I saw him in L.A., Calif. 1958 when he was still Soviet. I had never heard such playing! I started collecting his LPs (the 1st ones were printed in Russian). I then saw him on every visit he made to LA over many years & have nearly all his records. Its been a long time since Ive seen him with dark hair & the memories are overwhelming to me. I have many favorite superstars, but his playing "live" is otherworldly, enriched my life. Piano programs were once numerous here, are now rare events.
@@Ar1osssa Today is 10/16/20 & I am still alive. I saw Sampson Francois at Wilshire Ebell in the 1950s & went to countless recitals over the decades to year 2000 when it all seemed to stop. I hear many great classical artists on You Tube or in my LP/CD collection that still bring tears to my eyes, I play piano myself at age 85 but not so well, (perhaps) now. I never forget my lifetime where I saw many great artists, including Ashkenazy, many times, "live" over the decades where we had classic artists here in concert (alas this is no more for some reason).
that's what I love best about Ashkenasy's playing- he never grandstands,never tries to put himself in front of the music- He has no wish to editorialize He merely plays.....to perfection
Poor Askenazy, ever underrated. See all this comments. He play so fast and so clear, and whit unusually great singing tone. Clear and good dramatized sense of form. The sound is wonderful.
This pianist is incredible, he can play anything well this is a great interpretation of the Ondine, well framed architecture and great sonorous variations in touch as well aside from this piece being a beautiful image of beneath the water's surface and the mythology of mermaid's, really ethereal. Ravel was a genius in birthing this piece.
Catherine Sidoti I so agree. I also very much love Argerich's playing of Gaspard, but actually actually prefer VAs sense of structure and architecture. Very subjective, I know. It's still, all at once sensuous and beautiful yet icy and terrifying ... as it should be!
According to most pianists and critics alike this is supposed to be one of the most technically demanding pieces in the piano repetoire. Whether it is or not matters not as it is a mesmerising piece of music to listen to and one of Ravel's best works played admirably here by Ashkenazy.
The opening is surely meant to be a shimmer! Mechanical, clear performances of the opening are not exactly impressionistic... Ashkenazy is right on the money in my opinion - fantastic recording, thanks for uploading!!
Holy, these thirds chromatic scales are so fluid and perfect, what a technique ! I've heard Hamelin play this in Montreal not so long ago, and it was on the same level of technic as this. Very good !
To me, Ashkenazy is the complete man....his wife has been an equal partner in his musical and home lives. The documentaries done by Christopher Nupen (Allegro Films....they’re excellent, all on TH-cam) starting when Ashkenazy was 25 lets you see a glimpse of this. He and his wife made all performing and living decisions based on the most time he’d be able to spend with their children. He devoured music, studying the composers deeply. And he’s completely down to earth. Ashkenazy and Itzak Perlman are the only apex musicians I know of to refuse to call themselves prodigies, and they are part of a group of contemporaries who are very close friends, including their wives (with Barenboim, Zukerman, Mehta, and Fou Ts’ong), which is certainly unique. And, when Ashkenazy was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, he would bring scores to play with Richter, bc Richter liked him very much, and when Ashkenazy played for him and asked his opinion, Richter said (paraphrasing), “What can I tell you, there is nothing, it’s very good!” Amazing!
Ashkenazy is among a handful of pianists that actually know how to play this music. He makes it sound like the shimmering of water, rather than a Chopin Etude.
Qué hermoso toca este Sr. lo vi en el Auditorio Nacional de México, con la violinista Esther Yoo.Algún día me gustartia tocar como él. Es una inspiracion para todos los jóvenes. Saludos.
Absolutely magnificent! Ravel would have stood up and cheered at your performance. When the background is kept as an accompaniment, it is indeed rare. Than you. As an aside...there was a prominent note which kept "blocking" (I believe it was E-flat)...the piano technician should have been fired!
@wnxg4nd4lf Couldn't agree more. I've got a CD of that recording and I get enchanted by it every single time I listen to it. Especially the first movement.
I am lucky he recently took residency in Sydney Australia and will be the resident conductor, I hear that he has had arthritis and is performing much less, opting to record and has been doing Bach and Shostakovich.
@jwang32 well he played the other notes with his right hand, so it's not really a mistake. Not that it's a rule to play it with the left hand till the end, only the music matters
@smzmusic sry i won´t comment that! it was by accident that i commented the last time..normally musicians don´t comment on youtube! they hear and than read and in nearly every case they laugh. i haven´t studied the work already, but i know it by playing and hearing it with attention, and i tell you only after years of working you will realise that ashkenzy makes (not all) fantastic things here. and lisitsa well that shreds your ears only! be a musician man!
it is true that impressionism is more atmospheric than emotional.... but ondine with its seductive and climatic nature , should be played with a degree of musicality and emotion
You are a good listener, buy Askenazy play a variant authorized from the composer for Perlemuter and others. Right, the original version is very hard to play (repeat notes with 5th finger).
This piece is performed wonderfully and Ashkenazy has very sensitive touch. But I have to agree with some others listeners here, that other interprets gives to this piece something more. Ravel claimed that his pieces have to be performed without any other emotions, it´s impressionism, not romantism! The pianist performing something from Ravel should paint the emotion, not personnaly "live" the emotion. Impress. is cold and impersonal... so that´s the reason I love this performace.
I agree, other interpreters give to this piece something more, and the piece becomes something it should not be. There are too many pianists who add things to the music that does not belong. Ashkenazy plays it as is should be: nothing more, nothing less.
Ashkenazy is a pianistic genius but I agree that this performance sounds a little forced. You can always count on him to project the melody like a conductor would, but the overall phrasing makes the passages in this piece sound disjointed. This interpretation isn't emotionless, but it also isn't totally savored, either. I recommend Ravel enthusiasts listen to Werner Haas' interpretation of this work, his is still my favorite.
Englishplayer you live up to your name. Have a look at the music, try it yourself, and listen to Ravel, Pogorelich or Geiseking play this piece. This is a very unremarkable, even bad, performance.
I agree, his Chopin ballades are similarly devoid of sonority. He is really a product of the Soviet system, which was designed to get pianists to win international competitions. This required difficult pieces played fast. His generation benefited enormously from improvements in the technology of recording. Musically, there are many beautiful versions of the Ravel - Ashkenazy is not one of them.
You are wrong on so many levels; there are plenty of pianists who play the notes beautifully, but never bring out the beauty of the actual music. Horizontal beauty (sound) versus vertical beauty (musical discourse; both are needed, but the former is subject to the latter, of course.
@liopopliopo How come the left hand fluctuates tempo yet the right hand stays the same? The other pianists above do not do that, live or not. If the left hand is getting slower/faster and the right hand is the same, then there is no way you can match up the repeated figure. Pianists take so much liberty with tempo because it makes sense for technique without thinking if it makes sense musically. In Ravel's music, the large phrasing and flow is often destroyed by a pianists rubato.
.. frist of all .. agerich is the best piano player of this piece .. second what on surface impresses as a no frills perf is i think ashkenasy's broad stroke 'orchestral conception' .. whi fits this rambling piece .. yr listng to the conductor maestro ashkenasy, not the pianist .. this maybe true ..
You are wrong, and you clearly should not even be teaching the piano; I feel very sorry for you, and your poor (arme) students. They should study with a real musician like me.
Too much focus on technical perfection rather than musical. I feel the subtlety, nuance and color are lost in this interpretation. Feels a little hurried too!
pogorelich by far, This sounds both uptight and cold by comparison. It is just not beautiful enough, That right hand does not sound like delicate ppp simmering moonlight lake that the poem describes. It sounds like Soviet triumphailism. Why does he not do what Ravel tells him? Arrogant sob,
![Ravel-Gaspard de la Nuit-[Seong-jin Cho]✨](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/F61Zb9zIP-4/mqdefault.jpg)
![Ravel-Gaspard de la Nuit-[Seong-jin Cho]✨](/img/tr.png)
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [2/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qJbQs_nhjD4/mqdefault.jpg)
I saw him in L.A., Calif. 1958 when he was still Soviet. I had never heard such playing! I started collecting his LPs (the 1st ones were printed in Russian). I then saw him on every visit he made to LA over many years & have nearly all his records. Its been a long time since Ive seen him with dark hair & the memories are overwhelming to me. I have many favorite superstars, but his playing "live" is otherworldly, enriched my life. Piano programs were once numerous here, are now rare events.
Are you alive now?
@@Ar1osssa Today is 10/16/20 & I am still alive. I saw Sampson Francois at Wilshire Ebell in the 1950s & went to countless recitals over the decades to year 2000 when it all seemed to stop. I hear many great classical artists on You Tube or in my LP/CD collection that still bring tears to my eyes, I play piano myself at age 85 but not so well, (perhaps) now. I never forget my lifetime where I saw many great artists, including Ashkenazy, many times, "live" over the decades where we had classic artists here in concert (alas this is no more for some reason).
@@saintansele It's very cool that you have long live. I wish you more years to live.
This piece is outstanding classe, I don't think a word exists to describe this kind of music, thank you Mr. Ravel and Mr. Ashkenazy
In Soviet Russia--you don't fall into the lake, the lake falls into you.
that's what I love best about Ashkenasy's
playing- he never grandstands,never tries to put himself in front of the music-
He has no wish to editorialize
He merely plays.....to perfection
swoons...
So rare to get such brilliant music. A billion thanks for the pianist and the video!!
Poor Askenazy, ever underrated. See all this comments. He play so fast and so clear, and whit unusually great singing tone. Clear and good dramatized sense of form. The sound is wonderful.
It’s bc Ashkenazy went toward conducting. The general public may underrate him, but not people who know music.
This pianist is incredible, he can play anything well this is a great interpretation of the Ondine, well framed architecture and great sonorous variations in touch as well aside from this piece being a beautiful image of beneath the water's surface and the mythology of mermaid's, really ethereal. Ravel was a genius in birthing this piece.
Catherine Sidoti I so agree. I also very much love Argerich's playing of Gaspard, but actually actually prefer VAs sense of structure and architecture. Very subjective, I know. It's still, all at once sensuous and beautiful yet icy and terrifying ... as it should be!
Ashkenazy's playing is fabulous in this live recording.
@lemaro11 His 3rd Rach is the best i've ever heard.
For me Ashkenazy is among the top 3 pianists of our century
absolutely, Ashkenazy, Argerich and ? Vadem Rudenko !
@@CapetownCarework Argerich nothing in comparing with Richter
I have little musical experience or knowledge but this performance had me entranced and was wonderful to interpret in dance.
According to most pianists and critics alike this is supposed to be one of the most technically demanding pieces in the piano repetoire. Whether it is or not matters not as it is a mesmerising piece of music to listen to and one of Ravel's best works played admirably here by Ashkenazy.
@GiovanniEMB
you are right. very underrated piano player.
For example his performances of the Rach2, and Rach4 - piano concertos, are just perfect !!!
A wonderful performance, thank you for posting!
This is a superb performance.
This is wonderful. Thank you so much for putting it on youtube. I love Vladimir Ashkenazy's playing.
The opening is surely meant to be a shimmer! Mechanical, clear performances of the opening are not exactly impressionistic... Ashkenazy is right on the money in my opinion - fantastic recording, thanks for uploading!!
exactly my same sentiments.
His 3rd Rachmaninoff concert is SO amazing.
Perfection. Wow. Ef the haters, man, that's my dude.
Holy, these thirds chromatic scales are so fluid and perfect, what a technique ! I've heard Hamelin play this in Montreal not so long ago, and it was on the same level of technic as this. Very good !
To me, Ashkenazy is the complete man....his wife has been an equal partner in his musical and home lives. The documentaries done by Christopher Nupen (Allegro Films....they’re excellent, all on TH-cam) starting when Ashkenazy was 25 lets you see a glimpse of this. He and his wife made all performing and living decisions based on the most time he’d be able to spend with their children. He devoured music, studying the composers deeply. And he’s completely down to earth. Ashkenazy and Itzak Perlman are the only apex musicians I know of to refuse to call themselves prodigies, and they are part of a group of contemporaries who are very close friends, including their wives (with Barenboim, Zukerman, Mehta, and Fou Ts’ong), which is certainly unique. And, when Ashkenazy was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, he would bring scores to play with Richter, bc Richter liked him very much, and when Ashkenazy played for him and asked his opinion, Richter said (paraphrasing), “What can I tell you, there is nothing, it’s very good!” Amazing!
such a delicate performance.
wow, one of the best interpretation i've heard!
it's magic: )
Ashkenazy is among a handful of pianists that actually know how to play this music. He makes it sound like the shimmering of water, rather than a Chopin Etude.
Qué hermoso toca este Sr. lo vi en el Auditorio Nacional de México, con la violinista Esther Yoo.Algún día me gustartia tocar como él. Es una inspiracion para todos los jóvenes. Saludos.
Estoy de acuerdo contigo. Toca de una forma plena, maravillosa, expresiva. Y técnicamente no tiene límites. Es un genio de los grandes.
@GiovanniEMB: I agree. This is superlative playing.
Wonderful!!!
Absolutely magnificent! Ravel would have stood up and cheered at your performance. When the background is kept as an accompaniment, it is indeed rare. Than you. As an aside...there was a prominent note which kept "blocking" (I believe it was E-flat)...the piano technician should have been fired!
@wnxg4nd4lf
Couldn't agree more. I've got a CD of that recording and I get enchanted by it every single time I listen to it. Especially the first movement.
@smzmusic
its actually very clear that its not faked
I am lucky he recently took residency in Sydney Australia and will be the resident conductor, I hear that he has had arthritis and is performing much less, opting to record and has been doing Bach and Shostakovich.
@jwang32
well he played the other notes with his right hand, so it's not really a mistake. Not that it's a rule to play it with the left hand till the end, only the music matters
@smzmusic sry i won´t comment that! it was by accident that i commented the last time..normally musicians don´t comment on youtube! they hear and than read and in nearly every case they laugh.
i haven´t studied the work already, but i know it by playing and hearing it with attention, and i tell you only after years of working you will realise that ashkenzy makes (not all) fantastic things here. and lisitsa well that shreds your ears only! be a musician man!
Lisitsa cannot do even half of what Ashkenazy can!
That is very interesting - Thanks.
it is true that impressionism is more atmospheric than emotional.... but ondine with its seductive and climatic nature , should be played with a degree of musicality and emotion
@GiovanniEMB I co-sign this 10000 times
❤️
You are a good listener, buy Askenazy play a variant authorized from the composer for Perlemuter and others. Right, the original version is very hard to play (repeat notes with 5th finger).
This piece is performed wonderfully and Ashkenazy has very sensitive touch. But I have to agree with some others listeners here, that other interprets gives to this piece something more.
Ravel claimed that his pieces have to be performed without any other emotions, it´s impressionism, not romantism! The pianist performing something from Ravel should paint the emotion, not personnaly "live" the emotion. Impress. is cold and impersonal... so that´s the reason I love this performace.
I agree, other interpreters give to this piece something more, and the piece becomes something it should not be. There are too many pianists who add things to the music that does not belong. Ashkenazy plays it as is should be: nothing more, nothing less.
It's OK, I'm not embarrassed. :)
Ashkenazy is a pianistic genius but I agree that this performance sounds a little forced. You can always count on him to project the melody like a conductor would, but the overall phrasing makes the passages in this piece sound disjointed. This interpretation isn't emotionless, but it also isn't totally savored, either.
I recommend Ravel enthusiasts listen to Werner Haas' interpretation of this work, his is still my favorite.
4:34
Am I the only one that thinks his head is massive for his body size?
The big head makes exquisitely beautiful music.
@penguinshin I wouldn't use the term "very clear" for the opening right hand... ValentinaLisitsa's is much more clear.
Shimmery water is not supposed to be mechanical, haha!
ok
Is this David or Vladimir Ashkenazy please?
Vladimir
Englishplayer you live up to your name. Have a look at the music, try it yourself, and listen to Ravel, Pogorelich or Geiseking play this piece. This is a very unremarkable, even bad, performance.
Pogorelich's performance is brainless, and unremarkable except in its incoherency, but Gieseking's is very good.
I agree, his Chopin ballades are similarly devoid of sonority. He is really a product of the Soviet system, which was designed to get pianists to win international competitions. This required difficult pieces played fast. His generation benefited enormously from improvements in the technology of recording. Musically, there are many beautiful versions of the Ravel - Ashkenazy is not one of them.
You are wrong on so many levels; there are plenty of pianists who play the notes beautifully, but never bring out the beauty of the actual music. Horizontal beauty (sound) versus vertical beauty (musical discourse; both are needed, but the former is subject to the latter, of course.
Listen to Michelangeli
I did, and was bored out of my mind; no tension or magic.
Great but i prefer Gieseking
Gieseking did not quite have a good enough technique to bring it off, but the first part of his Ondine is magical; the rest is not good enough.
@liopopliopo How come the left hand fluctuates tempo yet the right hand stays the same? The other pianists above do not do that, live or not.
If the left hand is getting slower/faster and the right hand is the same, then there is no way you can match up the repeated figure.
Pianists take so much liberty with tempo because it makes sense for technique without thinking if it makes sense musically. In Ravel's music, the large phrasing and flow is often destroyed by a pianists rubato.
Ashkenazy and Richter have the largest phrasing of all musicians; nobody else even compares.
Too Fast!
.. frist of all .. agerich is the best piano player of this piece .. second what on surface impresses as a no frills perf is i think ashkenasy's broad stroke 'orchestral conception' .. whi fits this rambling piece .. yr listng to the conductor maestro ashkenasy, not the pianist .. this maybe true ..
@crimsonaltruist Japanese, fool!
The opening right hand rhythm sounds faked.
Copied comment. And no, it doesn't sound fake. Wtf?
It´s really not good: He is faking in the beginning - the whole rhythm is played wrong - this should not be the price to seem having good technique.
You are wrong, and you clearly should not even be teaching the piano; I feel very sorry for you, and your poor (arme) students. They should study with a real musician like me.
No he's not faking it. I can hear the pattern perfectly 12 years later. Are you still on earth?
@@djmotise …listen to Grosnevor or Debargue… it’s so much better ….Ashkenazy is similar cheating as Bunitiashvili….
Too much focus on technical perfection rather than musical. I feel the subtlety, nuance and color are lost in this interpretation. Feels a little hurried too!
Normally I love Askenazy's renditions, but i hate this one. Too fast :_( Pogorelich is the top here.
Not everyone understands Ravel. Besides, Ivo plays Scarbo much too fast.
Japanese... Don't say stupid things to embarrass yourself on the internet...
pogorelich by far, This sounds both uptight and cold by comparison. It is just not beautiful enough, That right hand does not sound like delicate ppp simmering moonlight lake that the poem describes. It sounds like Soviet triumphailism. Why does he not do what Ravel tells him? Arrogant sob,
You poor, musically ignorant, and arrogant, person.
I don't know why so many people listen to this, there are much better recordings of this. This is very insensitive.
You go listen elsewhere; leave us real music lovers to enjoy.