Wild, Earl

Wild, Earl, greatly talented American pianist; b. Pittsburgh, Nov. 26, 1915. He was a child prodigy; blessed with absolute pitch, he could read music and play piano by age 6. When he was 12, he became a student of Selmar Jansen; also pursued training at the Carnegie Inst. of Technology (graduated, 1934). While still a teenager, he played on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh and in the Pittsburgh Sym. Orch. After appearing as a soloist with the NBC Orch. in N.Y. in 1934, he settled there; pursued further training with Egon Petri, and later with Paul Doguereau and Volya Lincoln. In 1937 he became the staff pianist of Toscanini’s NBC Sym. Orch. in N.Y. He was the first American pianist to give a recital on U.S. television in 1939. In 1942 he appeared as soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Toscanini and the NBC Sym. Orch. He made his N.Y. recital debut at Town Hall on Oct. 30,1944. From 1944 to 1968 he worked as a staff pianist, conductor, and composer for ABC while continuing to make occasional appearances as a soloist with orchs. and as a recitalist. After leaving ABC, he pursued a brilliant international career as a virtuoso par excellence; he also served as artistic director of the Concert Soloists of Wolf Trap, a chamber ensemble (1978-81). He devoted part of his time to teaching and was on the faculties of Pa. State Univ. (1965-68), the Juilliard School in N.Y. (1977-87), the Manhattan School of Music (1982-84), and Ohio State Univ. (from 1987). Among his compositions are the Easter oratorio Revelations (1962), a ballet, incidental music, orch. pieces, including Variations on an American Theme, after Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races, for Piano and Orch. (Des Moines, Sept. 26,1992, composer soloist), and a number of transcendentally resonant piano transcriptions of vocal and orch. works. A phenomenal technician of the keyboard, he won particular renown for his brilliant performances of the Romantic repertoire. In addition to works by such masters as Liszt and Chopin, he sought out and performed rarely heard works of the past. He also performed contemporary music, becoming especially esteemed for his idiomatic interpretations of Gershwin. Among the scores he commissioned and introduced to the public were concertos by Paul Crestón (1949) and Marvin David Levy (1970).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire