Abbey Simon, and c.1979 FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN The 1981= Baldwin Recordings

With the exception of three pieces–the Fantasie, the Ballade, and the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante–this recording features rel- atively brief works, some of them remarkably so, demonstrating to a refined degree the extent to which Frédéric Chopin was a master of the small form. This may be a function of the fact that, though he performed in public con- cert halls, Chopin most often performed for friends in intimate salons.

Fantasie in F minor, Op. 49 (1841) The heroic Fantasie in F minor is one of Chopin’s largest and most epic works for solo . If its scale and scope are unusual for him, so is its form, being loose, extended, and improvisatory, and having numerous melodies. Unlike many romantics, Chopin’s music is generally not narrative or programmatic, and while it is personal, it remains pure art. Nevertheless, a story has been associated with the Fantasie. The composer and pianist relates: The year is 1841 and Chopin is seated at the Pleyel grand piano in Madame George Sand’s salon in Nohant, France, where they spent

– 2 – their summers. A knock is heard at the door and Madame Sand enters. With her are Liszt, Camille Pleyel, the wife of the piano manufacturer, and one or two other friends, perhaps the cellist Franchomme and the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Some quarreling ensues, and then reconciliation. If Liszt’s tale is correct, this scene led to Chopin’s composition of the Fantasie. In any case, as Phillip Wilcher notes, “Unmistakably a narrative unfolds, but unlike the legendary and heroic tales depicted in [his] , it appears that here, Chopin is unveiling to us some compelling and climac- tic episode–an odyssey of cedar-pannelled events from his own life, for there is within its intrigue and brew a subtle subjectivity.” After a martial beginning, three groups of themes emerge (passion–prayer–defiance), each preceded by a kind of refrain made up of arpeggios rising upward and gradually speeding. James Huneker wrote: “It parades a formal beauty not disfigured by an excess of violence, either per- sonal or patriotic, and its melodies, if restless by melancholy, are of surprising nobility and dramatic grandeur.”

Waltz in D flat, Op. 64, no. 1 (1846-1847) The Waltz in D flat is the first of the opus 64 Trois Valses, and is known as the “minute” Waltz. One of Chopin’s biographers, Camille Bourniquel, tells that Chopin intended to depict a dog chasing its tail and originally named the piece “Petit chien”–little dog. One would never guess, from its sprightly and whirling character, that Chopin composed the work while his health was in decline and his relationship with George Sand was deteriorating. It was his publisher who coined the nickname “minute waltz,” intending the diminutive

– 3 – “minute” to mean “small,” not “sixty seconds.” The charming work remains undiminished by its use in cartoons, or as the theme song for the BBC radio show Just a Minute, by an overt reference to it in a song by Barbra Streisand, or by its use as cell-phone ring tones.

Waltz in A flat, Op. 64, no. 3 (1846-1847) In the mid-eighteenth century, the waltz appeared in southern as a triple-meter folk dance “by couples in clogs or hobnailed boots on the lawn in front of the village inn or in the town square.” But early in the nine- teenth century it moved into the cities and became popular among ’s bourgeoisie. A waxed floor and light shoes and dress led to its faster pace and contributed to its strong beat on “one,” with the remaining long, smooth steps being lighter. Gary Lemco points out that the Waltz in A flat begins to expand into a polonaise, even a sonata-movement; then it turns and relinquishes its explosive possibilities into sweet dalliance. In the middle section its serpentining melody appears in the bass under an accompaniment in the right hand. This waltz, like all of Chopin’s later , requires a more mature means of expression than his more youthful waltzes, in order to avoid caricaturing them.

Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, no. 2 (1846-1847) James Huneker declared that, of all the waltzes, this is “the most poet- ic of all. The first theme has never been excelled by Chopin for a species of veiled melancholy. It is a fascinating, lyrical sorrow.” And Theodor Kullak has written that “the psychologic motivation of the first theme in – 4 – the curving figure of the second does not relax the spell.” The waltzes provide the perfect occasion for the pianist to observe Chopin’s famed approach to rubato. As Liszt pointed out, the bass plays a steady, strict beat even as the melody enjoys a freedom of expression, with fluctuations of speed. “Look at these trees!” Liszt said, “The wind plays in the leaves [and] stirs up life among them, [while] the tree remains the same–that is chopinesque rubato.”

Waltz in A flat (L’Adieu), Op. 69, no. 1 (1835) Chopin wrote this waltz in 1835 while courting Marie Wodzinska. He had fallen in love with the young and beautiful countess and had proposed marriage to her. As a poor musician, however, Chopin was not considered suitable mar- riage material by Marie’s parents, and he was rejected. His Waltz in A flat was given to Marie just before his departure for Paris. Marked Lento, this beautiful dance poem has often been called “L’Adieu.” The manuscript has the inscription “Pour Mlle Marie.” Gary Lemco writes, “The marcato in the middle section adds a nobility of character to the general tenor of ruminative nostalgia.” The work was published posthumously.

Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 (1842-1843) As noted above, Chopin was disinclined to write program music and he gen- erally adhered to the principle of absolute music. But his ballades–a musical genre he invented, with apparent reference to the nineteenth-century literary genre of the same name–have elicited speculation of a link between his music and the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz. – 5 – As Michael L. Klein has noted, music can narrate only those plots whose story we have in advance. But absent such a plot, we can nevertheless outline the “dramatic sequence of emotional events [which] mirrors those emotions evoked by literary works.” Within its structure of sonata form combined with the varia- tion form, the Ballade in F minor has its own “narrative” of pastoral and tragic events. The piece is widely regarded as one of Chopin’s masterpieces, and one of the masterpieces of the entire nineteenth-century piano repertoire. Alfred Cortot wrote that in this piece “[Chopin’s] sublime imagination evinced a livelier feeling for beauty of form.” Though its key is F minor, an introductory section actually begins in the major.

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. Posth. The first –night pieces–were written by the Irish pianist and composer John Field (1782-1837), from whom Chopin adopted both the idea and the name for the twenty-one examples he himself composed. Usually written in a languorous style, nocturnes characteristically have a simple expressive melody over an arpeggiated accompaniment. Even Chopin’s more mature and more complex nocturnes retain a certain textur- al simplicity in their melodies. The Nocturne in C-sharp minor, marked Lento con gran espressione, was discovered some time after Chopin’s death and was not published until 1895. But it was written while he was a very young man. It was featured in the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, the story of the survival of pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman during the Second World War. Szpilman performed the Nocturne on September 23, 1939 live on radio as shells explod-

– 6 – ed outside. A German bomb hit the station later that day, taking Polish Radio off the air.

Nocturne in F, Op. 15, no. 1 (1830-1832) Jeffrey Kallberg has suggested that we should think of nocturnes less as a class or genre than as a communication between composer and audience. Indeed, no two of Chopin’s nocturnes are alike, and their rhythms often have less in common with each other than they do with other genres, such as bar- caroles, lullabies, marches, or hymns. While it is hard to know exactly what Chopin’s nocturnes communicated to his audiences, in German lands the nocturne had a precedent in the serenade, and in France the nocturne, almost invariably a vocal duet, had become a fixture of the Paris salon, pop- ularized by composers like Auguste Panséron and Antoine Romagnesi. This somewhat hesitant nocturne is abruptly interrupted by a furious middle section that gradually resolves again to the original melody.

Nocturne in F-sharp major, Op. 15, no. 2 (1830-1832) It has often been noted that Chopin’s later nocturnes have some simi- larity to Bellini’s cavatinas (such as Casta diva from Norma) as well as to Rossini’s and Weber’s operatic melodies. Certainly they are among the most introspective and lyrical of all of Chopin’s works. By the time Chopin moved to Paris, in 1831, he had already reached full maturity as a composer. This brief nocturne is a confident and straightforward essay with high- ly ornamented melodies, and a middle section that ventures only briefly into a more dramatic realm. – 7 – Nocturne in B, Op. 32, no. 1 (1837) Chopin is said to have composed this piece while alone and depressed after the failure of his proposed marriage to Maria Wodzinska. Even so, the piece is by no means somber or dejected. Each repeat of the melody adds ornaments and thirds while the characteristic lone note in the bass sets up the coming cadence. The declamatory final section–a recitative of sorts–brings the piece to an end in the minor.

Etude in G flat (Black Key), Op. 10, no. 5 (1830) From the opus 10 set of etudes–twelve in all–this vivacious and saucy study features the black notes on the keyboard, thus endowing it with a somewhat pentatonic character. It is remarkable, however, that although the right hand plays no white notes at all (avoiding even C flat, a white note, though it lies in the given tonality), throughout measure after measure of nearly unrelieved sixteenth-note triplets, the left hand ventures onto C, D, E, F and G naturals, and F flat and B double flat–all white notes.

Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante in E flat, Op. 22 (1834) Properly called “Grande Polonaise Brillante, précédée d’un Andante Spianato,” Chopin performed this piece in 1835 in Paris for an appearance with the prestigious Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Thereafter fol- lowed a period of several years during which he refused invitations to appear before the wider public.

– 8 – The Andante Spianato (spianato: smooth, even), in G major, with its limpid melodies, is a lovely pastoral work in its own right, and the well- known Polonaise, in E flat, combines virtuosity with eloquence, delicacy, and playfulness, at once scintillating and brilliant. The Polonaise (a Polish nation- al dance of a stately and festive character) was originally composed for piano and orchestra in 1831 while the Andante (originally for orchestra) was writ- ten three years later. In 1995 Mr. Wild performed these two works for his eightieth-birthday recital at . In his review of the program, for the New York Times, Kenneth Furie wrote that “the Andante…sang innocently, with a purling sweetness to the left-hand arpeggios that Mr. Wild has improbably been coax- ing from Baldwin for 50 years. Then the fireworks of the Grande Polonaise were sensibly organized into a vigorous, forward-moving dance.”

Prelude in C (Reunion), Op. 28, no. 1 (1838-1839) Chopin composed–or at least completed–the while spending the winter with his lover George Sand in rooms at an old monastery on the island of Majorca, off the coast of Spain, during which his health deteriorat- ed rapidly. As James Huneker has noted, this piece has all the characteristics of an impromptu, and could have been written by no one but a devout Bach student. It is feverish, agitated and passionate.

Prelude in A (The Polish dance), Op. 28, no. 7 (1838-1839) The preludes are considered among Chopin’s most radical conceptions, giv- ing the genre a new meaning. He had with him in Majorca a copy of Bach’s forty- – 9 – eight preludes and fugues exploring the complete cycle of major and minor keys. Chopin’s twenty-four preludes likewise form a complete cycle. Theodor Kullak said of this familiar prelude, among several, that it appears like a briefly sketched mood picture related to the nocturne style. Huneker refers to it, on the other hand, as a silhouette of the mazurka, the national dance of Poland.

Prelude in G minor (Impatience), Op. 28, no. 22 (1838-1839) Kullak wrote that the preludes are “in their aphoristic brevity, master- pieces of the first rank.” Living up to its nickname, this piece features the left hand in restless and relentless octaves. It lasts only about forty seconds, but as Huneker noted, it is “filled with the smoke of revolt and conflict.” This impetuous piece is harmonically daring and dramatic.

Prelude in D minor (The Storm), Op. 28, no. 24 (1838-1839) The turbulent rumbling in the left hand gives this prelude its name. Heneker describes it as “sonorously tragic, troubled by fevers and visions, and capricious, irregular and massive in design… like the vast reverberation of monstrous waves on the implacable coast of a remote world… Despite its fatalistic ring, its note of despair is not dispiriting.”

© James E. Frazier 2007

– 10 – 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 internationally 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 transcriptions. 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.

– 11 – 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, this three year-old 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 pitch. This and other feats labeled him as a child prodigy and leading 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 / com- poser 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 dis- tinguished 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 (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).

– 12 – As a teenager, Mr. Wild had already composed many works and piano transcriptions as well as for chamber orchestra that were reg- ularly performed on the local radio station. He was invited at the age of twelve to perform on radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh (the first radio sta- tion in the ). He 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 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 critically well received performance of Liszt's First 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 as a staff pianist. This position included not only the duties of playing solo piano and cham- ber 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 helped Earl Wild’s career when he invited him to be the soloist in an NBC radio broad- cast of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was the first performance of the Rhapsody for both conductor and pianist, and although Mr. Wild had not yet

– 13 – 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 orchestra, working for the NBC radio and television net- work from 1937 to 1944. 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 twen- ty-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, con- ductor, and composer until 1968. During both his NBC and ABC affilia- tions 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 com- position, Revelations was a religious work based on the apocalyptic visions of St. John the Divine. Mr. Wild also conducted its world premiere telecast in

– 14 – 1962, which blended 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 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 conductor Joseph Giunta, gave the world premiere of Earl Wild’s composi- tion 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 concerto since . Earl Wild has participated in many premieres. In 1944 on NBC radio, he performed 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

– 15 – 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 com- posed for him. Mr. Wild has appeared with nearly every orchestra and performed countless recitals in virtually every country. In the past ninety years he has collaborated 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 Evelyn Lear. Highlights include a March 1974 joint recital with Maria Callas as a ben- efit 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 inauguration ceremonies of President John F. Kennedy in Constitution Hall. In 1960, at the Santa Fe Opera, Earl Wild conducted the first seven per- formances of Verdi’s La Traviata ever performed in that theatre, as well as

– 16 – conducting four performances of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi on a double bill with Igor Stravinsky (who conducted his own opera Oedipus Rex). From 1952 to 1956 Mr. Wild worked with comedian Sid Caesar on the very popular TV program The Caesar Hour. During those years, he com- posed 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. It was in 1976 that Mr. Wild wrote his now famous piano transcription based on George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess and also revised his six original 1950’s 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. Mr. Wild’s Etude No.3 The Man I Love was orig- inally written for left hand alone but was revised for two hands in 1976 along with an additional seventh Etude Fascinatin’ Rhythm. In 1989 he also composed an improvisation for solo piano based on Gershwin’s Someone To Watch Over Me in the form of a Theme and Three Variations. In 1981 Mr. Wild composed thirteen piano transcriptions from a select- ed 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. 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

– 17 – 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 performed and recorded by pianists world- wide. 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 docu- mentary titled “Wild about Liszt,” which was filmed at Wynyard Park, the 9th 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 through- out 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, , Eugen d’Albert,

– 18 – Moriz Moszkowski, Reynaldo Hahn and countless others. In addition to pursuing his own concert and composing career, Earl Wild has actively supported and young musicians all his life. He has taught classes all over the world. Highlights include the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Toho-Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, and the Sun Wha School in Seoul, as well as numerous US cities. Mr. Wild has been on the faculty of The 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. In 1996, Carnegie Mellon honored Mr. Wild with their Alumni Merit Award, in the fall of 2000 they further honored him with their more prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award and in 2007 he was given an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. 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 ensemble based in Vienna, Virginia at the famous National Park for the Performing Arts (Wolf Trap Farm Park). Mr. Wild’s idea in forming of the Concert Soloists was to combine mature seasoned performers with tal- ented 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

– 19 – first disc in 1939 for RCA. Mr. Wild has recorded at least one CD per year since 1964 and has recorded with over twenty different record labels such as: CBS, RCA / BMG, Vanguard, EMI, Nonesuch, Readers Digest, Stradavari, Heliodor, Varsity, dell’Arte, Quintessence, Whitehall, Etcetera, Chesky, Sony Classical, Philips, and IVORY CLASSICS. His discography of recorded works includes more than 35 piano con- certos, 26 chamber works, and over 700 solo piano pieces. In 1997, he received a GRAMMY Award for his 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 from Handel, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, J. Strauss Jr., Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Kreisler, Fauré, and Saint-Saëns. Of these thirteen transcriptions, nine were written by Mr. Wild (eight are world pre- miere recordings). This disc is now available in its original HDCD encod- ed 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 inception, IVORY CLASSICS has released over thirty newly recorded or re-released performances featuring Earl Wild. In May of 2003 the eighty-eight year-old Dean of the Piano recorded a CD of solo piano works that he had never recorded before. Using the new limited edition Shigeru Kawai Concert Grand EX piano, the disc includes

– 20 – Mr. Wild’s piano transcription 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 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 and 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 original releases or remastered re-releases. These discs included Mr. Wild’s historic 1965 recordings of Rachmaninoff’s complete piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Other Chesky releases which feature Mr. Wild appear- ing 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 featur- ing 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” released in 2004, discs of Chopin’s and Ballades and solo piano works by Nicolai Medtner were released in 2005 and Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, the Complete Chopin Etudes, Op. 10, Op. 25 and the Trois Nouvelles as well as a disc of Mozart for Two Pianos were all released in 2006. Future releases will include: 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

– 21 – 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. In 2005 Ivory Classics released a new disc celebrating Earl Wild’s nineti- eth birthday! For this special occasion, Mr. Wild selected to record reper- toire by Bach (Partita No. 1), Scriabin (Sonata No. 4), Franck (Prelude, Chorale and Fugue) and Schumann (Fantasiestucke Op. 12) (CD-75002). Earl Wild celebrated his ninetieth birthday by performing recitals in many U.S. cities as well as in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. The tour culmi- nated 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 soon.

Earl Wild’s compositions and transcriptions are published by Michael Rolland Davis Productions, ASCAP [email protected] Telephone: 614.761.8709 Mr. Wild’s official website: www.EarlWild.com

– 22 – Credits Recorded at University of Miami Guzman Hall - 1981 Original Producer: Julian Kreeger Original Recording Engineer: Peter McGrath Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson Piano: Baldwin SD-10 This recording was made possible through the generous support of The Ivory Classics Foundation Liner Notes: James E. Frazier Design: Samskara, Inc.

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