Fanfare Magazine CD Review

By Scott Noriega

Classical Reviews - Composers & Works

Monday, 28 March 2011

Xiayin Wang Plays the Piano Music of Earl Wild, Audio CD, Chandos
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With the recent passing in 2010 of one of America’s premier pianists, and one of the last of the golden age, it is only fitting that Earl Wild’s compositions garner the attention they deserve from other pianists. Wild had quite an extensive repertoire, ranging from Bach and Chopin through Beethoven and Thalberg to Menotti and Scharwenka. He seemed to relish any type of music with a pianistic flair, composing similarly himself. His arrangements of Gershwin’s music—a composer he held very dear—are perhaps his most famous. They require the type of pianistic abilities that he himself possessed, namely a solid virtuoso technique allowing an ease of execution, and an elegant and graceful quality with the musical intricacies. Thankfully pianist Xiayin Wang brings with her these qualities and then some.

The recital begins with the Grand Fantasy. Although this single composition lasts almost 30 minutes, it is actually composed of 12 smaller sections. In Wang’s hands the piece seems to last only a few moments, so persuasive is her ability to shape the melodies, dreamily arpeggiate the cascades of notes, and make the higher registers of the instrument sparkle. Her way with the etudes is no less enticing. She can be at one moment sensual and the next rhythmically driving. She has a beautiful palate of sound colors that she uses to shape the melody of Someone to Watch over Me . Her playing never sinks to the level of sentimentality, but she does have the ability to capture an aura of heartfelt nostalgia. One of the most beautiful (and astonishing, given the difficulty!) moments occurs in the first variation of the set. Wang manages to not only balance the different textures and lines of music well, but also to shape the original melody, now in rapid repeated notes, with such assuredness, such delicacy, that one forgets the difficulties inherent in the performance, and is left breathless in musical awe. While most of the recording is given over to Wild’s reinterpretations of Gershwin’s music, his Piano Sonata, composed at the turn of the last century, concludes the recital. Whereas an obvious debt to Rachmaninoff can be heard in the Gershwin arrangements, one finds more of an influence of Bartók, Ravel, and even Prokofiev in the finale of the sonata. Here the pianist alters her sound to accommodate the stylistic changes in music: biting in the first; calm and wandering, yet at times explosive, in the second; propulsive in the last.

The sound is clear and vibrant, as has been my experience on many Chandos recordings. Though Wild will always be primarily remembered as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, he did write some very attractive music that will hopefully be explored by more pianists in the future; for now, if this is the type of repertoire in which one is interested, then this is the pianist that one wants playing it.