EARLWILD

ChopinScherzos

&Ballades

EARLWILD

YY

Original & Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland DavisOriginal & Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson

Piano Technician: Andrei Svetlichny

Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20 9:12

Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 8:55

Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39 6:38

Scherzo No. 4 in E Major, Op. 54 10:28

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 8:40

Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Op. 38 7:26

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47 6:54

Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 10:27

TOTAL TIME: 68:40

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EARL WILDFrederick Chopin

Scherzos & Ballades

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“Chopin’s works are canons buried among flowers.”

Robert Schumann, 1836

“After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping

over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were

not my own.”

Oscar Wilde, 1891

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Frederick Chopin (1810 - 1849)

Frederick Chopin

Scherzos & BalladesY

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Although there were forms of poetry in France as early as the twelfth century thatforeshadowed the ballade, it wasn’t until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that thegenre gained popularity. As it was common for these poems to be set to music, the evo-lution of the genre will be forever fused with the settings of various composers. Mostexemplifying the genre are the Forty-Two Ballades of Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377), a set primarily comprised of courtly love songs set polyphonically. It wasMachaut’s work that would set the stage for composers to follow and while future com-posers would begin to employ a great deal of contrapuntal and rhythmic intricacies intheir music, they retained Machaut’s original framework.

Considering the symbiotic relationship throughout history between the ballade asa literary work and the music it inspired, it was, no doubt, a surprise for audiences towitness the sudden emergence of the instrumental ballade during the middle of thenineteenth century. Chopin, Brahms, and Liszt composed the most notable examplesof the instrumental ballade, each work displaying varying degrees of reference to theliterary genre, sometimes explicit, sometimes only implied. In Chopin’s work, howev-er, the genre was wholly revolutionized to suit his own purposes: he was the first toaffix the title to a purely instrumental composition.

During his 1835 visit to Leipzig, Chopin related to Schumann that the first andsecond of his four ballades found their inspiration in the epic poetry of Polish nation-alist Adam Mickiewicz. Schumann remarked on Chopin’s visit by saying,

“We must direct attention to the ballade as a most remarkablework. Chopin has already written one composition of the samename [in G Minor] – one of his wildest and most original compo-sitions; the new one is different – as a work of art inferior to thefirst, but equally fantastic and inventive. Its impassioned episodes

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seem to have been inserted afterward. I recollect very well thatwhen Chopin played the ballade here, it ended in F Major; now itcloses in A Minor. At that time he also mentioned that certainpoems of Mickiewicz had suggested his ballade to him. On theother hand, a poet might easily be inspired to find words to hismusic; it stirs one profoundly.”

It is due to this comment more than any other, perhaps, that historians and musi-cologists extend such effort in assigning a specific program to each of the ballades. Onanother occasion Chopin indicated the his second ballade was inspired specifically byMickiewicz’s “Le Lac de Willis,” and it is generally agreed that this ballade, more thanany other, may in fact have been composed as a response to the poetry. What followsare Laurent Cellier’s summaries of Mickiewicz’s four poems from the program notes forAlfred Cortot’s historic recitals in 1924:

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor: “Conrad Wallenrod.” Intoxicatedat a banquet, Wallenrod hails the deeds of the Moors takingrevenge against the Spanish, their oppressors, infecting them withthe plague, leprosy, and other diseases they, the Moors, had vol-untarily contracted beforehand. Wallenrod hints to the astonishedguests that he, too, a Pole, is capable of causing death to his ene-mies with a fatal embrace.

Ballade No. 2 in F Major: “Switez.” The lake of the Willis,smooth as a sheet of ice, where the stars of night are mirrored, islocated near the site of a city once besieged by the Russians. Toavoid the shame that threatens them, young Polish girls ask God

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to let them be swallowed up by the earth, rather than be handedover to the conquerors. Their prayers are answered and the earthopens up under their feet. Changed into mysterious flowers, theyhenceforth ornament the shores of the lake: woe to whomevertouches them!

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major: “Ondine.” On the shores of alake, a young man pledges fidelity to a young girl. Doubting thefaithfulness of men, despite protestations of her lover, she disap-pears and returns in the bewitching form of a water sprite. Assoon as she tempts the young man, he succumbs to her charms.To expiate his sin, he is dragged to the bottom of the water andcondemned to a breathless pursuit of the sprite, whom he cannever catch.

Ballade No. 4 in F Minor: “The Three Budrys.” The threeBudry brothers are sent by their father on far-off adventures insearch of rich treasure. Autumn passes, then winter. The fatherbelieves that his sons have died in war. Amid blizzards of snow,however, they all return one by one, each bringing back a bride astheir his prize.

Chopin once said that there was “no music without motive.” Did the poetry ofMickiewicz provide Chopin with motive in the composition of the ballades? In today’smusical world, it is generally agreed that the ballade’s form (or “story,” if they have one)was solely the result of Chopin’s genius. Listeners will have to decide for themselves.

At the time of their composition, Chopin’s four ballades were considered to berather advanced. Performers of the day struggled with the broad technical challenges

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of the pieces and audiences interest continued to favor the salon music of his nocturnesand waltzes. It was with the four ballades, along with the four independent scherzos,that Chopin solidified his approach to the large-scale single-movement form. The bal-lades fit the classical-era sonata-form archetype, but favor highlighting thematic processby using variation to develop the musical ideas. Musicologist Edward T. Coneremarked that, “In most of these works Chopin uses an important device that I some-what extravagantly refer to as apotheosis: a special kind of recapitulation that revealsunexpected harmonic richness and textural excitement in a theme he previously pre-sented with a deliberately restricted harmonization and a relatively drab accompani-ment.” Much like that of the classical masters of the past, form does not dictateChopin’s music. Instead, Chopin’s music dictates form. It is enlightening to considerthat just as sonata-allegro form was shaped by music of Classical-era composers,Chopin’s material shapes his own work’s form with much the same result.

When compared, the ballades share more than a few common elements; they are,however, each an individual composition. Chopin had not intended for the four worksto comprise a cycle. One common element in all four ballades is the use of compound-duple meter; each work has a time signature that denotes two beats to a measure witheach beat subdivided into three.

Another common feature, at least among the minor key ballades, is the virtuosocoda. Highly anticipated in each recital by audiences and often dreaded by perform-ers, the coda in Chopin’s ballades abandon nearly any recognizable thematic content infavor of a wildly dramatic technical display that puts to rest all earlier dramatic conflict.When it comes to a Chopin ballade, audiences may love the work as a whole, but theyalways look forward to the frenzied excitement that concludes the work. There is a cer-tain danger in Chopin’s codas, but with danger comes excitement. Not unlike the clas-sic car chase or the witty verbal sparring between the two main characters of a

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Hollywood film, living “in the moment” of the coda is always a breathless, edge-of-your-seat experience.

Chopin was always met with difficulty in the publication of his music. The mostnotable example that pertains to the ballades relates to the first publication of theBallade No. 1 in G minor, opus 23. A misprint in the introduction of the work caused,apparently, some measure of controversy at the time. The note in question (a D or anE-flat) is found in the last chord of the introduction and while pianists today agree onthe E-flat, it wasn’t always such. Saint-Saëns comments on the suspect note, saying,

“This supposed E-flat gives a dolorous accent which is quitein keeping with the character of the piece. Was it a misprint? Wasit the original intention of the author? This note marks a disso-nant accent, and effect of surprise. But dissonances, sought outtoday like truffles, were then distrusted. From Liszt, whom I ques-tioned on the subject, I could only obtain this reply: ‘I prefer theE-flat.’ I concluded from this evasive response that Chopin, inplaying the ballade, sounded the D; but I am still convinced thatthe E-flat was his original idea and that cowardly and clumsyfriends persuaded him to the D.”

Today, these stories are interesting to relate, especially when an examination of theoriginal manuscript reveals that Chopin did indeed write an E-flat.

Chopin had trouble with the English publishers of his music from the very begin-ning. More interested in selling copies than in respecting an unknown foreign com-poser’s intent, they devised clever marketing devices surrounding these novel compo-sitions. Though it enraged Chopin, it was common practice for publishers, even in

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Beethoven’s time, to add decorative titles to works that would have otherwise had unin-teresting ones. Chopin’s Mazurkas became Souvenir de la Pologne, and the Nocturnesof Opus 9 and 37 were re-titled Murmures de la Seine and Les Soupirs, respectively (dur-ing Chopin’s 1848 visit to London he was often asked to perform his “Second Sigh”).His Scherzo in B Minor was described as Le Banquet infernal, the Ballade in G Minor asLa Favorite. Chopin was also disturbed by the discovery that many of these pieces hadbeen, at the publisher’s discretion, dedicated to famous London pianists and patrons.

Chopin composed both the ballades and scherzos around the same time, withina period of about eight years. Exact dates of the composition of the First Ballade andFirst Scherzo are unknown; it is generally agreed that they were both written around1834 or 1835. The Second Scherzo was composed between 1835-1837. 1839 saw thecomposition of both the Third Scherzo and the Second Ballade. Schumann, who wasgreatly impressed by Chopin’s First Ballade, is the dedicatee of the second; althoughSchumann always preferred the First Ballade, he was grateful for the dedication and, inreturn, dedicated his Kreisleriana to Chopin. Chopin composed the Third Ballade in1841; both the Fourth Ballade and Fourth Scherzo arrived the following year.

If one were to say that Chopin reinvented the ballade, one could also say that hereinvigorated the scherzo. Literally translated as “a joke,” the scherzo gained popular-ity in the late eighteenth century as a replacement for the minuet in multi-movementworks. Historically, the most significant developments in the scherzo were made byBeethoven, who established a kind of tradition surrounding the genre. In his maturesonatas, Chopin utilized the scherzo in much the same way as Beethoven, but he alsoadopted the genre as a single movement structure. Before Chopin, there were relative-ly few examples of the independent scherzo, a situation about which Chopin was mostlikely unaware.

The essence of the traditional scherzo remains, but Chopin saw much greater pos-

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sibilities in each of the form’s three sections (the scherzo, a central trio which wasretained from the baroque minuet, and a recapitulation of the scherzo). His music isin the standard triple meter, and he incorporates the use of sforzato and syncopatedaccents, much in the Beethoven tradition. Chopin, however, changed the tempo topresto (adding the description con fuoco to the Scherzos in B Minor and C-Sharp Minor)and he expanded both the scale and expressive possibilities of the genre. Whereas inBeethoven’s hands, the scherzo provided lighthearted relief from the more dramaticmovements of a larger work, Chopin transformed the scherzo into a powerful musicalstructure in its own right. Chopin’s scherzos were often dark with drama rather thantongue-in-cheek with humor (Chopin’s Fourth Scherzo did, however, have a playfulstreak).

Chopin, like many composers, felt not only the weight of his nationalistic music,but also that of his culture’s folk music. In the Scherzo in B Minor Chopin adapts aPolish Christmas carol, “Sleep, Little Jesus, Sleep, My Little Pearl,” as the theme for thecentral trio, setting to a bell-like accompaniment. The Second Scherzo in B-flat minor,the most popular among the four, was at one time popularly known as “TheGoverness.” Chopin’s Scherzo No. 3 in C-Sharp Minor was dedicated to his favoriteand one of his most exemplary pupils, Adolphe Gutmann; one might imagine the pro-ficiency required to perform the work’s famous octave passages. The Fourth Scherzoin E Major, the favorite of Saint-Saëns, is replete with unexpected harmonic twists andturns and has thus been compared to the more humorous music of Richard Strauss.

Chopin’s achievements in these pieces provided music literature with some of thegreatest gems of the first half of the nineteenth century, wherein he demonstrated thatit was possible to reconcile radically contrasted musical ideas through an organic adap-tation of the most traditional forms.

Christopher Weiss ©2005

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The final page of the Scherzo in E Major

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Measures 41-78 of the Scherzo in B-flat minor

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Earl Wild Biography

Earl Wild is a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition. Considered by many to

be the last of the great Romantic pianists, this eminent musician is known interna-

tionally as one of the last in a long line of great virtuoso pianist / composers. Often

heralded as a super virtuoso and one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest pianists, Earl

Wild has been a legendary figure, performing throughout the world for over eight

decades. Major recognition is something Mr. Wild has received numerous times in

his long career. He was included in the Philips Records series entitled The Great

Pianists of the 20th Century with a double disc devoted exclusively to piano tran-

scriptions. He has been featured in TIME Magazine on two separate occasions; the

most recent was in December of 2000 honoring his eighty-fifth birthday. One of

only a handful of living pianists to merit an entry in The New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, Mr. Wild is therein described as a pianist whose technique, “Is

able to encompass even the most difficult virtuoso works with apparent ease.”

Earl Wild was born on November 26, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a

child his parents would often play opera overtures (such as the one from Bellini’s

Norma) on their Edison phonograph. As the recordings were playing, the three year-

old Earl would go to the family piano, reach up to the keyboard, find the exact notes,

and play along in the same key. At this early age, he displayed the rare gift of absolute

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pitch. This and other feats labeled him as a child prodigy and led immediately to

piano lessons.

At six, he had a fluent technique and could read music easily. Before his twelfth

birthday, he was accepted as a pupil of the famous teacher Selmar Janson, who had

studied with Eugen d’Albert (1864-1932) and Xaver Scharwenka (1850-1924), both

students of the great virtuoso pianist / composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886). He was

then placed into a program for artistically gifted young people at Pittsburgh’s

Carnegie Tech (the Institute of Technology) – now Carnegie Mellon University.

Enrolled throughout Junior High, High School, and College, he graduated from

Carnegie Tech in 1937. By nineteen, he was a concert hall veteran.

Mr. Wild’s other teachers included the great Dutch pianist Egon Petri (1881-

1962), who was a student of Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924); the distinguished

French pianist Paul Doguereau (1909-2000), who was a pupil of Ignace Jan

Paderewski (1860-1941), Marguerite Long (1874-1966), studied the works of

Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy with Jean Roger-Ducasse (1873-1954 - a pupil of

Fauré’s), and was a friend and protégé of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Mr. Wild also

studied with Helene Barere, the wife of the famous Russian pianist, Simon Barere

(1896-1951), and studied with Volya Cossack, a pupil of Isidore Philippe (1863-

1958), who had studied with Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921).

As a teenager, Mr. Wild had already composed many works and piano tran-

scriptions as well as arrangements for chamber orchestra that were regularly per-

formed on the local radio station. He was invited at the age of twelve to perform on

radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh (the first radio station in the United States). He

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made such an impression that he was asked to work for the station on a regular basis

for the next eight years. Mr. Wild was only fourteen when he was hired to play Piano

and Celeste in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Otto

Klemperer.

With immense hands, absolute pitch, graceful stage presence, and an uncanny

facility as a sight-reader and improviser, Earl Wild was well equipped for a lifelong

career in music.

During this early teenage period of his career, Earl Wild gave a brilliant and crit-

ically well received performance of Liszt’s First Piano Concerto in E-flat with Dimitri

Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony in Pittsburgh’s Syria Mosque Hall.

He performed the work without the benefit of a rehearsal.

In 1937, he joined the NBC network in New York City as a staff pianist. This

position included not only the duties of playing solo piano and chamber recitals, but

also performing in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Arturo Toscanini.

In 1939, when NBC began transmitting its first commercial live musical telecasts, Mr.

Wild became the first artist to perform a piano recital on U.S. television. In 1942,

Toscanini made Earl Wild a household name when he invited him to be the soloist

in an NBC radio broadcast of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was the first perfor-

mance of the Rhapsody for both conductor and pianist, and although Mr. Wild had

not yet played any of Gershwin’s other compositions, he was immediately hailed as

the major interpreter of Gershwin’s music. The youngest (and only) American piano

soloist ever engaged by the NBC Symphony, Mr. Wild was a member of the orches-

tra, working for the NBC radio and television network from 1937 to 1944.

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During World War II, Mr. Wild served in the United States Navy as a musician,

playing 4th flute in the Navy Band. He performed numerous solo piano recitals at

the White House for President Roosevelt and played twenty-one piano concertos

with the U.S. Navy Symphony Orchestra at the Departmental Auditorium, National

Gallery, and other venues in Washington, D.C. During those two years in the Navy

he was frequently requested to accompany First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to her many

speaking engagements, where he performed the National Anthem as a prelude to her

speeches.

Upon leaving the Navy in 1944, Mr. Wild moved to the newly formed American

Broadcasting Company (ABC), where he was staff pianist, conductor, and composer

until 1968. During both his NBC and ABC affiliations he was also performing and

conducting many concert engagements around the world – at ABC he conducted and

performed many of his own compositions. In 1962, ABC commissioned him to

compose an Easter Oratorio. It was the first time that a television network subsidized

a major musical work. Earl Wild was assisted by tenor William Lewis, who wrote

the libretto and sang the role of St. John in the production. Mr. Wild’s composition,

Revelations was a religious work based on the apocalyptic visions of St. John the

Divine. Mr. Wild also conducted its world premiere telecast in 1962, which blend-

ed dance, music, song, and theatrical staging. The large-scale oratorio was sung by

four soloists and chorus and was written in three sections: Seal of Wisdom, The

Seventh Angel, and The New Day. The first telecast was so successful that it was

entirely restaged and rebroadcast on TV again in 1964.

Another composition by Mr. Wild, a choral work based on an American Indian

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folk legend titled The Turquoise Horse, was commissioned by the Palm Springs

Desert Museum for the official opening and dedication ceremonies of their

Annenberg Theater on January 11, 1976.

On September 26, 1992, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra with Joseph

Giunta Conducting gave the world premiere of Earl Wild’s composition Variations on

a Theme of Stephen Foster for Piano and Orchestra (‘Doo-Dah’ Variations) with Mr. Wild

as the soloist. The composition was recorded a year later with the same orchestra

and conductor.

Pianist / composer Earl Wild wrote this set of variations using Stephen Foster’s

American Song Camptown Races as the theme. The melody is the same length as the

famous Paganini Caprice theme that Rachmaninoff used in his Rhapsody on a Theme

by Paganini and that Brahms used in his set of Variations for piano solo. Mr. Wild

thus became the first virtuoso pianist / composer to perform his own piano concer-

to since Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Earl Wild has participated in many premieres. In 1944 on NBC radio, he per-

formed the Western World premiere of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in E minor. In

France, he was soloist in the world premiere performance of Paul Creston’s Piano

Concerto in 1949. He gave the American premiere of the work with the National

Symphony in Washington, D.C. In December of 1970, with Sir Georg Solti and the

Chicago Symphony, Mr. Wild gave the world premiere of Marvin David Levy’s Piano

Concerto, a work specially composed for him.

Mr. Wild has appeared with nearly every orchestra and performed countless

recitals in virtually every country. In the past eighty-nine years he has collaborated

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with many eminent conductors including; Toscanini, Stokowski, Reiner, Klemperer,

Horenstein, Leinsdorf, Fiedler, Mitropoulos, Grofe, Ormandy, Sargent, Dorati,

Maazel, Solti, Copland, and Schippers. Additionally, Earl Wild has performed with

violinists: Mischa Elman, Oscar Shumsky, Ruggerio Ricci, Mischa Mischakoff, and

Joseph Gingold; violists: William Primrose and Emanuel Vardi; cellists: Leonard

Rose, Harvey Shapiro, and Frank Miller: and vocalists: Maria Callas, Jenny Tourel,

Lily Pons, Marguerite Matzenauer, Dorothy Maynor, Lauritz Melchior, Robert Merrill,

Mario Lanza, Jan Peerce, Zinka Milanov, Grace Bumbry, and Evelyne Lear.

Highlights include a March 1974 joint recital with Maria Callas as a benefit for

the Dallas Opera Company and a duo recital with famed mezzo-soprano Jennie

Tourel in New York City in 1975.

Mr. Wild has had the unequaled honor of being requested to perform for six

consecutive Presidents of the United States, beginning with President Herbert

Hoover in 1931. In 1961 he was soloist with the National Symphony at the inau-

guration ceremonies of President John F. Kennedy in Constitution Hall.

In 1960, at the Santa Fe Opera, Earl Wild conducted the first seven performances

of Verdi’s La Traviata ever performed in that theatre, as well as conducting four per-

formances of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi on a double bill with Igor Stravinsky (who con-

ducted his own opera Oedipus Rex). From 1952 to 1956 Mr. Wild worked with come-

dian Sid Caesar on the popular TV program The Caesar Hour. During those years, he

composed and performed all the solo piano backgrounds in the silent movie skits. He

also composed most of the musical parodies and burlesques on operas that were so

innovative that they have now become gems of early live television.

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A common element among the great pianists of the past and Earl Wild is the art

of composing piano transcriptions. Mr. Wild has taken a place in history as a direct

descendant of the golden age of the art of writing piano transcriptions.

Earl Wild has been called “The finest transcriber of our time.” Mr. Wild’s piano

transcriptions are widely known and respected. Over the years they have been per-

formed and recorded by pianists worldwide.

It was in 1976 that Mr. Wild wrote his now famous piano transcriptions based

on George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess and revised his Virtuoso Etudes based on

popular songs I Got Rhythm, Somebody Loves Me, Liza, Embraceable You, Fascinatin’

Rhythm, The Man I Love, and Oh, Lady be Good. In 1989 he also composed an impro-

visation for solo piano based on Gershwin’s Someone To Watch Over Me in the form of

a Theme and Three Variations and included it on his 1989 CD “Earl Wild plays his

Transcriptions of Gershwin.”

Mr. Wild originally wrote six of his Virtuoso Etudes based on Gershwin songs

in the late 1950’s, all of which were revised in 1976 (Etude No.3 The Man I Love was

originally written for left hand alone). He wrote a seventh Etude (Fascinatin’ Rhythm)

in 1976.

In 1981 Mr. Wild composed thirteen piano transcriptions from a selected group

of Rachmaninoff songs: Floods of Spring, Midsummer Nights, The Little Island, Where

Beauty Dwells, In the Silent Night, Vocalise, On the Death of a Linnet, The Muse, O, Cease

Thy Singing, To the Children, Dreams, Sorrow in Springtime, and Do not Grieve.

In 1982, Mr. Wild recorded twelve of these Rachmaninoff song transcriptions

for dell’Arte Records. In 1991, four of his transcriptions (Vocalise, Floods of Spring, In

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the Silent Night and Do not Grieve) were also recorded for Chesky Records.

In 1986, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Franz

Liszt, Earl Wild was awarded a Liszt Medal by the People’s Republic of Hungary in

recognition of his long and devoted association with this great composer’s music.

Also in 1986 Mr. Wild was asked to participate in a television documentary

titled “Wild about Liszt,” which was filmed at Wynyard, the Marques of Londonderry’s

family estate in Northern England. The program won the British Petroleum Award

for best musical documentary that year.

Liszt is a composer who has been closely associated with Mr. Wild throughout

his long career as he has been performing Liszt recitals for over fifty years. In New

York City in 1961, he gave a monumental solo Liszt recital celebrating the 150th

anniversary of Liszt’s birth. More recently in 1986, honoring the 100th anniversary

of Liszt’s death, he gave a series of three different recitals titled Liszt the Poet, Liszt the

Transcriber, and Liszt the Virtuoso in New York’s Carnegie Hall and many other recital

halls throughout the world. Championing composers such as Liszt long before they

were “fashionable” is part of the foundation on which Mr. Wild has built his long and

successful career.

He has also given numerous performances of works by neglected Nineteenth

Century composers such as: Nikolai Medtner, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Xaver

Scharwenka, Karl Tausig, Mily Balakirev, Eugen d’Albert, Moriz Moszkowski,

Reynaldo Hahn and countless others.

In addition to pursuing his own concert and composing career, Earl Wild has

actively supported young musicians all his life. He has taught classes in the Central

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Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Toho-Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, and the

Sun Wha School in Seoul, as well as numerous master classes in US cities and all over

the world.

Mr. Wild has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School of Music, University of

Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, Penn State University, Manhattan School of

Music and The Ohio State University. He currently holds the title of Distinguished

Visiting Artist at his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, a position

her has held for the last 13 years.

In 1996, Carnegie Mellon honored Mr. Wild with their Alumni Merit Award and

in the fall of 2000 they further honored him with their more prestigious

Distinguished Achievement Award.

In 1978, at the suggestion of Wolf Trap’s founder and benefactor Mrs. Jouett

Shouse, Earl Wild created the Concert Soloists of Wolf Trap, a chamber music ensem-

ble based in Vienna, Virginia at the famous National Park for the Performing Arts

(Wolf Trap Farm Park). Mr. Wild’s idea in forming the Concert Soloists was to com-

bine mature seasoned performers with talented young musicians. Other Wolf Trap

members included violinists: Oscar Shumsky, Aaron Rosand, Lynn Chang and David

Kim; cellists: Charles Curtis and Peter Wyrick; harpist Gloria Agostini; guitarist Eliot

Fisk; and flutist Gary Schocker. Mr. Wild served not only as the group’s founder but

also as artistic director and pianist until 1982.

Mr. Wild is also one of today’s most recorded pianists, having made his first

recording in 1939 for RCA. Since 1939, he has recorded with over twenty different

record labels. Some of the labels include: CBS, RCA / BMG, Vanguard, EMI,

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Nonesuch, Readers Digest, Stradavari, Heliodor, Varsity, dell’Arte, Whitehall,

Etcetera, Chesky, Elan, Sony Classical, Philips, and IVORY CLASSICS.

His discography of recorded works includes more than 35 piano concertos, 26

chamber works, and over 700 solo piano pieces. Today at the age of eighty-nine, he

still continues to perform concerts and records at least one new disc per year.

In 1997, he received a GRAMMY Award for a disc devoted entirely to virtuoso

piano transcriptions titled Earl Wild - The Romantic Master (an 80th Birthday Tribute).

The thirteen piano transcriptions on this disc comprise a wide range of composers

including: Handel, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, J. Strauss Jr., Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff,

Kreisler, Fauré, and Saint-Saëns. Of these thirteen transcriptions, nine have been

written by Mr. Wild and eight were world premiere recordings. This disc is now

available in its original HDCD encoded sound on Ivory Classics (CD-70907).

For the first official release of the newly formed IVORY CLASSICS label in 1997,

Earl Wild recorded the complete Chopin Nocturnes (CD-70701), which the eminent

New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg reviewed in the American Record Guide

saying, “These are the best version of the Nocturnes ever recorded.” Since its incep-

tion, IVORY CLASSICS has released twenty-three new or re-released performances

featuring Earl Wild.

In May of 2003 the eighty-eight year-old Dean of the Piano recorded a new CD

of solo material he had never recorded before. He recorded on the new limited edi-

tion Shigeru Kawai Concert Grand EX piano, the disc includes Mr. Wild’s piano tran-

scription of Marcello’s Adagio, Mozart’s Sonata in F Major K. 332, Beethoven’s Thirty-

Two Variations in C minor, Balakirev’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in B-flat minor, Chopin’s Four

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Impromptus, and Mr. Wild’s piano transcription of the Mexican Hat Dance (Jarabe

Tapatio). This disc was released in November of 2003 by IVORY CLASSICS titled,

Earl Wild at 88 on the 88’s (CD-73005).

Earl Wild’s lengthy career as a performing artist began long before his initial

Ivory Classics release in 1997; many of his recordings were made available in the CD

format by Chesky Records as either an original release or re-release. These discs

included Mr. Wild’s historic 1965 recordings of Rachmaninoff’s complete piano con-

certos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Other Chesky releases which feature

Mr. Wild appearing as soloist with orchestra include the piano and orchestra works

of: Chopin, Dohnányi (Variations), Fauré, Grieg, Liszt, MacDowell, Saint-Saëns, and

Tchaikovsky.

Ivory Classics is proud to present several newly remastered CDs featuring Mr.

Wild’s performances of some of the world’s greatest repertoire for solo piano. These

re-releases began with “Earl Wild’s Legendary Rachmaninoff Song Transcriptions”

and includes this disc of Chopin’s Scherzos and Ballades. In the next year or so,

Ivory Classics intends to re-release Mr. Wild’s recordings of the following works:

Beethoven’s Pathetique, Moonlight, and Hammerklavier Sonatas; Chopin’s Etudes, Op.

10 and Op. 25; various solo works by Nicolai Medtner; and Rachmaninoff’s Variations

on a Theme by Chopin, Variations on a Theme by Corelli, Complete Preludes, Op. 23, and

Op. 32, and the Piano Sonata No. 2. Ivory Classics is also looking forward to re-

releasing Mr. Wild’s own composition Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster for Piano

and Orchestra (“Doo-Dah” Variations) originally recorded in 1992. Each of these

original digital recordings will be remastered utilizing the latest 24-bit technology

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and will feature new artwork, rare photographs, and insightful liner notes.

In the summer of 2005 Ivory Classics will release a new disc celebrating Earl

Wild’s ninetieth birthday! For this special occasion, Mr. Wild has selected to record

repertoire by Bach, Scriabin, Franck and Schumann (CD-75002).

In 2005, Earl Wild will also be celebrating his ninetieth birthday by performing

recitals in many U.S. cities as well as in Paris and Amsterdam. This tour will culmi-

nate with an official birthday recital at Carnegie Hall in New York City on November

29, 2005.

Mr. Wild is currently working on his memoirs which he hopes to publish in 2006.

Mr. Wild’s numerous piano transcriptions are published by

Michael Rolland Davis Productions, ASCAP

Available on line: www.EarlWild.com

By e-mail: mrdavisprod@sprintmail.com

By telephone: 614.761.8709

Mr. Wild’s personal website is: www.EarlWild.com

Y

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Earl Wild on Ivory ClassicsAll Ivory Classics releases are state-of-the-art 24-bit HDCD encoded

EARL WILD plays Brahms (CD - 72008) (DDD)

Sonata No. 3 in F minor Op. 5Paganini Variations (Books I & II)

EARL WILD - Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions1997 GRAMMY® Award (CD - 70907) (DDD)

Bach, Handel, Saint-Saëns, Chopin, Rachmaninov,Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Faure, J. Strauss Jr., and hisFantasy on Snow White.

EARL WILD - Reynaldo Hahn 53 poèmes for piano (2 - CDs - 72006) (DDD)

EARL WILD plays Liszt - The 1985 Sessions (2 - CDs - 72001) (DDD)

Dante Sonata, Sonata in B minor, Ballade No. 2, Three Sonetti del Petrarca, Les jèux d’eau à la Villad’Este, Liebesträume Nos. 2 & 3, Un Sospiro,Funérailles and Fantasia & Fugue in G minor.

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EARL WILD - 20th & 21st Century PianoSonatas (CD - 71005) (DDD)

Barber Sonata, Hindemith Sonata, Stravinsky Sonataand Earl Wild Sonata 2000.

The Virtuosity of EARL WILD(2 - CDs - 70901) (DDD & ADD)

Liszt, Dohnányi, Moszkowski, d’Albert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Paganini, Schubert, Schumann and Tchaikowsky.

EARL WILD plays Beethoven (CD - 70905) (DDD)

Sonata Op. 10, No. 3Sonata Op. 57 (Appassionata)Beethoven/Liszt - Symphony No. 1

EARL WILD plays Liszt in Concert(CD - 73002) (ADD)

Recitals in London - 1973, Chicago - 1979 and Tokyo - 1983. La Leggierezza, Un Sospiro,Transcendental Etudes, Funérailles, Valse Oubliee,Hungarian Rhapsody No. 4.

EARL WILD - Historic Gershwin (CD - 70702) (ADD)

1945 Rhapsody in Blue (Paul Whiteman, Cond.), 7 Virtuoso Etudes and Fantasy on Porgy and Bess.

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EARL WILD - Complete Chopin Nocturnes (2 - CDs - 70701) (DDD)

EARL WILD Goes To The Movies (CD - 70801) (ADD)Rodgers Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Rozsa’sSpellbound Concerto, Steiner’s Symphonie Moderneand Mozart Concerto No. 21 (Elvira Madigan).

EARL WILD - Rachmaninoff Songs (CD - 74001) (DDD)

Earls Wild’s piano transcriptions have been expertlyremastered in state-of-the-art HDCD encoded sound. Discalso includes additional bonus tracks from live material.

EARL WILD plays Spanish and French Gems(CD - 70805) (ADD)

Albeniz, Granados, Falla, Mompou, Ravel, Moszkowski and Debussy.

EARL WILD AT 30 (CD - 74003) (ADD)Live Radio Broadcasts from the 1940’s by a young 30-year-old legendary virtuoso of the keyboard. RadioBroadcasts from NBC and ABC in New York City ofrare performances of Scarlatti, Daquin, Mussorgsky,MacDowell, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Chopin andan absolutely staggering Liszt Piano Sonata.

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CREDITS

Recorded in Fernleaf Abbey, Columbus, Ohio, May 7-10, 1990

20-bit State-of-the-Art Original recording.Remastered at 24-bit using the SADiE Artemis

High Resolution digital workstation.

Original and Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Original and Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson

Piano Technician: Andrei Svetlichny - Baldwin Piano

Liner Notes: Christopher Weiss

Photos of Earl Wild courtesy of Michael Rolland Davis

Design: Samskara, Inc.

To place an order or to be included on our mailing list:Ivory Classics® • P.O. Box 341068 • Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068

Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799michaeldavis@ivoryclassics.com • For easy and convenient

shopping online, please visit our website: www.IvoryClassics.com