Earl Wild was 88 when he recorded this recital, and it’s amazing how he’s kept his legendary technique intact while continuing to evolve as an artist and explore new territory. For example, you’d never think of Wild as a Bach player. Yet his crisply-articulated B-flat Partita simply dances with joy in every movement, replete with felicitous ornaments and color shifts on the repeats. Indeed, such natural, beautifully proportioned, and utterly unpretentious Bach pianism comes as a relief in the face of concurrent releases like Daniel Barenboim’s schlumpy, self-important Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 or Cédric Tiberghien’s smooth, tensionless Partitas.
Wild takes a straightforward and more literal than usual path through the Scriabin Fourth Sonata’s feverish byways. What gorgeous textural differentiation the pianist achieves in the first movement, although I’d like a little more freedom and emotional abandon in the finale than Wild concedes. Wild’s earlier recording of Franck’s Prélude, Chorale, and Fugue (released on an Audifon LP, and not available on CD to my knowledge) yields to a lighter, more fluidly shaped remake that easily ranks among the work’s points of reference, including Rubinstein, Hough, Richter, and Cortot.
In comparing Wild’s Schumann Fantasiestücke with the version Rubinstein recorded in 1976 at age 89, I venture to say that Wild sounds considerably less than one year younger! Aufschwung manages to be both lightfingered and vehement, while the pianist gives Grillen’s full-bodied chords and emphatic accents their all. He also clarifies In der Nacht’s turbulent 16th-note accompaniment with less pedal and more tonal variety than we often hear, and effortlessly tosses off Traumes-Wirren’s whirling difficulties. And in Warum, the duetting melody lines almost sound as if they’re coming from two different pianos. In sum, keep your eye on this talented young pianist: he’s going places! [11/7/2005]
