Music
Ashkenazy's return
Mark Archer
IMoscow t was unfortunate that Vladimir Ashke- nazy's historic return to Moscow after 26 years was dogged by more than its fair share of obstacles, a combination of ill luck and the usual quota of Soviet inefficien- cies. What should have been the climax of the first of his two concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra last week was muted by the immediate requirement to do re-takes for the BBC television broadcast to Britain: a power failure On the electric generator (possibly caused by crowds tram- pling on the cable) meant the concert's opening had gone unrecorded. Half of the audience were already leaving, half were unsure whether to stay, and Ashkenazy was reduced to having to quell them with hand signals as though they were an unruly orchestra section.
There was something appropriately Rus- sian about these disappointnrients. It is curious how the stoic obtuseness practised by Soviet officials, so exasperating to the foreigner, has as its other face a fellow feeling for those who are suffering as a result of the system's frustrations. Visits to Russian institutions are preceded by a courteous cloakroom ritual in which it is expected that one's coat will have a loop which will enable it to be hung convenient- ly. Visitors with a torn or broken one have been known to be handed a needle and thread.
Despite the high expectations which accompanied this visit, and the numerous but not unconnected frustrations, the true voice to heed was that of Ashkenazy himself. Ashkenazy has always mistrusted the bravura effect, temperamentally as well as in his music. When he shared the Tchaikovsky prize with John Ogden in 1962 he thought Ogden's more charismatic style was better suited to the emotionalism of their chosen piece, Tchaikovsky's B flat minor piano concerto: To play all that bravura, which I actually detest, you have to believe in it passionately as well as having all the equipment. And that type of octave equipment was really not my thing — that was really for John Ogden, Van Cliburn or Horowitz.' Ashkenazy was least at home with Gabrilov's romantic show- manship in the Rachmaninov concerto. He was plainly disconCerted by Gabrilov's maverick entries: the orchestra noted his eyes glanced heavenwards more than once. At the finish Gabrilov leapt towards his conductor with a flourish. Ashkenazy mod- estly took refuge behind the violas.
The Royal Philharmonic played Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony on the first night and Walton's Second the follow- ing night equally magnificently, the brass superbly capturing the menace of Walton's music, the strings beautifully rendering the scything, unearthly sound of Tchaikovsky's final movement. The highlight of the two concerts was Ashkenazy's performance of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. He played the opening theme of the slow movement with such sweetness that shivers played upon my spine.
Ashkenazy's dislike of rhetoric showed in the subdued way in which he spoke of his return to Russia after all those years. This homecoming lacked the sense of triumph that had accompanied those of Horowitz and Makarova. The meetings he had had with Russians, including members of the newly elected Soviet Parliament, had clearly moved him. Proud was not a word he used very much, he said; however, his experiences on this return had left him `genuinely proud of my compatriots and their attitude to Russia'. 'The nation is not castrated,' he added. 'The nation is still there.'
At the museum in the Andronikov Monastery, where Andrei Rubliev lived and died, there is an 18th-century icon depicting a group of saints which has been quaintly entitled (in Sovietese): 'An Assembly of Northern European Miracle- workers'. It seems a fitting epigraph for the diverse group of people who contributed to the organisation of this moving event: the British Council in particular, Ashkenazy, even Mr Gorbachev himself.
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