Customer Reviews

Medtner: Piano Music

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Earl Wild begins this 1988 disc with Medtner's elusive, twenty-six minute composition called "Second Improvisation," Op. 47 (Mr. Wild recorded the "First Improvisation for RCA back in the 70s.) Curious Medtner would call this an improvisation, when it's actually a series of interwoven Rachmaninoff/Scriabinesque variations (on something he calls "The Mermaid's Song"). Wild sustains these quirky, vacillating variations with aplomb.

The delightfully whimsical "Sonate-Idylle," Op. 56, again a tad Scriabin-like, is nostaligic and beautiful--- and all too short at only eleven minutes or so.

What is most mesmerizing, however, is Wild's rendition of Medtner's "Vergessene Weisen" ("Forgotten Melodies"), Op. 39, which are five alternatingly ruminative, titillating and thrilling pieces. The opening "Meditation" is knockout gorgeous, as is No. 2, "Romance." The last piece of the set, the "Sonata Tragica," frequently excerpted for solo performance, is a composition of interspersed passion and glowing lyricism.

Of a rather refined intellectual bent, Medtner's music has never had wide public appeal, although his piano concertos have come and gone through the years, as have his piano works, themselves highly variable. Credit the success of this CD to Mr. Wild, an incredibly fine artist, pianist and virtuoso (with techincal prowess second to none), with the heart of a true romantic.

[Running time: 66:40]

With the departure of this keyboard lion on January 23 of this year, USA has lost one of the three last ambassadors of the great romantic tradition (the last survivor ones are Michael Ponti(1937)and Paul badura-Skoda (1927)) , whose overpowering skills, steeled fingering and vibrant expressiveness is not precisely the denominator common in these times, in which the technique is regarded by far, upon other no less important virtues like the inner expression to cite just one of them.

He always worried (like Michael Ponti) by diffusing and make it know the music of this Russian composer (whose style is in the middle of the road between the great Russian Romantic tradition and the musical Modernism). In this sense, it's quite ironical these men who were born in the other extreme of the world had kept in mind to include the music of this composer with major emphasis respect his colleagues (with the honored exception of Emil Gilels).

Medtner is not only a keystone in the Russian music, he represents the bridge between two eras. And Wild made in this sense, the best he could: to honor his memory.

In memoriam!