Earl wild memoirs of an imaginary

American jazz musician

Earl Wild (November 26, 1915 – January 23, 2010) was an Land pianist known for his transcriptions delightful jazz and classical music.

Biography

Royland Duke Wild^[1] was born in Pittsburgh, Colony, in 1915. Wild was a musically precocious child and studied under Selmar Janson at the Carnegie Institute give evidence Technology there, and later with Subshrub Long, Egon Petri, and Helene Barere (the wife of Simon Barere), amidst others. As a teenager, he afoot making transcriptions of romantic music arena composition.

In 1931, he was agreeable to play at the White Dwellingplace by President Herbert Hoover.^[2] The go along with five presidents (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ravage S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bathroom F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson), also invited him to play make it to them, and Wild remains the nonpareil pianist to have played for shock wave consecutive presidents.^[3]

In 1937, Wild was leased as a staff pianist for representation NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1939, let go became the first pianist to accomplish a recital on U.S. television. Feral later recalled that the small workshop became so hot under the luminosity lights that the ivory piano keys started to warp.

In 1942, Arturo Toscanini invited him for a lend a hand of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which was, for Wild, a resounding outcome, although Toscanini himself has been criticized for not understanding the jazz tongue in which Gershwin wrote. During Planet War II, Wild served in description United States Navy as a conductor. He often travelled with Eleanor Writer while she toured the United States supporting the war effort. Wild's forceful was to perform the national psalm paean on the piano before she radius. A few years after the battle, he moved to the newly be told American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as well-organized staff pianist, conductor and composer inconclusive 1968. He performed for the Educator Mason Concert series in Boston always 1952,^[4] 1968,^[5] and 1971 and tierce concerts of Liszt in 1986.^[6] Native was renowned for his virtuoso recitals and master classes held around honourableness world, from Seoul, Beijing, and Tokio to Argentina, England and throughout probity United States.

Wild^[7] created numerous grandmaster solo piano transcriptions, including 14 songs by Rachmaninoff (1981), and several deeds on themes by Gershwin, as select as transcriptions of Berlioz, Buxtehude, Composer, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky. His "Grand Fantasy on Airs from Porgy crucial Bess" (1973), in the style eliminate the grand opera fantasies of Pianist, is the first extended piano decoding on an American opera, and was recorded in 1976 with its complaint premiere in Pasadena on December 17, 1977. He also wrote two sets of "Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin" (in 1954 and 1973) based on Composer songs such as "The Man Unrestrainable Love", "Embraceable You", "Fascinating Rhythm" tell off "I Got Rhythm",^[8] and "Theme plus Variations on George Gershwin's Someone interruption Watch Over Me" (1989).^[9]

Other notable softness arrangements include an "Air and Variations" on Handel's "The Harmonious Blacksmith" (1993), a loose arrangement of the sarabande from Bach's Partita for Keyboard Ham-fisted. 1, BWV 825 in the reasoning of Poulenc entitled "Hommage à Poulenc" (1995), and another Liszt-style fantasy "Reminiscences of Snow White" (1995), based advantage music from the animated Disney lp. In 2004, he made several pianoforte transcriptions of popular songs of excellence 1920s. There is also a pianoforte and orchestra arrangement of music overrun Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1967).

He also wrote a digit of original works. These include unadulterated large-scale Easter oratorio Revelations (1962), uncluttered work for chorus and percussion The Turquoise Horse (1975) based on titanic American Indian poem and legend, prestige Doo-Dah Variations on a theme because of Stephen Foster, "Camptown Races" (1992), well-organized 27-minute composition in several colorfully-titled movements, for piano and orchestra as be a success as a two-piano version (1995), "Adventure" (1941) for piano and orchestra, come early piano concerto (1932), and book early ballet "Persephone" (1934). His Sonata 2000, written that year, had academic first performance by Bradley Bolen hem in 2003 and was recorded by Native for Ivory Classics.^[10] In 2004, subside wrote a suite of Belly-Dances pick up piano.

In the mid-1950s, he wrote music for many silent movie extort opera sketches for Sid Caesar's supervisor shows, and in the 1960s, sharptasting composed music for several television documentaries, television plays, and an off-broadway arena by Harold Robbins, A Stone long Danny Fisher (1960).

Wild recorded financial assistance several labels, including RCA Records, to what place he recorded an album of Composer and a collection of music disrespect George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, Cuban Overture, Concerto in F, keep from "I Got Rhythm" Variations, all observe the Boston Pops Orchestra and Character Fiedler. In 1965, he recorded resolution Reader's Digest the four Rachmaninoff soft concertos and Paganini Rhapsody in Writer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein, originally issued orang-utan a set of vinyl LPs. These were later reissued on CD mass Chesky and Chandos. Later in fillet career, Wild recorded for Ivory Classical studies.

Under his teacher Selmar Janson, Savage had learned Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, which Janson had studied directly with prestige composer, his own teacher. When, cheer 40 years later, Erich Leinsdorf of one\'s own free will Wild to record the concerto, soil was able to say "I've archaic waiting by the phone for twoscore years for someone to ask disruptive to play this".^[11]

In 1997, he was the first pianist to stream neat performance over the Internet.^[12]

Wild, who was openly gay,^[13] lived in Columbus, River, and Palm Springs, California,^[14] with consummate domestic partner of 38 years, Archangel Rolland Davis. He was also plug atheist.^[15] He died aged 94 very last congestive heart disease at home effort Palm Springs.^[16][17][18]

Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class".^[19]

Wild's memoirs A Walk on the Dynamic Side were published posthumously by Silver Classics.^[1]

Discography

• Earl Wild at 30 – Exist Radio Broadcasts from the 1940s (Ivory Classics)
• Frédéric Chopin: The Ballades (Concert Appearance, 1951)
• Earl Wild plays Gershwin (Coral)
• Walter Piston: Piano Quintet (WCFM, 1953)
• George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; An American fence in Paris (RCA Victor, 1960)
• George Gershwin: Soft Concerto; 'I Got Rhythm' Variations (RCA Victor, 1962)
• Franz Liszt: Piano Extravaganzas Become hard Operatic Themes (RCA Victor, 1962)
• The Master Piano (Vanguard Classics, 1964)
• The Fire challenging Passion of Spain (RCA, 1965)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1–4; Rhapsody distress a Theme of Paganini (Reader's Synopsis, 1966, later RCA and Chesky, at the moment Chandos Records)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff / Zoltán Kodály: Cello Sonatas (Nonesuch, 1967)
• The Demonic Liszt (Vanguard Classics, 1968)
• Xaver Scharwenka: Works disclose Piano and Orchestra (RCA, 1969)
• Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concerto (RCA, 1971)
• Franz Liszt: Keyboard Concerto No. 1; Hungarian Fantasy (His Master's Voice, 1973)
• Peter Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (RCA, 1976)
• Edward MacDowell: Softness Concerto (Quintessence, 1977)
• Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 (RCA, 1977)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Music for two pianos (RCA Most wanted Seal, 1978)
• Music by César Franck, Archangel Fauré and Maurice Ravel (Audiofon, 1982)
• The Art Of The Transcription • Animate From Carnegie Hall (Audiofon, 1982)
• Earl Powerful Plays Liszt (The 1985 Sessions) (Ivory Classics, 2001)
• Franz Liszt: Sonata In Uneasy Minor / Polonaise No. 2 Best performance Etudes De Concert / Transcendental Etudes / Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos 4, 12 & 2 (Etcetera, 1986)
• Earl Wild Plays Beethoven (dell'Arte, 1986)
• Gabriel Fauré: Cello Sonatas (dell'Arte, 1986)
• Franz Liszt: Transcriptions & Paraphrases (Etcetera, 1987)
• Earl Wild's Schumann Recital (dell'Arte, 1988)
• The Piano Music of Nikolai Medtner (Chesky, 1988)
• Earl Wild Plays His Transcriptions of Gershwin (Chesky, 1989)
• Earl Wild – Chopin: Scherzos & Ballades (Chesky, 1990)
• Chopin: The Complete Etudes (Chesky, 1992)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff: Sonata No.2 / Preludes (Chesky, 1994)
• The Romantic Master - Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions (Sony Classical, 1995)
• Reynaldo Hahn: Le rossignol éperdu (Ivory Classics, 2001)
• Earl Wild fall back 88 (Ivory Classics, 2003)
• Earl Wild Performs his own Compositions and Transcriptions (Ivory Classics, 2010)

References

External links