A series of six recitals by this master pianist at a new peak in his career.
Both his audiences and the critics had been aware of new dimensions in Ashkenazy's playing. This may have stemmed in part from his broadening experience as a conductor, but wherever it came from, it is both notable and impressive, and extended both the size and the commitment of his audiences world-wide.
Info:
Years of production: 1981 - 1983
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1. Beethoven: Hammerklavier Sonata Opus 106 (47'00")
2. Chopin: Twenty-four Preludes Opus 28 (40'25")
3. Beethoven: Sonatas Opus 101 and 109 (42'00")
4. Chopin: Two Nocturnes Opus 27 / B minor Sonata Opus 58
5. Beethoven: The last two Sonatas Opus 110 and 111 (48'20")
6. Chopin: Two Nocturnes Opus 9, numbers 1 and 3 / Polonaise in F sharp minor Opus 44 / Impromptu in F sharp major Opus 36 / Scherzo number 3, Opus 39.
These recitals were shot on videotape in studio conditions with invited audiences. The intention was to get the best of both worlds by creating genuine concert conditions with the artist giving his best, and at the same time ensuring telling, well-lit images of the performer at work.
Our Films on DVD
This DVD presents Vladimir Ashkenazy as pianist, conductor, musical guide and master musician - an intimate and engaging view of one of the world's most quietly successful musicians.
It contains the portrait film Vladimir Ashkenazy: The Vital Juices Are Russian, shot in 1968 when Ashkenazy moved with his wife and son from London to Iceland, an important turning point in his life and career.
Since that film was made, Ashkenazy the pianist (possibly the most frequently recorded pianist in history, his discography runs to 56 pages), has also become an international conductor of the highest rank and we include a montage of sequences from our composer films with Ashkenazy as conductor. It also contains a short interview with Ashkenazy who talks, in his modest but penetrating way, about musical gifts and their origins.
The DVD ends with a film about Rachmaninov's Corelli Variations. In it Ashkenazy discusses the piece at length, with great affection and some telling musical insights. It ends with a complete performance of the piece, filmed at a public concert in Lugano.
Evgeny Igorevich Kissin was born in Moscow on the 10th of October 1971.
He started to play the piano at the age of two, as soon as he was tall enough to reach the keyboard and he has not looked back from that day to this. His is a very rare story of continued success that has had the simultaneous blessing of critics, the public and musicians alike.
The Gift of Music is a film which shows Kissin in preparation, interview, rehearsal and performance, with several dazzling performances shot live on stage, in true concert conditions. It also contains all the encores from Kissin's memorable Promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in August 1997.
This was the first Prom in the 103-year history of the celebrated Promenade Concerts to be given by a solo recitalist and it attracted the biggest audience in all of those 103 years; very nearly six thousand people.
The music is by Liszt, Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Paganini, Kissin himself and Chopin, the composer for whom Kissin feels the closest affinity.
This DVD contains both a portrait film and an associated performance film offering an intimate view of the artist and his hardly-believable gifts. In conversation, he talks revealingly about his musical concerns but his modesty prevents him from saying anything at all about his extraordinary technique, "I am just playing the piano", he says. "There are people doing even more crazy things".
Danill Trifonov started to play the piano at the age of five, not because he wanted to play the piano but because he wanted to compose. That was unusual enough but it was only the beginning of a musical quest which led to his winning both the Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein competitions at the age of 20. The films contain a number of performances shot live on stage with cameras unusually close to the artist which adds considerably to the power of the images.
In the portrait film Trifonov plays music by Chopin, Ravel and Trifonov himself: part of his first piano Concerto, filmed at the world premiere performance which took place at the Cleveland Institute, in the United States, in April 2014.
In the performance film he plays music by Chopin, Scriabin, Johann Strauss (arranged Trifonov) and Rachmaninov - a performance of the rarely heard Variations on a Theme of Chopin, in the elegant Teatro Academico in Castelfranco Veneto, near Venice in Italy.
