Decca Classics

• 46 CDs in original jackets presented chronologically so we can follow the development of the artist over his 50+ years career on Decca.
• Every concerto recording made for Decca with Ashkenazy as pianist.
• Includes a previously unpublished Mozart K488.
• 2 DVDs featuring Ashkenazy’s 1974 recordings with Bernard Haitink of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with extra documentary footage and the Beethoven overtures, filmed at the Royal Festival Hall.
• Extensive booklet with new essays by critic Jed Distler and career-long manager Jasper Parrot.
• THREE Beethoven cycles, including the Grammy® award winning recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti (1973), TWO Rachmaninov cycles, and the Prokofiev, Brahms, Bartók and Mozart cycles.
• Recordings of Ashkenazy directing from the piano – the Beethoven cycle with the Cleveland Orchestra and Mozart with Philharmonia Orchestra.

Among the foremost musical figures of our time, Vladimir Ashkenazy began playing the piano at the age of six and was accepted at the Central Music School at the age of eight. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, won second prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (1955), first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels (1956), and joint first prize with John Ogdon in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Signed to Decca in 1963, Ashkenazy remains to this day the longest-serving artist on the label. He received a Grammy® award for, among others, his Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti (1973) which are included in this set.

As one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our time Vladimir Ashkenazy has won acclaim for his penetrating insight and superlative technique. As an artist, his creative life encompasses a vast range of activities and he continues to offer inspiration to music-lovers across the world.