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Earl Wild

April 11, 2024

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

Earl Wild in 1978

Biography edit

Royland Earl Wild[1] was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1915. Wild was a musically precocious child and studied under Selmar Janson at the Carnegie Institute of Technology there, and later with Marguerite Long, Egon Petri, and Helene Barere (the wife of Simon Barere), among others. As a teenager, he started making transcriptions of romantic music and composition.

In 1931, he was invited to play at the White House by President Herbert Hoover.[2] The next five presidents (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson), also invited him to play for them, and Wild remains the only pianist to have played for six consecutive presidents.[3]

In 1937, Wild was hired as a staff pianist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1939, he became the first pianist to perform a recital on U.S. television. Wild later recalled that the small studio became so hot under the bright lights that the ivory piano keys started to warp.

In 1942, Arturo Toscanini invited him for a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which was, for Wild, a resounding success, although Toscanini himself has been criticized for not understanding the jazz idiom in which Gershwin wrote. During World War II, Wild served in the United States Navy as a musician. He often travelled with Eleanor Roosevelt while she toured the United States supporting the war effort. Wild's duty was to perform the national anthem on the piano before she spoke. A few years after the war, he moved to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a staff pianist, conductor and composer until 1968. He performed for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston in 1952,[4] 1968,[5] and 1971 and three concerts of Liszt in 1986.[6] Wild was renowned for his virtuoso recitals and master classes held around the world, from Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo to Argentina, England and throughout the United States.

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

Other notable piano 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 No. 1, BWV 825 in the style of Poulenc entitled "Hommage à Poulenc" (1995), and another Liszt-style fantasy "Reminiscences of Snow White" (1995), based on music from the animated Disney film. In 2004, he made several piano transcriptions of popular songs of the 1920s. There is also a piano and orchestra arrangement of music from Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1967).

He also wrote a number of original works. These include a large-scale Easter oratorio Revelations (1962), a work for chorus and percussion The Turquoise Horse (1975) based on an American Indian poem and legend, the Doo-Dah Variations on a theme by Stephen Foster, "Camptown Races" (1992), a 27-minute composition in several colorfully-titled movements, for piano and orchestra as well as a two-piano version (1995), "Adventure" (1941) for piano and orchestra, an early piano concerto (1932), and an early ballet "Persephone" (1934). His Sonata 2000, written that year, had its first performance by Bradley Bolen in 2003 and was recorded by Wild for Ivory Classics.[10] In 2004, he wrote a suite of Belly-Dances for piano.

In the mid-1950s, he wrote music for many silent movie and opera sketches for Sid Caesar's television shows, and in the 1960s, he composed 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 he recorded an album of Liszt and a collection of music by George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, Cuban Overture, Concerto in F, and "I Got Rhythm" Variations, all with the Boston Pops Orchestra and Arthur Fiedler. In 1965, he recorded for Reader's Digest the four Rachmaninoff piano concertos and Paganini Rhapsody in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein, originally issued as a set of vinyl LPs. These were later reissued on CD by Chesky and Chandos. Later in his career, Wild recorded for Ivory Classics.

Under his teacher Selmar Janson, Wild had learned Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, which Janson had studied directly with the composer, his own teacher. When, over 40 years later, Erich Leinsdorf asked Wild to record the concerto, he was able to say "I've been waiting by the phone for forty years for someone to ask me to play this".[11]

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

Wild, who was openly gay,[13] lived in Columbus, Ohio, and Palm Springs, California,[14] with his domestic partner of 38 years, Michael Rolland Davis. He was also an atheist.[15] He died aged 94 of congestive heart disease at home in 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 Wild Side were published posthumously by Ivory Classics.[1]

Discography edit

  • Earl Wild at 30 – Live Radio Broadcasts from the 1940s (Ivory Classics)
  • Frédéric Chopin: The Ballades (Concert Hall, 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 Victor, 1962)
  • The Virtuoso Piano (Vanguard Classics, 1964)
  • The Fire and Passion of Spain (RCA, 1965)
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1–4; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Reader's Digest, 1966, later RCA and Chesky, now Chandos Records)
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff / Zoltán Kodály: Cello Sonatas (Nonesuch, 1967)
  • The Demonic Liszt (Vanguard Classics, 1968)
  • Xaver Scharwenka: Works for Piano and Orchestra (RCA, 1969)
  • Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concerto (RCA, 1971)
  • Franz Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1; Hungarian Fantasy (His Master's Voice, 1973)
  • Peter Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (RCA, 1976)
  • Edward MacDowell: Piano Concerto (Quintessence, 1977)
  • Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 (RCA, 1977)
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Music for two 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 Minor / Polonaise No. 2 / 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 at 88 (Ivory Classics, 2003)
  • Earl Wild Performs his own Compositions and Transcriptions (Ivory Classics, 2010)

References edit

  1. ^ a b Wild, Earl (2011). A Walk on the Wild Side. Ivory Classics Foundation. ISBN 978-0-578-07469-6.
  2. ^ . W.earlwild.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2013-03-22.
  3. ^ Nicholas, Jeremy (February 3, 2010). "Earl Wild obituary". Theguardian.com.
  4. ^ Boston Herald, 6-Mar-1952, Rudolph Elie, "Earl Wild"
  5. ^ The Tech, 5-Nov-1968, Steven Shladover, "Earl Wild play a Russian program", Cambridge
  6. ^ Christian Science Monitor, 18-Feb-1971, Louis Snyder, "Earl Wild's Liszt – Musica Viva's moderns", Boston
  7. ^ Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p.51. ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0.
  8. ^ Liner notes to the world premiere recording. Pickwick Records.
  9. ^ Published by Michael Rolland Davis Productions.
  10. ^ . Archived from the original on August 21, 2008.
  11. ^ [1] [dead link]
  12. ^ "Grammy-winning Composer Wild Dies". Contactmusic.com. January 25, 2010.
  13. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (November 27, 2005). "90? Who's 90? Just Give Him a Piano". The New York Times.
  14. ^ . Earlwild.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
  15. ^ "He is against pianists who express concentration by leaning their heads back with their eyes closed: "When you give a recital, God doesn't help you." (Wild claims to be an atheist largely for musical reasons, having at age ten asked his mother how there could be a God when the organist at their local church in Pittsburgh was so lousy.)" Leo Carey interviewing Wild, 'Wilding', The New Yorker, August 11, 2003 (accessed June 10, 2008)
  16. ^ . Ivoryclassics.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-20. Retrieved 2010-01-23.
  17. ^ "Earl Wild Official Web Site". Earlwild.com.
  18. ^ Kozinn, Allan (January 23, 2010). "Earl Wild, Pianist, Dies at 94". The New York Times.
  19. ^ Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, Simon & Schuster, 1963/1987

External links edit

  • Earl Wild's web page
  • About the pianist
  • Earl Wild's biography
  • About the pianist
  • Earl Wild – Daily Telegraph obituary
  • David Dubal interview with Earl Wild (1 of 2) on YouTube, WNCN-FM, 14-Nov-1980
  • David Dubal interview with Earl Wild (2 of 2) on YouTube, WNCN-FM, 21-Nov-1980
  • David Dubal interview with Earl Wild on YouTube, WNCN-FM, 9-Feb-1986
  • Interview with Earl Wild by Bruce Duffie, March 9, 1989
  • Earl Wild collections at the University of Maryland Libraries

April 11, 2024
earl, wild, november, 1915, january, 2010, american, pianist, known, transcriptions, jazz, classical, music, 1978, contents, biography, discography, references, external, linksbiography, editroyland, born, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, 1915, wild, musically, preco. Earl Wild November 26 1915 January 23 2010 was an American pianist known for his transcriptions of jazz and classical music Earl Wild in 1978 Contents 1 Biography 2 Discography 3 References 4 External linksBiography editRoyland Earl Wild 1 was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1915 Wild was a musically precocious child and studied under Selmar Janson at the Carnegie Institute of Technology there and later with Marguerite Long Egon Petri and Helene Barere the wife of Simon Barere among others As a teenager he started making transcriptions of romantic music and composition In 1931 he was invited to play at the White House by President Herbert Hoover 2 The next five presidents Franklin D Roosevelt Harry S Truman Dwight D Eisenhower John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson also invited him to play for them and Wild remains the only pianist to have played for six consecutive presidents 3 In 1937 Wild was hired as a staff pianist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra In 1939 he became the first pianist to perform a recital on U S television Wild later recalled that the small studio became so hot under the bright lights that the ivory piano keys started to warp In 1942 Arturo Toscanini invited him for a performance of Gershwin s Rhapsody in Blue which was for Wild a resounding success although Toscanini himself has been criticized for not understanding the jazz idiom in which Gershwin wrote During World War II Wild served in the United States Navy as a musician He often travelled with Eleanor Roosevelt while she toured the United States supporting the war effort Wild s duty was to perform the national anthem on the piano before she spoke A few years after the war he moved to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company ABC as a staff pianist conductor and composer until 1968 He performed for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston in 1952 4 1968 5 and 1971 and three concerts of Liszt in 1986 6 Wild was renowned for his virtuoso recitals and master classes held around the world from Seoul Beijing and Tokyo to Argentina England and throughout the United States Wild 7 created numerous virtuoso solo piano transcriptions including 14 songs by Rachmaninoff 1981 and several works on themes by Gershwin as well as transcriptions of Berlioz Buxtehude Chopin Faure Saint Saens and Tchaikovsky His Grand Fantasy on Airs from Porgy and Bess 1973 in the style of the grand opera fantasies of Liszt is the first extended piano paraphrase on an American opera and was recorded in 1976 with its concert premiere in Pasadena on December 17 1977 He also wrote two sets of Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin in 1954 and 1973 based on Gershwin songs such as The Man I Love Embraceable You Fascinating Rhythm and I Got Rhythm 8 and Theme and Variations on George Gershwin s Someone to Watch Over Me 1989 9 Other notable piano 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 No 1 BWV 825 in the style of Poulenc entitled Hommage a Poulenc 1995 and another Liszt style fantasy Reminiscences of Snow White 1995 based on music from the animated Disney film In 2004 he made several piano transcriptions of popular songs of the 1920s There is also a piano and orchestra arrangement of music from Richard Rodgers Slaughter on Tenth Avenue 1967 He also wrote a number of original works These include a large scale Easter oratorio Revelations 1962 a work for chorus and percussion The Turquoise Horse 1975 based on an American Indian poem and legend the Doo Dah Variations on a theme by Stephen Foster Camptown Races 1992 a 27 minute composition in several colorfully titled movements for piano and orchestra as well as a two piano version 1995 Adventure 1941 for piano and orchestra an early piano concerto 1932 and an early ballet Persephone 1934 His Sonata 2000 written that year had its first performance by Bradley Bolen in 2003 and was recorded by Wild for Ivory Classics 10 In 2004 he wrote a suite of Belly Dances for piano In the mid 1950s he wrote music for many silent movie and opera sketches for Sid Caesar s television shows and in the 1960s he composed 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 he recorded an album of Liszt and a collection of music by George Gershwin including Rhapsody in Blue Cuban Overture Concerto in F and I Got Rhythm Variations all with the Boston Pops Orchestra and Arthur Fiedler In 1965 he recorded for Reader s Digest the four Rachmaninoff piano concertos and Paganini Rhapsody in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein originally issued as a set of vinyl LPs These were later reissued on CD by Chesky and Chandos Later in his career Wild recorded for Ivory Classics Under his teacher Selmar Janson Wild had learned Xaver Scharwenka s Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat minor which Janson had studied directly with the composer his own teacher When over 40 years later Erich Leinsdorf asked Wild to record the concerto he was able to say I ve been waiting by the phone for forty years for someone to ask me to play this 11 In 1997 he was the first pianist to stream a performance over the Internet 12 Wild who was openly gay 13 lived in Columbus Ohio and Palm Springs California 14 with his domestic partner of 38 years Michael Rolland Davis He was also an atheist 15 He died aged 94 of congestive heart disease at home in 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 Wild Side were published posthumously by Ivory Classics 1 Discography editEarl Wild at 30 Live Radio Broadcasts from the 1940s Ivory Classics Frederic Chopin The Ballades Concert Hall 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 Victor 1962 The Virtuoso Piano Vanguard Classics 1964 The Fire and Passion of Spain RCA 1965 Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos Nos 1 4 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Reader s Digest 1966 later RCA and Chesky now Chandos Records Sergei Rachmaninoff Zoltan Kodaly Cello Sonatas Nonesuch 1967 The Demonic Liszt Vanguard Classics 1968 Xaver Scharwenka Works for Piano and Orchestra RCA 1969 Ignacy Paderewski Piano Concerto RCA 1971 Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 Hungarian Fantasy His Master s Voice 1973 Peter Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 RCA 1976 Edward MacDowell Piano Concerto Quintessence 1977 Frederic Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 RCA 1977 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Music for two pianos RCA Red Seal 1978 Music by Cesar Franck Gabriel Faure 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 Minor Polonaise No 2 Etudes De Concert Transcendental Etudes Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos 4 12 amp 2 Etcetera 1986 Earl Wild Plays Beethoven dell Arte 1986 Gabriel Faure Cello Sonatas dell Arte 1986 Franz Liszt Transcriptions amp 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 amp 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 eperdu Ivory Classics 2001 Earl Wild at 88 Ivory Classics 2003 Earl Wild Performs his own Compositions and Transcriptions Ivory Classics 2010 References edit a b Wild Earl 2011 A Walk on the Wild Side Ivory Classics Foundation ISBN 978 0 578 07469 6 Earl Wild Official Web Site W earlwild com Archived from the original on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2013 03 22 Nicholas Jeremy February 3 2010 Earl Wild obituary Theguardian com Boston Herald 6 Mar 1952 Rudolph Elie Earl Wild The Tech 5 Nov 1968 Steven Shladover Earl Wild play a Russian program Cambridge Christian Science Monitor 18 Feb 1971 Louis Snyder Earl Wild s Liszt Musica Viva s moderns Boston Jean Pierre Thiollet 88 notes pour piano solo Solo nec plus ultra Neva Editions 2015 p 51 ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0 Liner notes to the world premiere recording Pickwick Records Published by Michael Rolland Davis Productions MSR Classics Archived from the original on August 21 2008 1 dead link Grammy winning Composer Wild Dies Contactmusic com January 25 2010 Tommasini Anthony November 27 2005 90 Who s 90 Just Give Him a Piano The New York Times Earl Wild Official Web Site Earlwild com Archived from the original on 2016 03 03 Retrieved 2008 09 09 He is against pianists who express concentration by leaning their heads back with their eyes closed When you give a recital God doesn t help you Wild claims to be an atheist largely for musical reasons having at age ten asked his mother how there could be a God when the organist at their local church in Pittsburgh was so lousy Leo Carey interviewing Wild Wilding The New Yorker August 11 2003 accessed June 10 2008 Catalog of Releases Ivory Classics Online Ivoryclassics com Archived from the original on 2019 12 20 Retrieved 2010 01 23 Earl Wild Official Web Site Earlwild com Kozinn Allan January 23 2010 Earl Wild Pianist Dies at 94 The New York Times Harold C Schonberg The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present Simon amp Schuster 1963 1987External links editThis article s use of external links may not follow Wikipedia s policies or guidelines Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references April 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message Earl Wild s web page About the pianist Earl Wild s biography About the pianist Earl Wild Daily Telegraph obituary David Dubal interview with Earl Wild 1 of 2 on YouTube WNCN FM 14 Nov 1980 David Dubal interview with Earl Wild 2 of 2 on YouTube WNCN FM 21 Nov 1980 David Dubal interview with Earl Wild on YouTube WNCN FM 9 Feb 1986 Interview with Earl Wild by Bruce Duffie March 9 1989 Earl Wild collections at the University of Maryland Libraries Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Earl Wild amp oldid 1218368927, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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