Earl Wild, one of America's great contemporary pianists, died
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010, at his home in Palm Springs, Calif.
He was 94.
New York Times music critic Harold Schonberg wrote in 1981, "By any
standards Mr. Wild has one of the great piano techniques of the 20th
century, and with it a rich, sonorous tone."
Albert Petrak, who sent us the news, remarks that "Alas, Mr. Wild
would have been but 15 years of age in 1930 when the 'piano roll
bubble' burst."
Although Wild arrived a bit too late to make music rolls for pneumatic
pianos, in the 1980s he recorded a programme of music for the Stahnke
SE solenoid reproducing piano system. The pieces are listed at
http://www.mmdigest.com/Store/Livep/fp.html
On-line articles about Earl Wild's life are presented at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/arts/music/24wild.html
by Allan Kozinn (New York Times);
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/934509.html
by Martin Steinberg (Associated Press);
http://www.earlwild.com/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/stephenhough/100006374/earl-wild-1915-2010-r-i-p/
Robbie Rhodes, MMD
|