Career
Vladimir Ashkenazy is renowned for his performances of Romantic and Russian composers.
He has recorded Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier; the complete 24 Preludes and Fugues of Shostakovich; the complete sonatas by Beethoven and Scriabin; the complete works for piano by Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Schumann; and seven of Liszt's 12 Transcendental Études. He has also recorded the piano concertos of Mozart (conducting from the keyboard with the Philharmonia Orchestra); Beethoven (with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti; with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic; and conducting from the piano with the Cleveland Orchestra); Brahms (No. 1 with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra; and No. 2 with Bernard Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic); Bartók (with Georg Solti and the London Philharmonic Orchestra); Prokofiev (with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra); and Rachmaninoff (with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra, and with Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra). In public performances, Ashkenazy was known for rejecting a tie and button shirt in favor of a white turtleneck; and for running (not walking) onstage and offstage to the piano. He has also performed and recorded chamber music.
Midway through his pianistic career, Ashkenazy branched into conducting. He has particularly been praised for his recordings of orchestral works by Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Scriabin, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky.
He was the principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1987 to 1994 and was principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003. He became musical director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2004.
Besides these positions, Ashkenazy is conductor laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra, with which he performs regularly.
Ashkenazy has also appeared in several Christopher Nupen music films, conducting extracts from the composer profiled, including Ottorino Respighi and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and performing at the piano.
He succeeded Gianluigi Gelmetti as the chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in January 2009.
He has also made his own orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1982).
There has been a CD produced of his works named 'The Art of Ashkenazy', and a biography of Ashkenazy, 'Beyond Frontiers', has been published.
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