Mozart’s Sonata in D for two pianos [Tracks 1-3, CD 1], written in 1781 after the composer’s decisive move to Vienna, was intended for performance by himself and one of his Viennese pupils, Josepha von Auernhammer. The equal difficulty of both parts suggests that she must have been an exceptionally skillful player. Mozart’s only fully-fledged work for two solo pianos, the Sonata is extroverted and good-humored throughout and one of the essential works of the two-piano literature. In this 1964 recording, Ashkenazy’s partner was the late American pianist, Malcolm Frager (1935-1991), who won first prize at the Queen Elizabeth International Piano Competition in 1960, four years after Ashkenazy himself had won it. The two played together regularly, and Frager’s fluency in Russian may have played a part in addition to his excellence at the keyboard.

Ashkenazy’s recitals of Chopin’s works, often programming them in complete sets, will be recalled by many as among the highlights of musical life in the sixties and seventies. The Mazurka in A-flat [Track 5, CD 1] is one of the few “live” documents of Ashkenazy among his commercially released recordings.

Tchaikovsky’s works for solo piano are for the most part miniatures, usually arranged in groups and intended for amateurs. A dumka [Track 7, CD 1], of Ukrainian origins, begins in the style of a lament, and then often has faster and more cheerful contrasting material until the lament returns. By 1888 (around the time of his Fifth Symphony and Symphonic Overture “Hamlet”), when Tchaikovsky composed his Dumka (subtitled “Russian Rustic Scene”) the term was used more elastically. Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata [Track 8, CD 1] and the three Etudes-Tableaux of Rachmaninoff rank among the masterworks for piano produced by Russian composers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Rachmaninoff’s “study-pictures” offer a unique glimpse of the composer working with material begun as improvisation but worked out as solutions to technical problems. The aural result, however, is inevitably intensely expressive despite the unique character of each.

Beethoven’s Sonata in E [Tracks 1-3, CD 2] is the first of his last three works in that form. Of all his “late” sonatas, this one is often considered the most immediately approachable. The brief Vivace flirts with an Adagio episode before the opening material returns, inhabiting a region somewhere between sonata and song form. The fiery Prestissimo almost seems a brief outburst before it ushers in the final Andante, a set of variations that is twice as long as the two preceding movements combined.

Ashkenazy’s 1976 recording of Schubert’s Sonata in D, D850, appears on CD for the first time. This is one of the composer’s most extroverted works in the form, although that term justly applies only to the odd-numbered movements. The others are, respectively, one of Schubert’s most profound lyric ruminations and a perky rondo interspersed with more energetic episodes that finally trips off the aural stage as it began.

Prokofiev graciously arranged a few sections of his ballet Romeo and Juliet to give pianists new arrows for the encore quiver, although Romeo and Juliet before parting is a scene that can easily stand alone on a program. Masques makes a delicious contrast.

Taneyev’s Prelude and Fugue [Track 10, CD 2] is doubtless still learned in Russian conservatories, where respect for the contrapuntal skill as well as invention of this revered composer who spanned the turn of the twentieth century is high, although his works are rarely encountered beyond Russian borders. Ashkenazy once described it as among the most difficult pieces that he ever had to master.