Is this the grimmest Chopin recital ever recorded? David Wilde’s craggy, massively textured performances aren’t so much interpretations as they are monuments, reinforced by added octaves and filled-in fifths of the Alfred Cortot and Ignaz Friedman variety. Think of the Klemperer Mozart/Da Ponte cycle, Celibidache’s Munich Philharmonic Bruckner recordings, Jon Vickers’ “method acting” Schubert Winterreise, or what the notorious “skid row” pianist Ervin Nyiregyházi might have sounded like had he actually practiced, and you’ll know what to expect.
The two Op. 27 Nocturnes feature stern and structured rolling accompaniments and carefully weighted cantabiles. Wilde intones the A-flat Polonaise’s big opening chords so that the dissonances truly groan. Then he infuses the main theme with more rhythmic thrust than expected, but bangs his way through the celebrated Trio section octaves. The B-flat minor sonata’s first two movements typify Wilde’s general approach. Wilde doesn’t consistently sustain the suspended animation pace he adopts for the Funeral March’s opening section; telltale signs include slightly misread rhythms and beats not observed to their full value. Paradoxically, he stretches the Trio out to kingdom come and hypnotizes you. A big breath pause follows, and the famous march theme returns at a shattering fortissimo, à la Rachmaninov and Yves Nat. By contrast, the unison finale is quite fleet, louder than usual, and packed with all sorts of accents, hidden melodies, and harmonically-oriented pedal effects.
Wilde’s epic and extreme F minor Fantasie is cut from similar cloth. In this context, the E-flat Op. 9 No. 2 Nocturne and “Raindrop” Prelude sound relatively normal and uneventful. However, Wilde has one noticeable interpretive tic: a tendency to make a slight pause at the end of a bar before the next downbeat. It doesn’t happen all the time, to be sure, but I suspect that the gesture is more habitual than purposeful. I admit that I can only take the pianist’s heavy going in small doses. Still, it’s clear that every phrasing, every voicing, every balance takes shape as Wilde intends. The resonant ambience more-or-less absorbs Wilde’s huge dynamic range. To paraphrase one of my erstwhile critic colleagues, this is emphatically not “a Chopin recital for everyday use,” yet it’s oddly compelling on its own terms, and anything but faceless.
