ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) EARL WILD in Concert

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EARL WILD In Concert 1983 & 1987 SCHUMANN Papillons Op.2 Sonata No.1 Op.11 Waldszenen Op.82 ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) EARL WILD in Concert

Papillons, Op. 2 Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 Waldszenen, Op. 82

“As if all mental pictures must be shaped to fit one or two forms! As if each idea did not come into existence with its form ready-made! As if each work of art had not its own meaning and consequently its own form!” (Robert Schumann)

No composer investigated the Romantic’s obsession with feeling and passion quite so thoroughly as Robert Alexander Schumann. For most of his life he suffered from inner torment - he died insane - but then some psychologists argue that madness is a necessary Robert Schumann attribute of genius. He was virtually self-taught (there were no musical antecedents in his family) which may account in part for having no qualms about dispensing with traditional forms of music and inventing his own (though in later years he wrote symphonies and quartets). Few men of his day knew more about music and musical theory than Schumann, but right from the start he was an innovator, a propagandist for the new, in love with literature almost as much as he was with music. His boldest contribution was to translate in his own picturesquely-entitled music - Arabesque, Kreisleriana, Carnaval, Papillons, Kinderszenen - his innermost thoughts and

– 2 – emotions, unhindered by academic form. To Schumann, the pure idea from a cre- ative mind was itself sufficient aesthetic justification of its existence and for its form and content. The correct working of a fugue, a rondo or a sonata was of far less importance than of conveying mood, colour, atmosphere and allusion. Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, on 8 June 1810, the son of a bookseller and publisher. Piano lessons began at the age of ten but, though encouraged in his musical ambitions, he was persuaded to study law as a career in nearby Leipzig, thence to Heidelberg for a Schumann as a child year. In 1826, a chain of events began that twisted and turned the path down which Schumann might have expected to travel trou- ble-free. His elder sister, Emilie, committed suicide (only one of Schumann’s three brothers survived to middle age) and shortly afterwards his father died at the age of fifty- three from an undiagnosed nervous disorder. In 1830, Schumann persuaded his moth- er and guardian to allow him to drop his legal studies and pursue a career in music. He was recommended to a piano teacher in Leipzig named Friedrich Wieck, a man who was to have the profoundest effect on Schumann’s life. Schumann boarded in his tutor’s house, determined to become a world famous virtuoso, sharing his life with the Wiecks and their prodigiously talented young pianist daughter, Clara. His mature career as a composer dates from this time. But a second tragic event put an end to his ambitions as a concert pianist. He developed an ailment in the index and middle fingers of his right hand and, in an attempt to remedy the defect, was perma-

– 3 – nently crippled by a mechanical device that pur- portedly helped strengthen and lift the middle finger. Some theories have it that the original problem was due to the side-effect of mercury treatment for syphilis. Whatever the truth, from this date onwards he noted unaccountable peri- ods of angst and momentary losses of conscious- ness, bouts of breathing difficulty and aural hal- lucinations. He suffered from insomnia and acrophobia. Entries in his diary as early as 1833 reveal his fear of becoming insane. With his first compositions published, Schumann launched into a parallel career as a writer on music. His sharp and perceptive views made him one of the leading and most influen- tial critics of the day. In 1834, he decided to start his own magazine, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896) At the same time, he fell in love with Clara Wieck. Perhaps surmising that Schumann was an unstable character, Friedrich Wieck violently opposed the relationship, and his actions over the following seven years won him a place in musical history, not as the obscure teacher of a great composer or as the father of a great pianist (which Clara would become) but as the disagreeable father-in- law who thwarted young love. He forced the couple to separate, opened their love let- ters and initiated a campaign of personal vilification against Schumann, so set was he against his daughter’s marriage. Ironically, the benign effect of this was to inspire in Schumann music of a depth and passion which (who knows?) he may not have reached had he not been prevented from marrying Clara Wieck. Carnaval, the Davidsbündlertänze, Kreisleriana, Kinderszenen, the Sonatas No. 1 in F sharp minor and

– 4 – No. 2 in G minor, as well as the monumental Fantaisie in C major all stem from this period. (Strangely, however much Wieck objected to Schumann as a son-in-law, he did not reject him as a composer. In fact, it was Wieck who gave Papillons to Clara to learn. One of the things that defined Clara’s later career was her promotion of her husband’s music and Papillons was one of the first of his pieces she performed.) The affair ended in court, judgement went against Wieck and the happy couple were mar- ried on 12 September 1840, the day before Clara’s twenty-first birthday. Was it a successful marriage? It would seem so. Schumann’s career as a composer entered a new stage: in 1840 alone he composed over 100 songs and in 1841, over just four days, he sketched out his ‘Spring’ Symphony Robert and Clara, 1850 No. 1. Ambitious as she was for herself, Clara was even more ambitious for her husband - a difficult balance when a pianist needs to prac- tice and a composer has to work in silence. Having been brought up by her father in strict classical mode, as it were, she felt that unless Robert wrote symphonies and operas he could never fully realise himself and attain the heights reached by Beethoven and other symphonic heroes. So, from the last fifteen years of his life come the four Symphonies, the magnificent Piano Concerto, the three String Quartets, the E flat Piano Quartet and the pioneering Piano Quintet Op. 44. From the mid 1840s onwards, Schumann’s mental health began to deteriorate pro- gressively. He resigned from the teaching post Mendelssohn had created for him at his new Conservatory in Leipzig, and his time as Director of Music in Düsseldorf proved to

– 5 – be a disaster. Schumann was no conductor, a talent that the position demanded, and with his natural reserve now exaggerated by his inability to communi- cate and, at times, unaware of his surroundings he was forced to step down. Plagued by aural and mental hal- lucinations, in February 1854 he tried to kill himself by drowning in the Rhine. He was rescued and, at his own request, placed in an asylum at Endenich near Bonn. Here, Brahms was one of the few welcome vis- itors. Some sources say that Schumann refused to see Clara or any of their children, others that Clara would not visit for fear of upsetting him. Schumann lived on in this unhappy state for a further two years. Robert and Clara had eight living children and two miscarriages. The living children were: Marie (1841- Schumann, 1830 1929), Elise (1843-1928), Julie (1845-1872), Emil (1846-1847), Ludwig (1848-1899), Ferdinand (1849-1891), Eugenie (1851-1938) and Felix (1854-1879). Robert never met his son, Felix, because he was institutionalized before his son was born. Opinions vary as to whether the final cause of death was tertiary syphilis, sclerosis of the brain (his own doctor’s verdict), dementia praecox or starvation induced by psychot- ic depression. Whatever, it was the cruellest and most un-Romantic of ends.

1 Papillons, Op. 2 (1829/31) Dedicated to Therese, Rosalie and Emilie [Performance recorded in concert in Montreal, 4 November 1983] Papillons - Butterflies. But these are not the delicate winged creatures depicted by

– 6 – Grieg and Rosenthal in their keyboard minia- tures. These are revellers at a costume ball. Schumann grew up surrounded by books and, of all the great composers, none attempted such a fusion between music and literature. He read voraciously - Goethe and Shakespeare, of course, but particularly the leading romantics of his day: Byron, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Klemens Brentano, Ludwig Tieck and, especially, Jean Paul, the pseudonym of the visionary writer and humorist Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825). Born in northern Bavaria, Jean Paul worked as an impoverished tutor until his first literary success in 1793 with Die unsichtare Loge (The Invisible Lodge), followed by Hesperus (1795) and Campanerthal (1797). The romance Titan (1800-03) he considered his masterpiece, while Schumann, 1850 Dr. Katzenbergers Badereise (Dr. Katzenberger’s Trip to the Spa) (1809) is said to be the best of his satirico-humorous writings. For a time Jean Paul was idolised. Schumann worshipped him, devouring his remarks on music, such as: “Sound shines like the dawn and the sun rises in the form of sound; sound seeks to rise in music, and colour is light... It is music alone which can open the ultimate gates to the infinite.” ‘If everybody read Jean Paul,’ Schumann wrote to a friend when he was eighteen, ‘we should be better but more unhappy. Sometimes he almost clouds my mind, but the rain- bow of peace and the natural strength of man bring sweet tears, and the heart comes through its ordeal marvellously purified and softened.’ The Jean Paul novel which – 7 – inspired the brief introduction and twelve short pieces of Papillons was Flegeljahre, a title which might be translated as ‘That Awkward Age’ or ‘Cubhood’. The last chapter is a ballroom scene. Writing to Ludwig Rellstab in Berlin in April 1832, Schumann defined its main episodes and protagonists: ‘costume ball - Walt-Vult - masks - Wina - Vult’s dancing - exchanging masks - confes- sions - anger - unmasking - dashing off - final scene and then the departing brother. I turned over the last page often, for the end seemed only a new beginning to me; I was at the piano almost unconsciously, and one Papillon after another was born’. Schumann underlined several passages in his copy of Schumann, 1850 the novel, relating them to the individual ‘papillons’. For example, No. 2 (in 2/4 and the only one of the set not in triple time) is marked ‘Punch room...ball room...full of zigzag figures moving towards each other; No. 3 ‘sliding about, a gigantic boot wearing and carrying itself’; No. 4 ‘simple nun with a half-mask and a sweet-smelling bunch of auricula’; No. 7 ‘hot desert dryness or dry feverish heat...most earnest supplications...’; No. 6 ‘Your waltzing...good mimical imita- tions, partly in the carter’s horizontal, partly in the miner’s vertical...’; No. 10 ‘exchange of masks...floatingly gliding up and down...butterflies of a faraway island. Like a rare lark’s song in late summer...’. However, though the ‘papillons’ as a whole were inspired by Jean Paul, as Schumann himself emphasised, he selected appropriate texts for the individual pieces only subse- quently. In a letter to Henrietta Voigt in Leipzig, he wrote, ‘I want to mention that I put

– 8 – the text to the music and not the other way around; for me, that would have seemed a fool- ish undertaking. Only the last one, which play- ful chance made an answer to the first, was evoked by Jean Paul.’ Papillons is a succession of waltzes and polonaises rounded off by the reappearance of the first waltz of the set. In this, Schumann uses two separate phrases from the Großvatertanz, a famous old dance tune from the seventeenth-century frequently sung in Germany at the end of wedding celebrations (the first of these phrases Schumann was to use again - in the finale of Carnaval, Op. 9, ‘The March Against the Philistines’). On the last page, Schumann combines the two phrases over a D pedal point held for no less than 26 bars. The Schumann, 1840’s clock strikes six, the dancers disappear, and a further curious feature of the score appears: the dominant seventh chord (ppp) which leads to the work’s final chord is notated carefully so as to make the chord disappear gradually into nothing. The sketches for Papillons are among the earliest pieces that Schumann composed. The first versions of Nos. 2 and 9 appear in his first sketchbook; in the third sketchbook, what came to be No. 1 of the set is marked ‘Waltz 6’, Nos. 6 and 7 are entitled ‘Waltz 4’ and ‘Waltz 5’. Schumann wrote them partly in Heidelberg between 1829 and 1831. At the head of the autograph score (but not included in the original edition), Schumann inscribed the following in German: ‘Fascinated, Walt just heard, from a distance, the fleeting tones, for he did not notice that his brother was fleeing with them. Closing lines of J. Paul’s Flegeljahre.’

– 9 – The music was published in April 1832 as Papillons pour le Pianoforte seul dédiés à Therese, Rosalie et Emilie par Robert Schumann. Therese, Rosalie and Emilie were his three sisters-in-law and on 17 April the composer sent the new music, hot off the press, to his family in Zwickau. In the letter accompanying the score he wrote: ‘...then I would say to them (the butterflies), bear the Papillons along to Therese, Rosalie and Emilie, flutter and exult around them as lightly and blissfully as you wish... Then beg them all to read the final scene of Jean Paul’s Flegeljahre as soon as possible, and tell them that the Papillons actually were supposed to translate that costume ball into tones, and ask them then if perhaps something of Schumann, 1840 Wina’s angelic love, of Walt’s poetic nature and of Vult’s sharply flashing soul is correctly reflected in Papillons: say and ask all this and still more, still more.’ If Papillons can be seen as a trial run for Carnaval, so the characters of Walt and Vult in Jean Paul’s novel are the prototypes of Schumann’s alter egos Eusebius and Florestan, the former a gentle dreamer, the latter forceful and dominant. In 1831, the same year in which Papillons, Op. 2 was published, Schumann began his second career as a critic. In one of the first reviews he wrote, using the pseudonym of Eusebius for the first time, Schumann declared Chopin to be a genius. The work in question? Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ - another Op. 2. With the appearance of Papillons, Schumann saw the way ahead. ‘On sleepless nights,’

– 10 – he wrote, ‘I am conscious of a mission which rises before me like a distant peak. When I wrote Papillons I began to feel a certain independence. Now the butterflies have flown off into the vast magnificent universe of spring; the spring itself is on my doorstep looking at me - it is a child with celestial blue eyes.’

2 - 5 Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 (1834/35) Dedicated to Fräulein Clara Wieck [Performance recorded in concert in Montreal, 4 November 1983] Bust of Schumann by Alfred Brumme 2 Introduzione: un poco adagio - Allegro vivace 3 Aria: Senza passione, ma espressivo 4 Scherzo e Intermezzo: Allegrissimo - Lento 5 Finale: Allegro un poco maestoso

The piano was Schumann’s natural means of expression. His first twenty-three works are for solo piano and the total number of works he wrote for the instrument exceeds the total of all his other instrumental compositions. A large proportion of these contain personal and literary allusions and references - Abegg Variations, Op. 1 (named after the Countess Meta von Abegg to whom Schumann was romantically attached and whose name forms the notes for the theme of the variations - A,B,E,G and G); Papillons, Op. 2 (as we have seen); the Davidsbündlertanze, Op. 6 (Davidsbündler was the name of the association of Schumann’s intimate friends opposed to philistinism in the arts translated as ‘David against the Philistines’); Carnaval, Op. 9 (in which the members of the

– 11 – Davidsbündler meet for a masquerade). Most of these works (and most of those which followed) consist of a succession of caprices without any pretence at unity of form. The Sonata in F sharp minor is different, the first of Schumann’s works in larger forms and one which marked a new stage in his development. However, the influence of Jean Paul remains - and would remain - as Schumann tried to replicate in music what Jean Paul did in words. For both men, music represented man’s efforts to achieve the infinite. ‘So life fades and withers behind us,’ wrote Jean Paul, ‘and of our sacred vanishing past, only one thing remains immortal - music.’ Robert and Clara, 1840 There is at least one link between the Sonata and his Op. 2. Schumann was clearly considering a second volume of Papillons, as an entry in his diary confirms (20 April 1832) listing among his future plans a ‘Fandango pour le piano’. Ten days later the fandango was still ‘going around in my head far too much - though that is a heavenly idea with godly figures, and still more adaptable than the masked ball.’ In fact, though the fandango was dropped as a piece, its theme provides the main subject of the opening movement of the Sonata. This is juxtaposed with a second motif in fifths, one very similar to an idea in Clara Wieck’s ‘Le Ballet des revenants’ (‘The Ballet of the Ghosts’), the last of her Quatre pièces caractéristiques, Op. 5 (who borrowed from whom is a moot point). This falling fifth idea, heard in the initial Introduzione before the Allegro proper, also features in the Aria, as does the gentle melody that is heard at the beginning of the Allegro which transforms into the theme of the slow movement. This is Schumann experimenting with long-range thinking and unifying structures to a degree that he had not attempted previously.

– 12 – The spiritual heart of the Sonata is the suc- ceeding slow movement. Liszt, reviewing the work, described it as ‘a song of great passion, expressed with fullness and calm’. The Aria is based on a song Schumann had written as an eighteen-year-old, An Anna, which remained unpublished until 1893 when Brahms included it in the supplement to the collected edition of Schumann’s works. Except for some brief moments of tranquillity in the Finale, this is the last we hear from Eusebius. From now on, Florestan takes command. The third movement is an animated Scherzo but instead of the usual Trio with a contrasted qui- Clara Schumann with her oldest eter character, Schumann inserts a tongue-in- daughter Marie (1841-1929) cheek Intermezzo marked alla burla, ma pomposo. It’s a heavy-handed polonaise danced by a clown, scored with intentionally wrong accents, which leads to a parodic operatic recitative (one phrase is instructed to be played ‘quasi Oboe’) which is angrily dismissed by a return to the main Scherzo theme at the wrong pitch, a characteristic device of Schumann. The Finale, the first section of the Sonata to be composed, may be the weakest of the four musically (‘a very irregular Rondo, excessively repetitious of the vigorous first theme and of its delicate episode’, as one commentator put it), but it is certainly the most tech- nically challenging for the pianist. Its consistent energy and Schumann’s rhythmical inge- nuity, however, lend the movement an irresistible drive and sweep. Moving from F sharp minor to C major to E flat major, the Finale ends in a triumphant F sharp major, its coda (Più allegro) referring briefly to a passage from the first movement. On the autograph of the Sonata, a work which Schumann later described to Clara as ‘one long cry from the heart to you’, was inscribed ‘To Clara from Florestan and Eusebius’.

– 13 – 6 Waldszenen, Op. 82 (1848/50) Dedicated to Fräulein Annette Preusser [Performance recorded in concert in Columbus, Ohio, 11 January 1987]

1. Eintritt (Entrance) 2. Jäger auf der Lauer (Hunter in Ambush) 3. Einsame Blumen (Lonely Flowers) 4. Verrufene Stelle (Haunted Spot) 5. Freundliche Landschaft (Pleasant Landscape) 6. Herberge (Wayside Inn) 7. Vogel als Prophet (Bird as Prophet) 8. Jagdlied (Hunting Song) 9. Abschied (Farewell)

There is a thesis waiting to be written on woodland music (‘Forest Forays’, perhaps?). Most of the composers would be Central European starting with Beethoven and Weber (Der Freischütz) and taking in Schubert (Waldesnacht), Raff (Im Walde, his Symphony No. 3), Mendelssohn (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Liszt (Waldesrauchen) Popper (Im Walde for cello), Richard Strauss (another Im Walde, a song), any number of wood nymphs, wild huntsmen, witches and gnomes - not forgetting the German-trained Edward MacDowell and his Woodland Sketches. Schumann’s Forest (or Woodland) Scenes take their inspiration from Weber and the poems of Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1857), the most important of Romantic lyricists writing in German at that time, whose works reveal his profound ven- eration for the divine gifts of natural beauty. Schumann had already explored the area in Liederkreis, Op. 39, his 1840 settings of Eichendorff poems, in the second part of Das Paradies und die Peri, Op. 50 (1843), Act 4 of his opera Genoveva (1848) and would con- tinue, later, in Part 1 of the choral ballad Vom Pagen und der Königstochter, Op. 140 (1852). With their recurring themes of lone wanderers, mystical hunters, birdsong, the sounds of the forest and the threatening darkness of the woods, no wonder that the con- trasting emotions of security, danger, mystery and physical beauty appealed to Schumann’s imagination. The composing of Waldszenen appears to have caused him no

– 14 – effort. He records in the Household Book: ‘24 December 1848 Forest Scenes. Very cheerful... 29 December 1848 A Forest Scene (Flowers)... 31 December 1848 Inn from the Forest Scenes. Merry.’ Of the nine pieces in the original edition, only Verrufene Stelle was prefaced by a literary quotation, part of a poem by Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). Schumann originally intended that a further five pieces - Eintritt, Jäger auf der Lauer, Vogel als Prophet and Abschied - should be published with similar quotations taken from lines and verses by Eichendorff, and two popular collections of the time by Heinrich Laube and Gustav In Memoriam - Robert Schumann June 8, 1810 - July 29, 1856 Pfarrius. In the end, only Hebbel’s verse was printed. As with Papillons and many other pieces, Schumann was at pains to emphasise that the superscriptions were to be regarded merely as signposts for the listener and play- er to illustrate the character of the music and not necessarily to be taken as literal musical translations of the texts. These delightful ‘character pieces’ - miniature tone poems in reality - bear witness to the influence of Mendelssohn, whose musical style can be seen frequently in Schumann’s later works (his friend had died all too young in 1847). In Waldszenen it is most apparent in the jolly Jagdlied and, especially, the final piece, Abschied, the first section of which seems to be an evocation of one of the Songs Without Words. Undoubtedly the most famous piece of the set is the haunting Vogel als Prophet, a favourite of many great pianists and violinists of the past (Paderewski, Moiseiwitsch and Cortot, for example, Heifetz and Elman all made recordings of it).

– 15 – The new work was published in November 1850, enthusiastically welcomed by pub- lic and critics alike. The Berliner Musik-Zeitung Echo of 5 January 1851 opined: “Our poets and musicians have preferred to escape into woodland solitude for some time now, and so these new piano pieces are like Gustav Pfarrius’s excellent Songs of the Woods. The observant critic would perhaps find some brushwood in both, but he does not look for it; he is delighted with the mysterious rustling, the melodies sounding in the distance, and the mystical flowers of the musical magic forest, and hopes that the composer will find many play- ers who will penetrate to the essence of his nature and perform his work with skill and under- standing.” One measure of the enduring popularity of Waldszenen throughout the musical world can be gleaned from the opening of the second chapter of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890. ‘As they entered, they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann’s Forest Scenes. “You must lend me these, Basil,” he cried. “I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming.” So they are. Liner notes by Jeremy Nicholas © 2003

EARL WILD BIOGRAPHY “When Earl Wild performs, the Golden Age of the keyboard suddenly reappears.” TIME Magazine 1997 Earl Wild is a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition. Considered by many to be “the last of the great Romantic pianists,” he is often heralded as a “super virtuoso.” This eminent musician is inter- nationally recognized as one of the great virtuoso pianist/composers of all time. His legendary career,

– 16 – so distinguished and long, has continued for over 75 years. One of only a handful of living pianists to merit an entry in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, he is therein described as a pianist whose technique “is able to encompass even the most difficult virtuoso works with apparent ease.” He was recently included in the Philips series, Great Pianists of the 20th Century with a double CD of all piano transcriptions. He has been featured on two occasions in TIME magazine, the more recent of which honored his eighty-fifth birthday. Born on November 26, 1915, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Earl Wild’s technical accomplishments are often likened to what those of Liszt himself must have had. Born with absolute pitch he started playing the piano at three. Having studied with great pianists such as Egon Petri (1881-1962), his lineage can be traced back to Scharwenka (1850-1924), Busoni (1866-1924), Ravel (1875-1937), d’Albert (1864-1932) and Liszt himself (1811-1886). Earl Wild’s career is dotted with musical legends. In 1942, he was soloist with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. Rachmaninoff was a personal friend and an important idol in his life. It’s been said of Earl Wild, “He is the incarnation of Rachmaninoff, Lehvinne and Rosenthal rolled into one!” In 1986, after hearing him play three sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts devoted to Liszt, honor- ing the centenary of that composer’s death, one New York critic said, “I find it impossible to believe that he played those millions of notes with 70-year-old fingers, so fresh-sounding and precise were they. Perhaps he has a worn-out set up in his attic, a la Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray.” In 1986 the People’s Republic of Hungary awarded the Liszt Medal to Earl Wild in recognition of his long and devoted association with the music of Franz Liszt. He’s one of the few American pianists to have achieved international as well as domestic celebrity. He has the singular honor of having performed at the invitation of six Presidents of the United States, beginning with Herbert Hoover. While serving in the U.S. Navy from 1942-1944 he was frequently requested to accompany First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on her many speaking engagements, at which he performed the national anthem as a prelude to her speeches. In 1939, he was the first classical pianist to give a recital on the new medium of Television. At fourteen he was performing in the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Otto Klemperer as well as working at radio station KDKA, where he played many of his own compositions. As a virtuoso pianist, composer, transcriber, conductor, editor and teacher, Mr. Wild continues in the style of the legendary great artists of the past. In addition to his distinguished concert career, which encompasses performances with other eminent conductors such as Stokowski, Reiner, Maazel, Solti and Mitropoulos, and great artists like

– 17 – Callas, Tourel, Pons, Melchior, Peerce and Bumbry, Earl Wild successfully shines as both a conductor and composer. The ABC television network broadcast his Easter oratorio, Revelations, in 1962 and again in 1964 with Mr. Wild conducting. His composition, Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster for piano and orchestra (Doo-Dah Variations), was premiered with Mr. Wild as soloist with the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra in 1992 - and recorded that same year for Chesky Records. Mr. Wild has been called “the finest transcriber of our time,” and his many piano transcriptions are widely known, respected and performed. This eminent pianist has built an extensive repertoire over the years, which includes both the stan- dard and modern literature. He is one of the world’s most recorded pianists, having made his first disc for RCA in 1938. Since then he has recorded hundred’s of discs on 20 different record labels and become world renown in particular for his brilliant performances of the virtuoso Romantic works. In 1997 he became an exclusive Ivory Classics artist, and to date he has 17 CD releases on their label. Today at age 87, Mr. Wild continues to record and perform throughout the world. In 1997, he won a GRAMMY® award for his CD, The Romantic Master - Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions, which included thirteen piano transcriptions (nine of his own). Praised by critics and music lovers around the world (also featured in Time Magazine), it is now available in its original HDCD state-of-the-art audiophile sound on the Ivory Classics label (CD-70907). At the age of 79, he recorded a well-received Beethoven disc, which included the monumental Hammerklavier Sonata, as well as another disc of Rachmaninov Preludes and the Second Piano Sonata. A release on the Ivory Classics label features an historic Gershwin disc, which includes Mr. Wild’s 1945 recording of the Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman conducting in addition to his famous solo piano transcriptions of Porgy and Bess and Seven Virtuoso Etudes (CD-70702). In 2000, Mr. Wild recorded three 20th century piano sonatas by Barber, Hindemith and Stravinsky as well as a piano sonata of his own (Sonata 2000) which was released on Ivory Classics (CD - 71005) - in honor of his 85th birthday year. In July of 2001, Mr. Wild recorded a world premiere 2-CD set of 53 solo pieces entitled, Le Rossignol Eperdu, which were written in the early 20th century by the renowned French composer Reynaldo Hahn. This disc was released by Ivory Classics in November 2001 (Ivory CD - 72006). In October 2002, Ivory Classics released an all Brahms solo disc by Mr. Wild. Included were the Sonata No. 3, Op. 5 (recorded in May 2002), Four Intermezzi, the Ballade Op. 118 and Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 79 (recorded in September 2000) and a live performance of the Paganini Variations Books I & II Op. 35 from Salle Gaveau in Paris 1982. – 18 – Credits

Recorded in Concert in Montreal, Canada November 4, 1983 (tracks 1 thru 5).

Recorded in Concert in Columbus, Ohio January 11, 1987 (track 6)

Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson

Generous assistance came from Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Grossman and the Ivory Classics Foundation

24-Bit Mastering

Liner Notes: Jeremy Nicholas

Photo of Earl Wild and Domino on front and Earl Wild under the CD were taken at the home of composer Frederick Loewe in Palm Springs, California 1976.

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: 614-761-9799 [email protected] • Website: http://www.IvoryClassics.com

– 19 – ROBERT SCHUMANN Earl Wild in Concert (1983 & 1987)

1 Papillons, Op. 2 ...... 13:57 Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11 ...... 29:15 2 Introduzione: un poco adagio - Allegro vivace 10:20 3 Aria: Senza passione, ma espressivo 3:23 4 Scherzo e Intermezzo: Allegrissimo - Lento 5:03 5 Finale: Allegro un poco maestoso 10:29 6 Waldszenen, Op. 82 ...... 20:26 Eintritt (Entrance) Jäger auf der Lauer (Hunter in Ambush) Einsame Blumen (Lonely Flowers) Verrufene Stelle (Haunted Spot) Freundliche Landschaft (Pleasant Landscape) Herberge (Wayside Inn) Vogel als Prophet (Bird as Prophet) Jagdlied (Hunting Song) Abschied (Farewell) Total Playing Time: 63:48 Remastering Producer: Michael Rolland Davis Remastering Engineer: Ed Thompson 24-Bit Mastering

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