Earl Wild

[papeetepatrick]

He was an interesting and funny man, I worked with him briefly at Juilliard, when I thought I might change teachers (from Beveridge Webster) for my Master's Degree year. I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't, but he was quite loose-tongued and gossipy about everything we talked about. He told me, re Charles Ives "oh, I consider him a PRIMITIVE". He taught later at Manhattan School of Music, which is not quite so prestitgious, and told everybody he did so because 'they pay'.

Long before I ever knew I'd know him, I was crazy about an LP with his 'Concerto in F' of Gershwin, which I thought full of energy and brio. Later, but before I ever met him, I'd hear concerts at Carnegie Hall, and he was always big on the encore-charmers. My teacher at the time, Ilona Kabos, a marvelous Hungarian, said "Oh, dah-link, I left. I couldn't STAHND eet!" and so I reported the rest of the program. Ilona said "oh yes, he al-vays likes to do zee leetle bonbons"

He was much older than I thought he was, having had silver hair, somewhat like Steve Martin, at an early-ish age.

[dirac]

Thanks so much for posting this, papeetepatrick. Bad news, but at least he enjoyed a long life.

[ballet_n00b]

I quite like his Gershwin concerto (incidentally a favourite of mine), he made lots of changes in the orchestration although most are quite innocuous. His transcriptions of Gershwin and Rachmaninoff are also pretty good. He did like to play a lot of "frivolous" music but he did it well. He was always good for a quote such as "Lang Lang is the JLo of piano" and (my personal favourite) "Banging is for the bedroom".

[leonid17]

I heard Mr. Wild in London and although not a favourite pianist of mine, his playing of certain pieces always had a sense of miraculoulous achievement.

See http://www.earlwild.com/home.html