Contents:
Earl Wild: Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions

Saint-Saens / Wild:
Le Rouet d’Omphale, Op.31

Handel / Wild:
Air and Variations – The Harmonious Blacksmith

Chopin / Wild:
Larghetto, from Piano Concerto No.2 in F minor, Op.21

Rachmaninov / Wild:
Midsummer Nights

Tchaikovsky / Pabst:
Paraphrase on Sleeping Beauty

Fauré / Wild:
Improvisation on Après un Rêve

Bach / Wild:
Hommage à Poulenc

Mozart / Backhaus:
Serenade from Don Giovanni

Churchill / Wild:
Reminiscences of Snow White “Whistle While You Work” – “I’m Wishing” – “One Song” – “Heigh-Ho” – “Someday My Prince Will Come”

Tchaikovsky / Wild:
At the Ball

Tchaikovsky / Wild:
Dance of the Four Swans from Swan Lake

Johann Strauss, Jr. / Tausig:
One Lives but Onceh

Kreisler / Rachmaninov:
Liebesleid

Artists:
Earl Wild piano

Recorded Date:
May 1995 in Fernleaf Abbey, on a Baldwin piano
Producer:
Michael Rolland Davis
Engineer:
Ed Thompson
Piano Technician:
Andrei Svetlichny
When Earl Wild performs, the Golden Age of the keyboard suddenly reappears. Like the great romantic showmen who flourished before World War II, Wild revels in the sensuality and sheer kineticism of the piano, reminding his listeners that it is the only instrument capable of emulating both the tender nuances of vocal music and the thunderous range of the orchestra. When Wild plays, the pallid noodling that often passes for pianism these days vanishes; one hears the grand echoes of Paderewski, Rachmaninov, and Josef Hofmann. Just turning 80, Wild is as productive and more musically rewarding than ever. Sony Classical has just released a new CD, The Romantic Master, which is largely devoted to Wild’s own dazzling transcriptions, among them the delightful “Reminiscences of Snow White,” a fantasy of Frank Churchill’s music for the 1937 Disney animated film.