{"id":10593,"date":"2013-03-14T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=10593"},"modified":"2013-03-14T08:00:24","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T13:00:24","slug":"keyboard-thursday-album-review-vladimir-ashkenazy-wraps-up-project-to-record-all-rachmaninov-piano-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/03\/14\/keyboard-thursday-album-review-vladimir-ashkenazy-wraps-up-project-to-record-all-rachmaninov-piano-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Thursday album review: Vladimir Ashkenazy wraps up project to record all Rachmaninov piano music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/ashkenazy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10595\" alt=\"ashkenazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/ashkenazy.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/ashkenazy.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/ashkenazy-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So many people are obsessed with completeness that they overlook the possibility of diminishing returns as they pick up every last crumb from a painter, author or composer. Such is the case with the great pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy&#8217;s quest to record everything Sergei Rachmaninov wrote for solo piano.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/rarities.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10594\" alt=\"rarities\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/rarities-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/rarities-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/rarities.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>On this new Decca album, we&#8217;re down to the last bits of not-first-choice manuscript paper Rachmaninov stuffed into his suitcase as the family fled the Russian Revolution in 1917.<\/p>\n<p>Russian-born Icelander Ashkenazy, who is 75 now, has already left a remarkable legacy of recordings and fond concert memories as a pianist and conductor. This album, his final one of solo piano works by Rachmaninov, is as much by an obsessive personality as for an obsessive personality.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the pieces on this disc, which includes world premeire recordings of two transcriptions (his song &#8220;Sad is the night,&#8221; arranged by Ashkenazy, and the Nunc dimittis from the <em>All-Night Vigil<\/em>, transcribed by the composer), are really only of interest to people who need to have every piece by the Russian composer in their music collection.<\/p>\n<p>Having been seduced by Alessio Bax&#8217;s Rachmaninov miniatures not too long ago, I find Ashkenazy&#8217;s approach a bit too hard-edged in the salon pieces. The final Nunc dimittis (Old Simeon asking God to please take him quietly, now that a prophecy has been fulfilled) also sounds too metrical at Ashkenazy&#8217;s percussive piano.<\/p>\n<p>I prefer the flow of voices to the reminder that here are hammers hitting strings.<\/p>\n<p>You can find out more about the album <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vladimirashkenazy.com\/recentreleases.php\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So many people are obsessed with completeness that they overlook the possibility of diminishing returns as they pick up every last crumb from a painter, author or composer. Such is the case with the great pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy&#8217;s quest to record everything Sergei Rachmaninov wrote for solo piano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,77,36,47,51,52],"tags":[206,994,6468,2750,2762,6471,3518],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/rarities.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2KR","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10593"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10593"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}