Do you equate large hand spans with being a good classical pianist? You’ll have to equate again, I fear. Look at the likes of Alicia de Larocha, Emil Gilels, Maria Joao Pires whose hands are/were on the small size. Even composers like Chopin who wrote music that required the hands to play more than an octave had normal sized hands.
On the other hand (!) composers/players like Rachmaninoff and Liszt had enormous hands and composed stuff that a normal player would find impossible to achieve. Both their fingers could simultaneously play notes that were a 13th apart. But then Rachmaninoff was supposedly suffering from Marfan syndrome and his fingers (and other parts of his body) were unnaturally elongated. Although I have no concrete evidence I think Martha Argerich has an above average hand span. I recently saw a close-up of her hands and the fingers are unnaturally long.
So how do you override this short-handedness (!) and still sound musical and faithful to the music? Small handed pianists like Vladimir Ashkenazy have a way of covering this ‘deficiency’ by rolling their fingers on the piano keys to make it sound authentic. Listen to him playing the opening of Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto #2 or the same composer’s Prelude in C# minor and you can gauge how successful this technique is.
When he was a Soviet citizen, Ashkenazy hesitated joining the 1962 Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow because of his limited hand-span.. He’d already come second in the 1955 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw (he was 18 years of age) and came first in the Queen Elizabeth Music Competition in Brussels the following year. But the Soviet minister of culture at the time coerced him into participating. “She thought it was disgusting that an American, Van Cliburn, had won the previous time,” he recalls.
She wanted him to practice the Tchaikovsky piano concerto which wasn’t one of Ashkenazy strengths. “She knew nothing about music. She didn’t know that I meant it was technically very difficult for a pianist with such small hands. So I went away and practiced.” He came joint first with Britain’s John Ogden. Incidentally Ashkenazy is not a great admirer of Tchaikovsky’s concerto. “It’s really a decorative work,” he explains. “All those octaves!”
Married to another concert pianist for more than 50 years, the former Thorunn (Dody) Johannsdottir, he now has five children. Two of them, his eldest son Vladimir and known as Vovka is a pianist too and teacher, his second son is a clarinetist. Thorunn was born in Iceland and met Ashkenazy when she was studying piano in Moscow. Ashkenazy defected to the west in 1963 and took up Icelandic citizenship in 1972. They now live in Meggen, Switzerland.
Ashkenazy suffers from arthritis in three fingers forcing him (if that is the right word) to devote all his time to conducting. He’s always been fascinated with the orchestra. In a successful attempt to diversify his musical education, his mother took him to the Bolshoi Theatre. And that was it. “It was incredible,” he recalls. “For me the orchestra was more important than what was happening on stage.”
Ashkenazy, now 82, last played the piano in public in 2006. The only time he plays the piano now is when recording, which he can do without fear of playing the wrong notes because he can always go back and correct his mistakes. He took up conducting seriously in the 1980s, was appointed chief conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1987 where he remained till 1994. As well as stints with European orchestras and Japan, Ashkenazy has been a regular visitor to Sydney. He first came to Australia as a pianist in 1969. He also conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in subscription concerts and composer festivals. He was appointed the orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor from 2009 to 2013. Highlights of his tenure were the Mahler Odyssey, a concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades and several international tours.
He loves the music of Sibelius. “When I first heard his fifth symphony, I thought it was amazing. When I went to the west (for the first time) I came back with suitcases full of LPs and scores you couldn’t find in Russia. Back then one could access Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Beethoven…but not Sibelius, Ravel or Stravinsky.”
The dates and details of his Sydney concerts in September are listed below. His schedule is a bit frenetic. He arrives here after having conducted in New Zealand and after he leaves he has concerts in Singapore, England, China , Spain, Poland and quite a few other countries.
Ashkenazy is also known for his sense of humour. He is known to scratch his back with his baton or hold it between his teeth. When playing the piano his favourite conductors were Barenboim (another pianist/conductor), Zubin Mehta and the late Andre Previn (also another pianist/conductor).
What about some of the other conductors, when he was playing the piano? “So many just haven’t the faintest idea,” he adds. “Karajan was never that good. He didn’t care.”
The last word goes to Ashkenazy himself : “Music gives mankind understanding of our existence and our world.”
Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy at the SOH Concert Hall on September 18 and 21
Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis
Elgar’s Cello Concerto (Andreas Brantelid, cello)
Elgar’s Enigma Variations
Concert Hall Sydney Opera House September 25 & 28
Medtner’s Piano Concerto (Alexei Volodin, piano)
Holst The Planets