Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Ashkenazy is one of the world's most accomplished and charismatic musicians, renowned as both a pianist and a conductor. He left Russia in 1963 to escape the restrictions imposed on individual expression pre-perestroika, and, in this film he talks revealingly about his life, work and motivations. Specially-recorded musical illustrations include passages of Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Brahms.