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Article: Wild about Earl.(Earl Wild)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- December 31, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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LAST month, Earl Wild celebrated his 90th birthday, with a recital in Carnegie Hall. Who's Earl Wild? He is one of the outstanding piano virtuosos of the 20th century. A lanky Pittsburgher, with huge hands, Wild has a monster technique, capable of anything. He has always played the hardest music, the showiest music--but he is more than a technician. Wild has an interesting musical head. He is a throwback to an earlier time of unabashed Romanticism, and barnstorming pianism.
Born two years before America entered the First War, Wild studied with one of the great piano pedagogues of the age, Egon Petri, who in turn had been a student of Busoni. To review Wild's ...