Music Reviews : Earl Wild Plays Chopin in Outdoor Recital

Because he was just a kid in the late ‘30s, when Toscanini put him squarely in the spotlight, Earl Wild is a pianist the musical world still thinks of as a youngster.

And because Wild’s performing style conjoins with a boyish appearance and a playful, even mischievous, personality, the impression of youthfulness has followed him through a distinguished career that long ago outgrew the “Gershwin specialist” identification.

Now 75, but incontrovertibly young in look, walk and pianistic attitude, Wild reiterated that impression once again, Wednesday night, in a Chopin recital at Hollywood Bowl. True to his form, the pianist avoided cliches, vulgarity and easy conquests. But he did play his Baldwin piano beautifully from first to last, leaped technical hurdles like the champion he is, and made handsome, songful, urgent or felicitous sounds in every moment--always without stridency.

His program began and ended heroically, with, first, the C-minor Nocturne, then the B-flat minor Scherzo, each given a specific and personal purview, each spontaneous in feeling and stylish in detail.

The four Ballades, in a revelatory ordering--the F-minor, followed by the F-major, the G-minor and the A-flat--completed the first half, the many differences between them articulated and contrasted, their climaxes achieved with a natural and unforced rhetoric.

For once, the “Andante spianato” and E-flat Polonaise emerged pristine, well-spoken, lyrical and not overblown. Three Etudes--in C-sharp minor, Opus 25, No. 7; in E, Opus 10, No. 3, and in E minor, Opus 25, No. 5--complemented each other most satisfactorily and proved masterful examples of effortless technique in the service of clarified music-making.

Three encores, all by Chopin, followed the program proper: The “Fantaisie-Impromptu,” the E-minor Waltz and the so-called “Minute” Waltz. Attendance: 7,631.