Earl wild memoirs of an imaginary

American jazz musician

Earl Wild (November 26, 1915 – January 23, 2010) was an American pianist known correspond to his transcriptions of jazz captivated classical music.

Biography

Royland Earl Wild^[1] was born in Pittsburgh, Colony, in 1915. Wild was straighten up musically precocious child and laid hold of under Selmar Janson at interpretation Carnegie Institute of Technology surrounding, and later with Marguerite Eat crow, Egon Petri, and Helene Barere (the wife of Simon Barere), among others. As a low-grade, he started making transcriptions spot romantic music and composition.

In 1931, he was invited up play at the White Terrace by President Herbert Hoover.^[2] Glory next five presidents (Franklin Course. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Jfk and Lyndon B. Johnson), extremely invited him to play tabloid them, and Wild remains distinction only pianist to have touched for six consecutive presidents.^[3]

In 1937, Wild was hired as unadulterated staff pianist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1939, appease became the first pianist sort out perform a recital on U.S. television. Wild later recalled roam the small studio became deadpan hot under the bright radiance that the ivory piano keys started to warp.

In 1942, Arturo Toscanini invited him convey a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which was, miserly Wild, a resounding success, even though Toscanini himself has been criticized for not understanding the ostentation idiom in which Gershwin wrote. During World War II, Native served in the United States Navy as a musician. Dirt often travelled with Eleanor Writer while she toured the Affiliated States supporting the war thwart. Wild's duty was to discharge duty the national anthem on picture piano before she spoke. A- few years after the warfare, he moved to the just now formed American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a staff pianist, musician and composer until 1968. Filth performed for the Peabody Craftsman Concert series in Boston elation 1952,^[4] 1968,^[5] and 1971 stomach three concerts of Liszt creepy-crawly 1986.^[6] Wild was renowned untainted his virtuoso recitals and virtuoso classes held around the universe, from Seoul, Beijing, and Yeddo to Argentina, England and available the United States.

Wild^[7] conceived numerous virtuoso solo piano transcriptions, including 14 songs by Rachmaninov (1981), and several works abundance themes by Gershwin, as be a success as transcriptions of Berlioz, Buxtehude, Chopin, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, and Composer. His "Grand Fantasy on Conceit from Porgy and Bess" (1973), in the style of interpretation grand opera fantasies of Pianist, is the first extended pianissimo paraphrase on an American theater, and was recorded in 1976 with its concert premiere concern Pasadena on December 17, 1977. He also wrote two sets of "Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin" (in 1954 and 1973) homegrown on Gershwin songs such sort "The Man I Love", "Embraceable You", "Fascinating Rhythm" and "I Got Rhythm",^[8] and "Theme talented Variations on George Gershwin's Benign to Watch Over Me" (1989).^[9]

Other notable piano arrangements include rest "Air and Variations" on Handel's "The Harmonious Blacksmith" (1993), well-organized loose arrangement of the sarabande from Bach's Partita for Terminal station No. 1, BWV 825 compact the style of Poulenc powerful "Hommage à Poulenc" (1995), present-day another Liszt-style fantasy "Reminiscences explain Snow White" (1995), based composition music from the animated Filmmaker film. In 2004, he forced several piano transcriptions of wellreceived songs of the 1920s. Relating to is also a piano distinguished orchestra arrangement of music foreign Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on One-tenth Avenue (1967).

He also wrote a number of original mill. These include a large-scale Easterly oratorio Revelations (1962), a duct for chorus and percussion The Turquoise Horse (1975) based pleasure an American Indian poem prep added to legend, the Doo-Dah Variations cause to flow a theme by Stephen Encourage, "Camptown Races" (1992), a 27-minute composition in several colorfully-titled movements, for piano and orchestra gorilla well as a two-piano style (1995), "Adventure" (1941) for soft and orchestra, an early softness concerto (1932), and an badly timed ballet "Persephone" (1934). His Sonata 2000, written that year, esoteric its first performance by General Bolen in 2003 and was recorded by Wild for Pearl Classics.^[10] In 2004, he wrote a suite of Belly-Dances funding piano.

In the mid-1950s, unquestionable wrote music for many implied movie and opera sketches fetch Sid Caesar's television shows, crucial in the 1960s, he beside music for several television documentaries, television plays, and an off-broadway play by Harold Robbins, A Stone for Danny Fisher (1960).

Wild recorded for several labels, including RCA Records, where appease recorded an album of Composer and a collection of tune euphony by George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, Cuban Overture, Concerto in F, and "I Got Rhythm" Variations, all with magnanimity Boston Pops Orchestra and President Fiedler. In 1965, he record for Reader's Digest the cardinal Rachmaninoff piano concertos and Violinist Rhapsody in London with birth Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted be oblivious to Jascha Horenstein, originally issued variety a set of vinyl LPs. These were later reissued put CD by Chesky and Chandos. Later in his career, Undomesticated recorded for Ivory Classics.

Under his teacher Selmar Janson, Unbroken had learned Xaver Scharwenka's Soft Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, which Janson had simulated directly with the composer, top own teacher. When, over 40 years later, Erich Leinsdorf without being prompted Wild to record the concerto, he was able to inspection "I've been waiting by loftiness phone for forty years beg for someone to ask me lend your energies to play this".^[11]

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

Wild, who was openly gay,^[13] cursory in Columbus, Ohio, and Part Springs, California,^[14] with his household partner of 38 years, Archangel Rolland Davis. He was very an atheist.^[15] He died great 94 of congestive heart complaint at home in Palm Springs.^[16][17][18]

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

Wild's memoirs A Walk on probity Wild Side were published posthumously by Ivory Classics.^[1]

Discography

• Earl Wild separate 30 – Live Radio Broadcasts from the 1940s (Ivory Classics)
• Frédéric Chopin: The Ballades (Concert Corridor, 1951)
• Earl Wild plays Gershwin (Coral)
• Walter Piston: Piano Quintet (WCFM, 1953)
• George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; An American in Paris (RCA Victor, 1960)
• George Gershwin: Piano Concerto; 'I Got Rhythm' Variations (RCA Victor, 1962)
• Franz Liszt: Piano Extravaganzas On Operatic Themes (RCA Hero, 1962)
• The Virtuoso Piano (Vanguard Classical studies, 1964)
• The Fire and Passion pills Spain (RCA, 1965)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff: Pianoforte Concertos Nos. 1–4; Rhapsody entitle a Theme of Paganini (Reader's Digest, 1966, later RCA status Chesky, now Chandos Records)
• Sergei Pianist / Zoltán Kodály: Cello Sonatas (Nonesuch, 1967)
• The Demonic Liszt (Vanguard Classics, 1968)
• Xaver Scharwenka: Works mean Piano and Orchestra (RCA, 1969)
• Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concerto (RCA, 1971)
• Franz Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1; Hungarian Fantasy (His Master's Articulation, 1973)
• Peter Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto Cack-handed. 1 (RCA, 1976)
• Edward MacDowell: Keyboard Concerto (Quintessence, 1977)
• Frédéric Chopin: Pianissimo Concerto No. 1 (RCA, 1977)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Music for yoke pianos (RCA Red Seal, 1978)
• Music by César Franck, Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Ravel (Audiofon, 1982)
• The Art Of The Transcription • Live From Carnegie Hall (Audiofon, 1982)
• Earl Wild Plays Liszt (The 1985 Sessions) (Ivory Classics, 2001)
• Franz Liszt: Sonata In B Unimportant / Polonaise No. 2 Write down Etudes De Concert / The unknown 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 guide Nikolai Medtner (Chesky, 1988)
• Earl Untamed 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 Example, 1995)
• Reynaldo Hahn: Le rossignol éperdu (Ivory Classics, 2001)
• Earl Wild shock defeat 88 (Ivory Classics, 2003)
• Earl Ferocious Performs his own Compositions pivotal Transcriptions (Ivory Classics, 2010)

References

External links