Collection of all five Beethoven piano concertos, played by a young Vladimir Ashkenazy at the height of his piano-playing career. Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the great conductor Bernard Haitink, this was a first for television.

With this disc, Vladimir Ashkenazy, celebrated for his readings of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, and his son, Vovka, take on music by Debussy and Ravel for two pianos, and the results, utterly unlike virtually anything Ashkenazy père has ever recorded before, make it a real winner. From the electric excitement of the opening En blanc et noir, through the hazy mysteries of Jeux, and the luminous colors of the Rapsodie espagnole, to the inexorable hysteria of La Valse, Ashkenazy père and fils turn in performances that match the music for poise, drive, and technical brilliance. Some might find their sonorities a bit hard-edged at points – should the opening of En blanc et noir and the close of La Valse really be hit so strongly? – but the results are so consistently thrilling that most listeners are likely to be swept away. Recorded in close but clear and vivid digital sound, this disc may not be for every Debussy and Ravel fan, but it should certainly appeal to fans of Ashkenazy.

All of Rachmaninov’s music - from his earliest student compositions to his final masterpieces – has been collected together for the first time on 32 CDs, in what is definitively the most complete and comprehensive edition of Rachmaninov’s works ever released.

Legendary conductor and pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy releases Johann Sebastian Bach's English Suites 1 - 3. This stunning, brand-new recording sits alongside a remastering of his first-ever Bach recording, the D Minor Concerto, recorded in 1965 in a must-have 2 CD Digipak collection. Amassing over 850M streams with a vast catalogue, Ashkenazy is amongst the foremost musical figures of our time and this release is a must-have for any classical music fan.

Mats Lidström is that rare thing, an original musician. The sheer mercurial energy which drives his performances can be both engaging and disturbing, but there is always a searching intelligence at work. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra lost much when its compelling, if unpredictable, lead cellist departed. These two concertos show him at his persuasive best, bringing lesser known works to life. Kabalevsky’s 1964 Concerto stretches and yawns with slow pizzicato before springing into urgent life. Sub-Shostakovich in its motifs and tonality, it is nevertheless well-constructed and uses the saxophone to great effect. In both Allegro movements Lidström achieves a lightning speed and attack and, though Raphael Wallfisch’s recording on Nimbus has a more solid beauty of tone, the Swede’s nervous anticipation makes up for the thinner sound of his Grancino cello. Khachaturian’s 1946 Concerto would make a wonderful soundtrack to a cinematic faux-Oriental extravaganza, with its twisting major and minor intervals, and almost sleazy chromaticism. Lidström really knows how to swing, and makes the most of the memorable melodies.

Despite the recording dates, the sound and balance are superb, and there's nothing to cloud your sense of Ashkenazy's greatness in all these works. From him every page declares Rachmaninov's nationality, his indelibly Russian nature. What nobility of feeling and what dark regions of the imagination he relishes and explores in page after page of the Third Concerto. Significantly his opening is a very moderate Allegro ma non tanto, later allowing him an expansiveness and imaginative scope hard to find in other more 'driven' or hectic performances. His rubato is as natural as it's distinctive, and his way of easing from one idea to another shows him at his most intimately and romantically responsive.

It's hard to believe that it's almost 30 years since Joshua Bell recorded these concertos with Ashkenazy and the Cleveland Orchestra. They still sound very good, and I was particularly taken by the Wieniawski because I had enjoyed Heifetz's performance from the early 1950s, but the quality of the orchestral sound here made me realize what the earlier recording lacked. The Tchaikovsky is excellent too, and Ashkenazy's accompaniments are alert and well-integrated with the solo part, and the recording, thankfully, does not spotlight the violin unduly the balance seems just right to me.

Even though Vladimir Ashkenazy is most often celebrated for his brilliantly virtuosic interpretations of Romantic repertoire, his skills in playing works of the Classical era are just as worthy, as proved by this 10-disc set from London of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos. These performances span a period from 1966 to 1988, capturing a youthful and vigorous Ashkenazy playing and conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard, in approved Mozartian fashion. All of the keyboard concertos are here, including the official 27 concertos for piano and orchestra, the Concerto for two pianos in E flat major, K. 365, the Concerto for three pianos in F major, K. 242, as well as the two Rondos K. 382 and K. 386. Ashkenazy's elegant playing has been highly praised by critics and placed on a level with his esteemed contemporaries Murray Perahia, Daniel Barenboim, and Alfred Brendel, all past masters of Mozart's primary medium of expression.

These are bold, incisive readings full of youthful ardor. No wilting-violet Schubert here. Ashkenazy, Zukerman and Harrell play with imagination and commitment in both works; there is never a hint of routine, of three virtuosi just going through the motions for the sake of producing a star-studded recording. This has lately become my favored recording of these impoderably and inexhaustibly beautiful trios.

Like fellow Finn Jean Sibelius, Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928) creates gorgeous music indebted to nature–works that ebb and flow rather than crescendo. But that's where the comparison ends. Rautavaara's works continue to grow and evolve, evoking spirituality, Impressionism, and nonclassical elements; the culmination of which can all be found on the Vladimir Ashkenazy-commissioned Gift of Dreams". From its atmospheric opening to the pounding, bluesy chords that follow, Rautavaara has created something truly original here. A Rhapsody in Blue for the 21st century? You decide. Conducting from the piano, Ashkenazy leads the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra through this and Autumn Gardens, a short symphonic work evoking the melancholy beauty of fall and its many colors. This is a very special disc, the premier of two truly great works that you'll be hearing about for a very long time. Essential.

It is very interesting, but also quite a shock, to play the contents of this disc in the wrong order. What a born Franckian Ashkenazy is, one thinks, listening to his account of Les Djinns and admiring both the boldness of outline and colour in the orchestral sections and the long-breathed nobility of phrasing that he brings to the piano theme that calms the music's turbulence. And the impression is redoubled by his voluptuous reading of Psyche (of its four orchestral movements, that is; the choral ones are as usual omitted, though Decca puzzlingly print Franck's synopsis of them in the accompanying booklet). What a fine control of sustained, arching line and of slowly built crescendo and, in the fourth movement, what a shrewd understanding of how much sensuality underlays Franck's image of pater seraphicus!

The earliest piece on this disc is the delightful Pastorale, written in 1907, when Stravinsky was 25; the latest is the enigmatic Epitaphium, written 52 years later. In between come a clutch of pieces from that fascinating period of Stravinsky’s life when he was moving from Russianism to neo-classicism via jazz. The remaining two, the Octet of 1923 and the Septet of 1953, are both firmly in Stravinsky’s witty, poised neo-classical style, though the Septet is moving towards new, tougher territory. Stravinsky himself made classic recordings of these pieces in the Sixties, now reissued on CD on the Sony label. These are always electric, if sometimes a little untidy, and so closely recorded you feel the players are sitting in your lap. By that lofty benchmark this new recording measures up superbly. Tempos are just as brisk and alert as Stravinsky’s, the accents just as incisive. These qualities are combined with a beautiful soft-grained tone – a nice change from Stravinsky’s lemon-sharp sound.