Wild About Liszt
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Earl WildDirector: none listed
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language), PCM Stereo
Format: HiFi Sound, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 530 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Ivory Classics
Movie Reviews of Wild About Liszt
Movie Review: A Priceless Treasury
Summary: 5 Stars
I've always adored Earl Wild. After going through this extraordinary compendium of sight and sound, I love him a hundred times more. Yes, he deserved a far better piano for the historic 1986 recitals at England's Wynyard Park. The DVD booklet warns that the piano, shipped in from London, was not ideally adjusted. The documentary proves that the piano was at least tuned, although it didn't seem to hold the tuning very well in the late-July heat. I get the sense that Wild often had to fight the instrument to get something half decent out of it (what a shame that he could not have picked out an instrument in London before it arrived up north). As a result, Wild's playing sometimes goes uncharacteristically choppy. I'm sure that quite a few of the wrong notes can be blamed on the recalcitrant keyboard (like all great musicians, Wild plays his wrong notes the right way, without the slightest perturbation). As the recitals proceed, Wild progressively tames the beast a bit, I think.
Be all that as it may, we are surely much the richer because Tony Gaw (a friend of Lord Londonderry, owner of Wynyard) thoughtfully preserved this great occasion for us (the final July 30 recital began on the evening before the centennial of Liszt's passing; indeed, in the accompanying documentary Londonderry muses that the recital might even end close to the time of Liszt's death, which therefore must have come not long after midnight on July 31, 1886). I was fortunate to hear this same three-recital sequence (with the addition of the third *Liebestraum* as the opening of "Liszt the Poet") when Wild presented it in Cambridge, Mass., in April and May 1986, so I am thrilled to see that nearly all of it has been preserved.
Many thanks to "South Carolina" for the program details (why did Ivory fail to supply them in the booklet? By the way, the first two recitals, on DVD 1, are properly broken down into individual chapters. The final recital, on DVD 2, is one annoyingly continuous chapter). South Carolina's program for the third recital is incomplete, however. After *Gnomenreigen*, we hear:
- Four of the *Douze études d'exécution transcendante* (12 Transcendental Etudes): 3, 2, 9 & 10
- Three Hungarian Rhapsodies: 12, 4 & 2
- Eugène d'Albert's Scherzo in F#, Op. 16/2 (encore)
Also worth noting: the 1974 BBC interview with Robin Ray contains five complete live performances in studio (on a vastly more responsive and better-recorded Bösendorfer, thank goodness):
- Liszt's *Gnomenreigen*, Sonetto del Petrarca 104, and *La campanella*
- d'Albert's Scherzo in F#
- Chopin's *Grande polonaise* in E-flat, Op. 22
Here and elsewhere, Wild makes a persuasive case for transposing many 19th-century works down by up to a third (in Beethoven's case; more often, by a whole tone) to correct for the relentless rise in concert pitch. He demonstrates his point with Chopin's Op. 25/1 (the "Aeolian Harp" étude) and Op. 25/12 (the "Ocean" étude), playing the opening passages in their "correct" keys before transposing them down a full tone.
Perhaps the set's biggest "Easter egg" pops up in the middle of Wild's 1982 Philadelphia radio interview: a performance of Copland's Piano Concerto, with Copland leading The Symphony of the Air (whose presence necessarily dates the recording to somewhere between 1954 and 1963).
The other video extras feature Wild at the keyboard, but only in snippets. The audio interviews are just as delightful as their video counterparts. Among the many revelations from these extras: Wild began playing Scharwenka's First Piano Concerto when he was 14, so he was more than ready when Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony needed a soloist for their classic 1969 recording. Throughout, Wild is unpretentiously charming and often howlingly funny as he reflects on his extraordinary life (Wild tells several illuminating Toscanini anecdotes and provides direct evidence about Debussy's youthful visit to Spain from Debussy's traveling companion Henry Hornbostel, the principal architect for Carnegie Mellon University, whom Wild met as a 19-year-old student). Lastly, there is a voluminous photo gallery filled with historic and contemporary images about Wynyard Park (you'll need to hit the pause button to take in big texts like those from old newspaper articles).
All in all, this set exploits just about everything a DVD can do with image and sound. It's a fabulous romp and a reference for the ages. I pray that Wild makes it to 100 and beyond with all his wits. What a sorry world we will have when his exuberant spirit takes flight.
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