Vladimir Ashkenazy
The first of six programmes in which Chris de Souza introduces some of the great pianist and conductor's many recordings, together with the voices of Ashkenazy and some of the people who work with him.
Today's programme looks at his successes in piano competitions in Warsaw and Moscow with some of his early performances of Chopin studies, Liszt's Mephisto
Waltz No 1, and his British recording debut, Tchaikovsky's Piano
Concerto No 1 with the London
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lorin Maazel. Ashkenazy talks about his passion for the music of Scriabin and plays his Sonata No 5. The programme also covers the beginnings of his other career, as a conducter, with Prokofiev's
Classical Symphony. Producer Jeremy Hayes