Evoking the Golden Age

By ELLIOT RAVETZ

The American pianist Earl Wild, who just turned 85, is the last of the great Romantics, a tradition of spellbinding virtuosos that began with Liszt and flowered before World War II with the "Golden Age" pianists--such legends as Paderewski, Hofmann, Godowsky and Rachmaninoff. Like them, Wild produces gorgeous sounds at any speed or volume, possesses vitalizing musical instincts and revels in the kinetic and sensual possibilities of the piano: its potential to evoke the grandeur of an orchestra and lyricism of a singer.

Wild's still omnipotent fingers transform the instrument into a source of marvels. He can electrify audiences with an impossibly demonic performance of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, move them with an achingly tender account of a Sonetto del Petrarca by the composer or do both with the Manichean Sonata in B Minor.

Looking as vigorous as he plays, Wild celebrated his birthday last week with a Carnegie Hall recital, consisting primarily of 13 works by Brahms, Liszt and Chopin, among them Brahms' Rhapsody No. 2, Liszt's Ballade No. 2 and Chopin's Ballade No. 1. Wild created ravishing mini-dramas of these demanding, emotionally expansive scores. He has just released a new CD, 20th & 21st Century Piano Sonatas (Ivory Classics).

The 20th century composers are Barber, Hindemith and Stravinsky. Barber's sonata and Hindemith's third sonata present formidable interpretive and technical challenges. Yet Wild--who learned Barber's thorny score, with its treacherous final fugue, for this recording (in his 80s!)--tears into them with a scintillating blend of rhythmic acuity, dynamic and coloristic shadings and sustained dramatic power. He finds fresh charm in Stravinsky's opus by eliciting its whimsy and dancelike qualities. The 21st century sonata, Wild's own, is a virtuoso work--energetic, eclectic and flamboyant--that he plays with great panache.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., Wild showed precocity at age three; by six he had a fluent technique. While still a teenage student of the distinguished Dutch pianist Egon Petri, he was already a concert-hall veteran. In 1937 Arturo Toscanini engaged Wild to fill the coveted position of staff pianist for his NBC Symphony Orchestra. Toscanini could be irascible, but he and Wild hit it off. "We both loved music so tirelessly," Wild says. The fiery maestro made Wild famous in 1942 by inviting him to play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in a nationally broadcast concert.

When discussing the piano, Wild often refers to the orchestra and to opera. Asked about his long musical phrases, the extraordinary range of tone colors he commands or his uncommon ability to bring out the difficult inner voices in complex scores, he says, "That evolved from years of orchestral playing and accompanying singers. I was really hearing and absorbing colors and voices, and I worked hard to reproduce that enormous range of color and variety."

That feel for voices and texture informs Wild's 1997 recording, Chopin: the Complete Nocturnes (Ivory Classics). These exquisite, emotion-charged pieces may convey ardor, agitation, wistfulness, ecstasy or melancholy. But the moods expressed in the melodies are often complicated by countervailing voices and harmonies in the accompaniment: delight can yield to a sense of vulnerability, and the balances can be tricky. Though he "agonized over them," Wild has captured the nocturnes' elusive genius more fully than any previous interpreter. The piano simply cannot be played more beautifully or expressively.

In recent years, he has recorded several Beethoven sonatas, including a towering performance of the monumental "Hammerklavier" Sonata--a supreme test of a pianist's musical intelligence as well as of his fingers. Wild's approach to Beethoven is closer to the long-lined style of the 19th century than to the more academic style that has dominated since World War II. "So many of the Beethoven experts today take liberties," he says. "They often slow down just enough at the end of little phrases to disturb the rhythm."

Wild plays between six and eight hours most days, but he doesn't think of it as practice--"it's more like breathing." About recitals, he says, "I try never to set a piece, to say that this is how I'm going to play it. That takes away the possibility of the inspiration of the moment"--he chuckles--"or the madness, I suppose." And does he still enjoy performing? "Oh, yes. That's what all the work is about."