Wild About Liszt
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Movie Reviews of Wild About Liszt
Movie Review: A true Gem!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a one in a million compilation for Liszt and, for that matter, piano lovers! Audio is not the greatest, but Earl Wild is outstanding in his performances.Even though it is noted that the Steinway was not properly voiced, beautiful music gushes from the piano with this artist!I love this dvd set.I have some Wild dvd's and this is a welcome addition to my collection.The Steinway sound is there and Earl Wild's heart is certainly in his performances on all of the pieces.The interviews are frosting on the cake.Movie Review: DVD and piano issues!
Summary: 3 Stars
The first thing one sees about this 2 disc release on the Amazon website is "800 minutes" [sic] which is not correct. Of interest, the identical set at Amazon-UK shows 390 minutes although if one does the math from the set itself, it calculates to exactly 530 minutes. I'm not being 'picky' here but simply pointing to what is and what isn't in this two disc set. Disc number one, per the DVD listing itself, is 3 hours and 43 minutes; disc two is 3 hours and 3 minutes and the "bonus audio" is 124 minutes or two hours and 4 minutes. Grand total: 530 minutes, thus 'not' the Amazon-US cited 800 minutes nor the Amazon-UK cited 390 minutes.
The three recitals at Wynyard, 1986: It's been said that in Liszt's younger days, he would have TWO pianos on the stage so that when he "wrecked" [sic] the first one via his bravura playing, he could then move to the second one and continue the concert. Unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Wild, at least figuratively, was given that resurrected first, which is to say, Liszt 'wrecked' piano and, speculatively speaking in this conjured scenario, told to make the best of it on what he had to work with ... piano wise!
True enough, even the video itself contains a disclaimer that the piano was not "properly voiced" and here and there on the net one sees all manner of comment a la "it was not an overly technological oriented [read: professional] recording system set-up" or "this was a small mansion recital room versus an acoustically balanced recital hall" but the bottom line becomes the available piano not sounding the way it should sound had it been given the requisite attention it obviously required! This was and is NOT the fault of Mr. Wild but even with the noted disclaimers aside, the poor sound of the piano itself and in some cases sounding out of tune can not be escaped. Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why someone like Krystian Zimerman absolutely insists on using his own piano wherever he plays AND, I'll add at once, at his personal expense! In the DVD, Mr. Wild was given the piano at hand ... but the piano needed work! And it showed or rather made that critical requirement audible.
I play classical piano myself and I don't have to remind any readers who also play either for self enjoyment or indeed professionally and at whatever level of proficiency mind you, that a piano, ANY piano, that is literally begging for the professional tuner will not sound good no matter who is at the keyboard! You 'must' have an instrument that is properly voiced, tuned, et al, or the overall results will be noticed ... quickly! How does one 'compensate' for an 'instrument' that needs help? No amount of keyboard expertise can compensate for a piano that is out of whack and the human ear will immediately detect same even if that listening ear doesn't know zip about the piano or its inner intricacies.
So too and lest any readers erroneously believe I am being critical of Mr. Wild, not a bit of it, I consider the man a living legend and it's the 'piano' I'm commenting about in this particular DVD but which does effect the overall performance! Balancing this comment, note the difference when Mr. Wild performs on other pianos or his own piano at home and hence the 'sound' difference between a piano that is given regular TLC versus one that is not!
I also agree with another reviewer that Mr. Wild is mercifully 'not' a fan of what more than a few folks seem to erroneously interpret as pianist 'feeling' via their overly excessive facial muggings, "eyes to the heavens" , miming, upper torso gymnastics, eye poppings, bench jumping, key bangings, swooning, vocal mutterings, verge of tears kind of thing, et al, and this is indeed refreshing to see, the absence of same where the 'music' gets the 'feeling' versus the music coming in a poor second or in some extreme cases as a veritable after-thought to that of visual 'interpreter' feeling(s).
Lastly, and noting that other reviewers already commented on the lack of DVD progressive scan cueing and no indication of the piece save for the brief list of pieces on the DVD, I found the cost of the two disc set rather pricey although various Amazon vendors offer the set at less cost and/or 'pre-owned' [what ever happened to the word "used" !] sets.
Doc Tony
Movie Review: Sound AWFUL- video AWFUL
Summary: 1 Stars
Because I love Earl Wild's playing of Liszt and because of the rave reviews, I bought this DVD. The sound is worse than the old 78's from my childhood and our home movies were better. I don't understand where these marvelous reviews came from, they must have been about different concerts than the ones on my DVD. I will continue to enjoy Mr. Wild's playing on CDs and I don't recommend anyone waste their money on these DVDs.
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