that... his music is too important to... to think that it can be played only by a certain race.

And, uh, I don't think that the Slavs are so inferior a people, uh, not to be able to elevate themselves to the world of Beethoven; on the contrary, I think they can.

[rousing classical music] [music becomes more gentle] [music becomes rousing] [piece ends] [indistinct chatter] [speaking English] [all laughing] [Christopher] Russia somehow is never far from the conversation, and his relationship with Russia is complex and paradoxical.

I don't want to give an impression that the Russian School of music or piano teaching is so terrible just because I say that the general atmosphere is geared to the Romantic music.

On the contrary, I think that what Russia gives to young musicians is probably unmatched anywhere else in the world.

There is a great tradition of Russian pianism that is in their blood.

And they know how to teach piano playing probably better than anybody else, and how they prepare pianists so that they can play the most difficult pianistic works, difficult technical works.

It's really quite amazing.

I feel, certainly, indebted to Russia very much, and, as long as I live, I'll be grateful that I was born there.

I'll be always grateful.

I can't separate myself from Russia.

After all, I'm Russian, but I feel much more, I suppose now, a man of the planet, a man of the world.

Tchaikovsky Festival.

[Christopher] Although he doesn't go to Russia and his music has at times been out of favor there, he finds, ironically, that the Russians are selling his recordings in the West.

Again, portrait of me here.

-They must like you again.

-Maybe I'm again in favor.

[Dody laughing] Maybe I can go back and come back here.

You never know.

Do they mention you favorably somewhere?

Never expected this... It's incredible.

It really is.

-Okay?

Let's go, huh?

-[Dody] All right.

[cars rumbling] [Christopher] November the 3rd: They have driven from Rotterdam to the Hague for an afternoon recital of Beethoven and Chopin.

But the problems of making a home are still with him, even on tour.

With Amsterdam, Paris and London still to go, his wife, who seldom leaves him, has to return to the house in Iceland immediately after the recital.

- [cars rumbling] -[energetic piano music] [Ashkenazy] I don't like traveling by myself, and Dody goes with me all the time or almost all the time.

Just these days Dody has to go sometimes to Iceland to fix some more things in the house.

[energetic piano music] [piece ends] [audience applauding] Well, in playing, I suppose my ideal would be to be the medium entirely.

And those few times in my performances when I felt that actually I don't play but something plays by me?

It sounds too mysterious, but there's nothing mysterious about it.

It's just sometimes I achieve my highest potential and, in that highest potential, in fact, I don't feel that I'm playing any more because all my bodies, all my impulses, they, in that stage, they're on such a high level that I simply don't play.

My body plays by itself.

And there is no more to it, you see?

Well, that's my ideal as far as my work is concerned.

I don't think much in terms of outside my music, but I shouldn't think that I depend so much on material values.

I really don't care so much about it.

What I really mean that, to my mind, music is the highest expression of a human mind.

I really think so.

I'm not ashamed to say it because I know that Beethoven thought so too, and I simply couldn't imagine of not being associated with this great expression of our mind.

There are many things which you cannot say in words, because words simply don't cover everything in life.

But, if you try to explain music, you fail.

So isn't it worth living to try to express inexpressible?

-[Ashkenazy chuckling] -[audience applauding] [Ashkenazy] My wife is my most valuable advisor; my most valuable critic, too.

And she tells me exactly what she thinks.

And she has a very natural response to music, and she helps me immensely.

I couldn't overvalue her help, really.

Well, how much importance you can attach to the criticisms is a very arguable thing and, when I sum it all up, I come to a conclusion that I shouldn't take too much notice of the critics.

Only I and my very close friends who know what I can do, how much I can develop, what good I have done this particular evening, only they can tell me, and I myself can tell me, what was good, what wasn't good, and what I have to achieve.

And critics?

They can't teach me.

[Dody] We don't usually bother.

If we get the papers, if they're there, if somebody tells us, then we... I don't know.

I don't care at all.

But he cares.

If he gets a bad one, he gets very upset.

If he gets a good one, he says, "They're all fools.

They don't understand anyways."

[Dody laughing] You can't please him at all.

I'm very grateful that I, you know, I've been studying music ever since I was two or three.

I mean, I've known nothing else, and I'm very grateful for it all because it is a great help, and I suppose I enjoy it.

[gentle classical music] [Christopher] London again, 1977: to play a Beethoven trio at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for a film about his friend Itzhak Perlman.

[gentle classical music continues] The formation of the trio is a new departure, an extension of his artistic relationship with Itzhak Perlman, and the start of a new one with Lynn Harrell that is to develop steadily in the coming years and include recordings of all the Beethoven trios.

The motivation for this, and his readiness to cooperate in a film about Itzhak Perlman, lies squarely in a genuine wish to be a good colleague and in the value of artistic collaboration.

These are the same principles that led him to conducting for the first time, and to accept our invitation to make a series of films about composers.

[gentle classical music continues] [Ashkenazy] I was absolutely fascinated by the symphony orchestra when I was a boy, and that was my strongest love, actually.

I became a pianist because, when I was six or seven, and when my mother asked me what I would like to do, what instrument I would like to play, I said, "The piano", of course.

I mean, how could I imagine I could conduct an orchestra?

You know, impossible, of course.

But that was my strongest musical impression of my childhood was a symphony orchestra.

[gentle classical music] [Christopher] The first of the composer portraits was a film about Respighi, made in Stockholm and in Italy in 1980, with Ashkenazy conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and directing from the keyboard.

[gentle classical music] He had begun directing from the keyboard in Mozart concerti, but gave his first concert as a conductor in 1971, when he stood in at short notice to conduct a Beethoven program in Iceland with Daniel Barenboim as soloist.

This led to a number of invitations to conduct British orchestras and, within a few years, he found himself with a rapidly developing second career, and one that he found both musically rewarding and instructive.

[gentle classical music continues] -[birds chirping] -[classical music continues] [Ashkenazy] Whatever the final result may be, I hope that what I try to deliver makes people want to play.

That's all I'm interested in.

It's not my interpretation.

Probably, obviously it's mine because I'm conducting, right?

But I'm trying to be the composer; I'm conducting.

But at least this is my intention and my principle in facing the great orchestras.

- [birds chirping] -[classical music continues] [piece ends] [Christopher] The second of the composer films was about Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

[rousing, stately classical music] Why is it that that is about the most frequently orchestrated piano work ever written?

[speaking English] You're just a little bit... The piece is so full of colors that it's inevitable that you think of the orchestra when you play it.

[Christopher] He often writes in the music " in modo Russo".

Now, what does he mean by that?

It's very hard to say.

Perhaps it was simply underlining that my piece is so Russian and don't take it in any other way, you know?

I mean... [upbeat piano music] Now, can you think of it as French or German music or Italian?

You can't.

Therefore, why to write " in modo Russo "?

I think it's just once again, "Here I am", you know?

"Don't make any mistakes.

"This piece is very Russian and don't make anything else out of it."

And, indeed, it is.

It's so Russian.

I mean, every picture is reflected through a Russian's eyes.

[rousing, stately classical music] [Christopher] For many years after leaving the Soviet Union, Ashkenazy's mastery of Russian keyboard music was partially eclipsed by his concern to come to terms with the music of the West and the European musical traditions.

But slowly, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Mussorgsky began to reappear more frequently in his concert programs and, in September 1981, we filmed an astonishing performance of the Pictures at an Exhibition in the newly opened concert hall at the Barbican Centre in London.

[rousing, stately piano music] [tempo increases, more lively] [tempo slows, more morose] [music becomes unsettling] [music brightens somewhat] [piece ends] [dramatic classical music] [Christopher] After Mussorgsky came two films about Sibelius, a composer who has always been close to Ashkenazy's heart.

He feels a strong sense of identification with Finland and Finnish landscape, spending some free time there each year.

Perhaps it has echoes of his native Russia for him.

In any event, having already made gramophone recordings of all the Sibelius symphonies, he responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to conduct a Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in two films that set out to play Sibelius's music in its Finnish context.

[dramatic classical music continues] Finlandia caught the imagination and not only of the Finns.

Its message rang around the world and carried the name of Sibelius with it.

[gentle classical music] He himself was surprised at its success.

"Why does the symphonic poem speak to people?," he asked.

"Perhaps because of its open air style.

"But then it really is built on themes provided from above: pure inspiration."

-[classical music continues] -[birds chirping] Sibelius was 33 when he wrote Finlandia, and it shows little of the genius for structure and symphonic form that was yet to come.

But the gift for unforgettable melody is already there, and it speaks with conviction and passion in the clear and unmistakable voice of a young Finnish composer who was to become, in time, one of the great symphonists of the 20th century.

[gentle classical music continues] [rousing classical music] [piece ends] And so one of the foremost pianists of our time has become, in addition, a conductor of international repute.

And, on the 1st of January 1987, he was appointed music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

He is now generally acknowledged to be at a new peak in his career, and it seems more than likely that the breadth of his activities, and in particular his conducting, has contributed to a widely recognized deepening in his performances of the great works in the Western piano literature.

Because, in all of this, the piano has remained his prime concern, and the pursuit of Beethoven a constant theme in his life.

[gentle piano music] [music intensifies] [music becomes gentle] [music becomes heavier] [music becomes gentle] [music becomes dramatic] [tempo quickens, becomes lively] [piece ends] [audience cheering and applauding] [Ashkenazy] You know, it's not work, of course, right?

That's the thing, because it's such an incredible enjoyment.

It always lifts my spirit when I conduct or play.

- [audience applauding] -[fanciful piano music] This... This is what I live for, and I never think of my practicing or rehearsing as work.

It's simply what I'm born for and I'm in my element.

[piano music continues] I can only be grateful to my fate that I am a musician, and I want to work and want to make music all the time.

That's what I'm for.