All The Music In The World
Joseph Levy’s richly-layered biopic about the great concert pianist Emanuel Ax, All the Music in the World, reveals a musician who suffers from anxiety attacks before performances.
In the pantheon of illustrious pianists such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin, Andras Schiff and Marta Argerich, Ax holds his own. And yet, as he discloses in the first minutes of this fine 83-minute documentary, he is overcome by stage fright prior to an appearance.
The film, which made its world premiere at DOC NYC on November 13, with a wider release planned for 2027, unfolds in various locales in the United States from New York City and Miami to San Francisco and Stanford University.
Now 77, Ax has achieved the kind of international acclaim and name recognition that any musician would surely envy. “He transforms a concert into a spiritual experience,” gushes the violinist Itzhak Perlman. “He is uniquely gifted,” says the composer John Williams.
Despite his towering status, Ax is the personification of modesty. “I don’t feel superior to anyone,” he muses. “I’m not a maestro.”
Indeed, Ax seems congenial enough, projecting amiability and smiling easily.
That being said, Ax is a virtuoso, a pianist whose keyboard magic enchants listeners with the melodic tones of classical composers ranging from Beethoven and Schumann to Mozart and Brahms.
Ax, whose friends and associates affectionately call him Manny, has roamed far and wide on tours around the world and has appeared in Carnegie Hall no less than 123 times.
During his career, he has often performed 125 concerts per year away from home, separating him from his Japanese American wife, Yoko, and their two children, Sarah and Joey, for relatively long periods of time. Ax seems to regret his decision to be on tour so frequently.
As a perfectionist, he diligently practices three to four hours a day and always dreams about the instrument he plays to perfection. “My relationship to music is all-consuming,” he readily admits.
His oldest colleague and friend, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, appears in several scenes, informing viewers that he and Ax have been playing together for 53 years. “I love everything about him,” says Ma.
The biographical details about Ax are skin deep. He was born in Lviv, a city in Ukraine today, in 1949 to Polish Jewish parents. Survivors of the Holocaust, they successively lived in Warsaw and Winnipeg before settling down in New York City when Ax was 12 years old.
Levy glosses over Ax’s musical education and the reason why he gravitated toward the piano. We learn that he studied at Juilliard, but little else is imparted apart from the fact that his father fostered his interest in music. This is a gap that leaves something of a void in the narrative.
Ax’s “great regret” is that his father died before he could attend one of his major concerts. His mother died at the ripe old age of 101, but she had the pleasure of living long enough to track his ascent to stardom.
Toward the end of the film, Ax solemnly ponders his future. He realizes that he is close to retirement, but he also knows that music is his life.
To mark his 50th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall, Ax delivers a stellar rendition of a standard Beethoven piece. The reception from the audience is ecstatic. On this rousing note, the curtains come down on a celebratory film that pays tribute to a master of his realm.
