Earl Wild (November 26, 1915 – January 23, 2010) was one
of the greatest pianists of the 20th century known for his transcriptions of
jazz and classical music. With the extraordinary catholicity of his repertoire,
his role as a pianist-composer and his charismatic stage presence, Wild came
closer than most to being the complete virtuoso. It is hard to name another
pianist who has been as successful in the works of such a diverse range of
composers, from Dieterich Buxtehude, Bach and Mozart through to Paul Hindemith,
Walter Piston, Aaron Copland, Gian Carlo Menotti and Paul Creston.
Wild was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his
father worked in the steel industry. His mother was a hat designer. With
immense hands, absolute pitch and an uncanny facility as a sight-reader and
improviser, from his earliest years he was certain that the piano was to be his
life. His pianistic genealogy was distinguished. At 11, he was accepted as a pupil
of Selmar Janson, himself a pupil of Scharwenka and d'Albert (who had studied
with Liszt). Later he took lessons with the great Dutch pianist Egon Petri (a
pupil of Ferruccio Busoni), Paul Doguereau (a pupil of Paderewski and Ravel)
and Helene Barere, wife of the Russian virtuoso Simon Barere.
At 14, Wild was playing the piano and celesta in the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Otto Klemperer. Times were hard as he began
his career during the Depression, but in 1937 he became a staff pianist with NBC
and two years later, he became the first pianist to give a live solo recital on
US television. (Remarkably, in March 1997, he also became the first pianist to
give a live solo recital on the internet.)
In 1942 Wild was the first American-born musician to be
invited by Arturo Toscanini to appear with him (in Gershwin's Rhapsody in
Blue), making him the youngest soloist ever engaged by the NBC Symphony. The
broadcast performance brought national fame overnight and led to Wild being
typecast as a Gershwin specialist. He later composed a Grand Fantasy on Porgy
and Bess and Seven Virtuoso Etudes based on Gershwin songs.
Here's "Mephisto Polka" from above album.
After serving in the US navy band during the second world
war (he played the flute), Wild took a job as staff pianist, conductor and
composer with NBC's rival ABC network. He retained the post until 1968. Between
1952 and 1956, he worked with the comedian Sid Caesar on the hit TV show
Caesar's Hour. During his affiliation with both networks, he continued to
perform concert engagements all over the world.
In 1962, ABC commissioned him to compose an Easter
oratorio, the first time a television network had subsidised a major musical
work. Revelations, based on the visions of St John the Divine, was conducted by
Wild with such success that it was restaged and rebroadcast two years later.
Another choral work, The Turquoise Horse, based on a native north American
poem, was premiered in 1976. His Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster for
Piano and Orchestra ("Doo-Dah" Variations) was given its world
premiere in 1992. Wild was the soloist and claimed thereby to be the first
virtuoso pianist-composer to perform his own piano concerto since Rachmaninov.
In 2000 he premiered his Piano Sonata, its final toccata marked to be played
"à la Ricky Martin".
Wild supported and guided young musicians for nearly 50
years, giving masterclasses all over the world, joining the faculties of a
number of American institutions at various times, and teaching classes at the
conservatories in Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul.
He made his first recording in 1939 for RCA (accompanying
the oboist Robert Bloom in a set of Handel sonatas) and subsequently recorded
for 20 labels, including his own, Ivory Classics. His discography includes more
than 35 concertos, 26 chamber works and more than 700 solo works. In 1997, his
disc of transcriptions, Earl Wild – The Romantic Master, brought him a Grammy
award.
For nearly 40 years he shared his life with Michael
Rolland Davis, also his manager and record producer, who survives him. A witty,
waspish man with a fund of outrageous jokes and scurrilous anecdotes, Wild was
enjoyable company and held strong opinions on his fellow pianists and
musicians. "I always play music that I like," he said. "If you
don't play music that you like, it sounds like it. It's easy to learn something
and then play it. But if you don't love it, what have you got?"
His final public performance came in 2007 at Los Angeles'
Disney Hall, when he was presented with the presidential medal of the Academy
of Recording Arts and Sciences. He was still giving classes a week before he
died, in Palm Springs of congestive heart disease on January 23, 2010 at the
age of 94.
Edited mainly from Jeremy Nicholas @ the Guardian
2 comments:
For “Earl Wild - The Demonic Liszt” go here:
https://mega.nz/#!vsEG0B7Q!xktWf_Ym1KRSDeG1NaWAClc2vxNVNfqU4uqUltVf6Do
01 Réminiscences de Robert le Diable, S. 413 (after Meyerbeer)
02 Konzertetüden, S. 145: 2. Gnomenreigen
03 Mephisto Polka, S. 217
04 Mephisto Waltz No. 1, S. 514 "Dance in the Village Inn"
05 Réminiscences de Don Juan, S. 418 (after Mozart)
06 Waltz from Gounod's Faust, S. 407
Earl Wild, piano
Date: 1968
Label: Vanguard Classics
A big thank you to Ronald Do @ classicalmjourney.blog for active link.
Boppin' Bob, I like the wide range of your offerings. You must be introducing many people to new types of music.
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