CENTENARY OBSERVANCE : PIANIST WILD SURVEYS POET LISZT AT LOYOLA

In programs titled “Liszt the Poet,” “Liszt the Transcriber” and “Liszt the Virtuoso,” Earl Wild brings to Loyola Marymount University this week a mini-survey of the works of the great Hungarian composer/pianist/conductor who died 100 years ago this July.

These are the same programs Wild presented earlier in New York, Chicago, Boston and London. On the page, they offer familiarity and novelty in equal parts. On the concert stage, judging from Wild’s splendorous performances in Murphy Recital Hall Monday night, they reclaim, as all thoughtful and genuinely stylish readings of this music must, the composer’s long-suppressed stature.

Historically, Liszt has been denigrated by generations of music lovers, most of whom could not know better, and by his fellow musicians, who should have known better. In the last two decades, an enlightened reassessment has begun; much remains to be done, particularly in the area of audience education.

Fortunately, important pianists of our older generation, including Arrau, Bolet and Wild--who is now 70--have been doing this work for years. With our gratitude, they continue.

As Peter DeVere’s cogent and literate program notes pointed out, Liszt’s pianistic lyricism and technical supremacy were forever interlinked in his compositions. Not surprisingly, Wild’s agenda on Monday, ostensibly specializing in “The Poet,” did not (in fact, could not) neglect the virtuosic elements.

Integration of thought and feeling characterize the major works here offered: the Ballade in B minor; “Les jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este”; the “Fantasia quasi Sonata: Apres une Lecture du Dante”; “Funerailles,” and the “Mephisto” Waltz No. 1.

Wild’s probing performances of these pieces, at once spontaneous and definitive, combined warmth of expression, linear thrust and effortlessly brilliant execution, while stressing the poetic. One has seldom heard, for instance, a more songful treatment of the melodious interior of the first “Mephisto” Waltz.

Or a more liquid realization of “Les jeux d’eau,” one accomplished not as a technical feat, which it certainly is, but as a direct, programmatic depiction, at the piano, of the flow of fountains.

Among numerous other joys of listenership: a perfectly pristine account, opening the recital, of the “Liebestraum” No. 3; an appropriately enigmatic delivery of the “Valse Oubliee” No. 1; a delightful introduction to the “Mephisto” Polka (1883).

For encores, Wild chose two pieces not by Liszt--Chopin’s “Fantaisie-Impromptu” and Respighi’s “Notturno”--and let them sing out with unfettered simplicity. That’s technique.

Remaining installments in Wild’s Liszt series are at 8 tonight, when he plays a program including the West Coast premiere of Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s First Symphony and the Etudes after Paganini; and Friday, when he will play, among other items, the Sonata in B minor, three of the “Transcendental” Etudes and three Hungarian Rhapsodies.