David Ashkenazy
David Ashkenazy was a Soviet variety pianist, accompanist, and composer. He was born in Nizhny Novgorod on December 25, 1915, to accountant Vulf Ashkenazy. He taught himself piano and began accompanying silent films in cinemas at the age of twelve.
After graduating from music school in 1936, he moved to Moscow and entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Professor Shatskes. Around this time he met Vadim Kozin and went on to accompany him for many years. In the postwar years, Ashkenazy accompanied Rashid Behbudov, Isabella Yurieva, Alla Bayanova, Klavdiya Shulzhenko, Lyudmila Zykina, Mark Bernes, Valentina Tolkunova, Joseph Kobzon, and Marina Gordon. For Gordon, he wrote several songs in Yiddish. He also worked at the Variety Theater.
His compositions included a romance setting of Yakov Polonsky’s poem “When Foreseeing Separation,” which became part of many romance singers’ repertoires, and the piano music for the dance “Pa Zephyr.” He was credited as a composer for the 1978 film The Troublemaker and appeared as a pianist in the 1946 film Little Apple and the 1964 film The Garnet Bracelet.
Ashkenazy received the title of Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1990 and People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1996. He died in Moscow on February 19, 1997, and was buried at the Vostryakovo Jewish Cemetery. His son, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and daughter, Elena Ashkenazy, were pianists.
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