Vladimir Ashkenazy

“Ashkenazy plays it marvellously well, and seems oblivious of the difficulties [Gaspard]. His soft playing is really soft, and yet always full of atmosphere and tension. He is lazily relaxed in “Ondine”, hushed and mesmeric in “Le Gibet”, and what one might call calmly brilliant in “Scarbo”. It is this combination of brilliance and poetry that is so individual about his playing, and the combination is especially striking in the Chopin Scherzo in E major. This is an extremely difficult piece to bring off, because it is not enough for the pianist to be merely brilliant. Indeed it is all too easy to make it sound a rather feeble work. Ashkenazy makes it sound tremendously good. He takes it at a great speed, but his approach is fundamentally tender and lyrical. I have never enjoyed it so much …Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse is much more than that. For once it really does sound “joyeuse”, and the exhilaration of it is irresistible. In short, this is a splendid record, and the sound … is all you could wish.”Gramophone January 1966

'Perhaps what strikes home most of all is the sheer aristocracy of his playing ... everything is beautifully moulded and proportioned, beautifully balanced and blended. The sonority he draws from the instrument is poetry itself, as for instance the liquid stream of Op.23 nos.8 & 9. His effortlessly strong, brilliant technique is of course an enormous asset in bolder challenges like Op.23 no.2 ... at all times his phrasing suggests acute susceptibility, yet sentiment never degenerates into sentimentality and nothing would have pleased Rachmanimnov more than that. The C sharp minor Prelude is so often murdered that it is a revelation to hear it done with such a fine blend of the imperious and the mysterious; it emerges here as a little masterpiece'. Gramophone February 1976

"The interpretation and performance are as good as their reputations would lead you to hope ... they play together very well indeed. In the page of Adagio which opens the "Kreutzer", Perlman ... is quite magnificient. Technically, this performance is second to none ..." Gramophone

"Ashkenazy ... sees farther into the music's Russian soul ... exceptional ripeness of tone combined with clarity." Gramophone

Penguin Guide 1994 3 star