Earl WILD (1915-2010)
The Complete Transcriptions - Volume 2: Rachmaninoff Songs
Giovanni Doria Miglietta (piano)
Rec. 12-13 October 2015, Genova, Italy.
PIANO CLASSICS PCL0102 [60:31]
Earl Wild was known to most record collectors as a great virtuoso pianist, especially formidable in the Romantic masters from Chopin to Rachmaninoff. Wild was also an improviser, and often wrote the resultant pieces down, so there is a wealth of transcriptions, fantasies and paraphrases, as well as original piano works. Here we have a complete recording of Wild’s transcriptions of Rachmaninoff’s songs. Wild’s pedigree for the task is impressive, since he knew Rachmaninoff, often heard him perform, and knew the Russian soprano Maria Kurenko, who had worked with the composer on his songs, and shared the insights she gained
In Wild’s transcriptions the vocal line blends into the accompaniment, to a degree that almost obscures its melodic status. I suspect that not all of us could say, if we heard these with an innocent ear and did not know the originals, that we might be hearing a song transcription. Wild gives some of them new preludes and codas, or repeats, in the manner of a Liszt paraphrase, so that what we have is a (nearly new) solo piano piece. This also means that many of them are almost twice as long as the vocal original. Looking into the relative length of original song and Wild’s transcription, using Delphian’s complete recording of the songs as a benchmark, shows that half these songs become considerably extended once there is no finite text to set a limit. Thus the song which has no text even in the original, the Vocalise Op.34/14, is 3:37 when sung, but 6:49 in Wild’s arrangement. But of course that is the one piece here that had been much arranged already.
Even with other songs, the arrangement makes it into a more substantial item, at least in terms of timing. Thus Op.21/7, variously titled “how peaceful” or “how fair this spot”, is a song which portrays a profound quiet stillness, a slow 2:11 in length. Wild’s keyboard elaboration introduces more agitation at times, even passion, so subtly changes the character of the piece. Of course this is often what a Liszt paraphrase would do. Wild set himself some limits though, deciding he “wouldn’t write anything on the page that wasn’t somewhere in Rachmaninoff’s work either in his decorations or his chordal structure.” Which of course still gives plenty of scope for starting as an arranger but practically becoming a co-creator.
Several of these works must be demanding to play. Rachmaninoff’s piano parts are not always straightforward in the originals, so to retain the accompaniment, add the voice part to the transcription, and then some elaborations, gives a lot for the fingers to get around. The very last item here, the transcription (4:23) of a short song (2:01), called here “Spring Waters”, has a text concerned with swelling rivers as harbingers of springtime, and a torrential pianistic figuration to suggest those spring torrents, even before the vocal line is added. It’s a terrific arrangement/paraphrase like most of those here, and like them all, terrifically well played by Giovanni Doria Miglietta. He sounds completely attuned to the idiom, even though these works cannot have always been familiar to him. He has the technique to get round all the notes without strain, and he has a good instrument on which he makes a fine sound, with a sonorous forte that never becomes to clangourous, and is well-captured by the recording. There are helpful booklet notes (English only) on both Earl Wild and the background to these arrangements. Wild of course made a great recording of the Rachmaninoff concertos, as did the composer himslef. Hence this disc amounts to a most original tribute, in effect, to two great pianists
Roy Westbrook
Contents
6 Songs, Op.38/5. Sleep [3:29]
12 Songs, Op.21/7 How peaceful [3:40]
6 Songs, Op.4/4 Sing not to me, beautiful maiden [4:51]
12 Songs, Op.21/12 How painful for me [4:24]
12 Songs, Op.14/2 The isle [2:20]
14 Songs, Op.34/1 The muse [5:06]
12 Songs, Op.14/5 Summer nights [3:46]
15 Songs, Op.26/7 To my children [4:11]
12 Songs, Op.14/8 Oh, do not grieve [3:13]
6 Songs, Op. 4/3 In the silence of the secret night [5:15]
6 Songs Op.4/5. Harvest of Sorrow [4:28]
12 Songs, Op.21/8 On the death of a linnet [4:46]
14 Songs, Op. 34/14 Vocalise [6:48]
12 Songs, Op. 14/11 Spring Waters [4:23]
