This recital of Earl Wild’s major piano works was recorded
just five months after Wild’s death in January 2010, at
the age of 94. It is an excellent celebration of four of the
composer-pianist’s most significant works. It is gratifying
to know that Wild’s music will live on in the hands of
a pianist as gifted - and as attuned to his jazzy language -
as Xiayin Wang.
Earl Wild was always a spiritual neighbor of George Gershwin;
he played in one of the early standard recordings of Rhapsody
in Blue, with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler. But, especially
now that Rhapsody recordings like last year’s dazzling
Lincoln Mayorga account abound, Wild’s main legacy to
the Gershwin tradition might be his series of compositions based
on the older man’s hits: Grand Fantasy on ‘Porgy
and Bess’, Seven Virtuoso Etudes (all after
songs from the Gershwin musicals), and the Improvisation
on ‘Someone to Watch Over Me.’ All are presented
here, along with an even more recent work, 2000’s piano
sonata - which is not based on Gershwin at all.
The Grand Fantasy on ‘Porgy and Bess’ is
an opera fantasy of the sort Liszt used to write, but irradiated
through and through with the spirits of Gershwin and Wild. The
numbers are given an inspired order, “Bess, You Is My
Woman Now” held back until the last possible moment to
serve as a breathtakingly lyrical climax to the half-hour-long
dramatic arc. All the big tunes are here, plus lesser tunes
which Wild astutely recognizes would sound terrific on the piano;
this is a rollicking jazz suite in which melodies like “I
Got Plenty of Nothin’” pop up like old friends.
The Grand Fantasy has been recorded by quite a few artists:
Wild himself, Martin Jones on Nimbus, Ralph Votapek on the tiny
Blue Griffin label, and now Xiayin Wang. The prospective listener
cannot go wrong: although there is always a temptation to call
Wild’s performance definitive (on which I’ll say
more later), Votapek has great jazzy chops and panache, and
Xiayin Wang channels both the big virtuosic Wild style and a
soft poetry unique to her account. She has the wit of Votapek’s
“It Ain’t Necessarily So”, for instance, but
lacks the sarcastic bite. In return, we get a slightly more
classicized vision with lyrical lines opened up. I prefer Votapek,
but it is a matter of taste.
Wang is even stronger in the Seven Virtuoso Études,
where competition is thinner - Jones did them all, but Votapek
only tackled two. She has extraordinary technique, for sure:
Wild set about making each into a technical challenge by his
high standards, and the result is, in the words of the booklet,
“incredible” demands on the soloist. Yet Xiayin
Wang clearly fears none of it. This music is in the Chopin tradition
anyway, that is, études so attractive that their difficulties
seem incidental, and here the flurries of notes and complex
rhythms never impede the melodic flow of the original songs.
Listen especially for the agile beauty of the runs in ‘Embraceable
You.’ The Improvisation on ‘Someone to Watch
over Me,’ in its first recording by someone other
than Wild, calls for similar traits of note-spinning and subtle
elegance, and is another pleasure.
Completing the recital is the only non-Gershwin-themed work:
Wild’s Piano Sonata, written in 2000 (at age 84).
It’s a work which can stand as one of the more interesting
piano sonatas of recent times, in a language that’s spiked
with jazz, formal classicism, and percussive writing. Imagine
a swung Prokofiev and you’ll have an idea of the outer
movements; a perfume of Scriabin and Bill Evans hangs over the
adagio’s climax - and the last bars are endearing. The
finale is a homage to pop singer Ricky Martin, a rather sad
reminder of the transient nature of pop stardom, though the
music is anything but sad or fleeting.
Given the excellence of the playing on offer here, and the sheer
pleasure of the music itself, all that remains to be said on
behalf of this disc is that the sound quality is exemplary and
the presentation is too: the booklet includes a very good essay
by Lucy Miller Murray and an endearing photograph of Earl Wild’s
90th birthday recital at Carnegie Hall, the titan
of American piano-playing looking years younger, with full white
hair and hands which could clearly still command the keyboard.
Now, a few words on the looming presence of the composer’s
own interpretations. It would be simple to say something like,
“Earl Wild’s recordings of his own music remain
the standard, of course, but I’m glad to see new pianists
championing his work.” I won’t say that. In fact,
I’ve tried to avoid mentioning Wild’s own playing
at all. Anyone with serious affection for this music will seek
out the great man’s recordings, but he composed piano
pieces that will (or should) find a prominent home in the recital
repertoire. We ought not intimidate any aspiring performers
by suggesting that future efforts will only be held up to Wild’s
originals for comparison. To do so would be to condemn the music
to fossilize, to relegate it to Wild’s own recordings;
instead I want it to grow and be adopted by more performers.
Have no fear of comparison to Earl Wild, then, young pianists;
that is not the point. Xiayin Wang combines the necessary grand,
Lisztian virtuosity with a real talent for the jazzy sensibility.
Hers is a superb recital, and it does Earl Wild’s memory
proud.
Brian Reinhart
Xiayin Wang (piano) 
