Wilde plays Brahms

Notes on the music

David Wilde piano

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) Variations Op 21 No 1 and Op 24 Rhapsodies Op 79 / Intermezzi Op 117 1 2

Rhapsody, Op 79 No 1 Rhapsody, Op 79 No 2

[9.52]

Variations on an Original Theme 3 4 5 6 7 8

Thema Variation 1 Variation 2 Variation 3 Variation 4 Variation 5

[1.33] [1.30] [0.56] [1.06] [0.53] [1.45]

Variation 6 10 Variation 7 11 Variation 8 12 Variation 9 13 Variation 10 14 Variation 11 9

Intermezzo, Op 117 No 1 16 Intermezzo, Op 117 No 2 17 Intermezzo, Op 117 No 3

15

Variations on an Original Theme by Handel

[6.54]

[0.51] [1.20] [0.48] [1.08] [1.12] [4.49] [7.00] [6.03] [6.16]

Aria Variation 1 20 Variation 2 21 Variation 3 22 Variation 4 23 Variation 5 24 Variation 6 25 Variation 7 26 Variation 8 27 Variation 9 28 Variation 10 29 Variation 11 30 Variation 12 31 Variation 13 18

[1.01]

19

[0.49] [0.40] [0.46] [0.51] [1.00] [0.59] [0.37] [0.38] [1.22] [0.32] [0.44] [0.49]

With thanks to the University of Edinburgh

Piano: Steinway Model D Grand Piano, 1995, serial no 527910 Piano technician: Norman W. Motion, consultant to Steinway & Sons Page turner: Hannah Gallagher Photograph editing: Raymond Parks

[0.43]

33 Variation 15

[0.51]

35 Variation 17

[0.31]

34 Variation 16 36 Variation 18

[0.33] [0.44]

37 Variation 19

[0.50]

39 Variation 21

[0.59]

38 Variation 20

40 Variation 22 41 Variation 23 42 Variation 24 43 Variation 25 44 Fuga

[1.32] [0.50] [0.39] [0.36] [0.41] [5.11]

[1.40]

Total playing time

Recorded on 3-4 September 2008 at the Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh Producer: Paul Baxter Engineer: Beth Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Simon Smith 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

32 Variation 14

[81.26]

Photography © Delphian Records Cover image: Drew Padrutt Design: Drew Padrutt Booklet editor: John Fallas Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk

What are Brahms? This amusing gaffe may be But whatever your view you will surely see them, familiar but it ironically suggests a plurality and, in the words of the poet William Ritter, as ‘like in the case of the piano music, a panorama of the lustre of golden parks in autumn and the infinite richness and range. At the age of twenty austere black and white of winter walks’: a fitting Brahms introduced himself to Robert and Clara conclusion to an autobiographical journey of Schumann playing his piano sonatas and leaving exultant and reflective glory. them awed and enchanted by the sheer size and grandeur of his talent. For them he was But enough of generality. David Wilde’s richly already ‘fully armed’ and for Clara, in particular, a comprehensive programme opens with a young eagle had spread the wings of his genius. dramatic curtain-raiser – the two Rhapsodies The sonatas are, indeed, heroic utterances, Op 79, a notable return to Brahms’ Sturm und remembering Beethoven yet leaping into new Drang Romanticism. Here the terse opening realms of expression and an altogether novel of the B minor Rhapsody and its pleading, Romantic rhetoric. Such youthful outpouring was, Schumannesque second subject give us Brahms’ however, short-lived; Brahms turned gratefully to old rhetorical sense of contrast, with an additional variation form, finding the genre congenial to his surprise in the form of a final dark-hued reworking ever-growing mastery and imagination. of the central molto dolce expressivo’s chiming, bell-like counterpoints. The G minor Rhapsody is Throughout his life there would be temporary dominated by a powerful, arching melody and a returns to his early boldness, a memory no sombre triplet figure deployed with great ingenuity. doubt of his first confidence and bravura both Brahms may have dismissed his opus 79 as ‘trash’, as composer and pianist. Yet the primary mood but the Rhapsodies’ popularity testifies to his of ‘late’ Brahms is one of a deep introspection return to his early heady ambition with all of his and bittersweet lyricism that form a unique and first ardour and assurance resurrected. elusive part of the keyboard repertoire. How significant, for example, that the Fantasy Pieces The Variations on an Original Theme is the first Op 116 should contain three consecutive slow of two sets of variations published as Brahms’ intermezzi placed beneath more turbulent Op 21. Surprisingly neglected, and given short capriccios. It is customary to consider those final critical shrift even by such committed Brahmsians masterpieces, with their startling resurgences as the late Denis Matthews, they are admittedly of energy (a case of Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go uneven. But, like Rachmaninov’s similarly uneven gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn Variations on a theme of Chopin, they contain and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the music of a beauty rare even in Brahms. The dying of the light’), the truest essence of Brahms. theme itself is of a haunting breadth and beauty,

David Wilde the immediately subsequent variations of from another with masterful ease and cunning. polyphonic and canonic interest while Variation Yet despite such manifest invention the theme’s 6 shows an increase in momentum before the simple harmonic and periodic structure is near-pointillist wide leaping intervals of Variation scrupulously preserved. Although the eight-bar 7. There is full-blooded Brahmsian virtuoso scheme is held intact throughout the twentychording in Variation 8 but it is Variation 11 with five variations immense variety is provided, its chains of trills (a memory of Beethoven’s Op paradoxically, by the theme’s seeming limitations.

111 sonata?) that leads us to a coda glowing with Few works balance so perfectly a strict adherence human warmth, a musical sunset that has surely to the rules with such luxuriant artistic freedom. been underestimated down the ages.

As on his previous Delphian disc of music by Liszt Turning from early to late Brahms we come and Busoni, David Wilde’s power and individuality to the three Intermezzi Op 117. The first is make a separation between composer and prefaced by some lines from a Scottish lullaby, performer, between creator and re-creator and its principal melody is subtly entwined with unrealistic. Generous in a truly Brahmsian spirit, a varied bell-like accompaniment and a gently with all repeats he finds ample opportunity to rerocking left-hand rhythm, with deeper reflection align voicing and texture, rejecting a more familiar reserved for the più adagio. The arabesques carbon-copy approach. Again, he sees the simple of the second piece suggest a variation on a grace and lyricism favoured by many pianists melody as yet unheard. And its gentle regret as an evasion of a deeper poetic truth, and if he collapses into an altogether bleaker mood in the gives us all of Brahms’ strength in the fugue from third which confirms a disconsolate moment the ‘Handel’ Variations (making nonsense of Hugo in octaves in the first. Later, a gently cascading Wolf’s claim, ‘Brahms cannot exult’), he is no less contrast shifts from major to minor, clouding responsive to darker nights of the soul (Op 117). the music’s graceful momentum with disquiet.

Always there is an open invitation to re-appraise Brahms’ genius, not by a radical re-interpretation, Finally, an undisputed masterpiece: the by the determinedly ‘different’ way of, say, Gould Variations and Fugue on a theme by Handel. or Pogorelich, but by a probing and enquiring look Composed in 1861 and first performed by Clara beneath the music’s surface life. David Wilde may Schumann, the Variations take their theme from be true to the composer, but he is a pianist to three ‘lessons’ for the harpsichord which Handel make you think again. wrote for the children of his Royal patron, the © 2008 Bryce Morrison Prince of Wales. Neat and dapper beginnings Bryce Morrison is an internationally famous teacher, critic, lead to a profusion of ideas, developing one broadcaster and pianist, and is considered among the world’s leading authorities on piano performance.

‘Superb performer, magnificent musician’ – Nadia Boulanger

Wilde is a passionate teacher, and his pupils include Jack Gibbons, Christopher Oakden, Thomas Hell and Irina Georgieva. Wilde taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Pianist and composer David Wilde was born in Manchester Hannover from 1981 to 2000, and was made a Professor Emeritus of the State of Lower in 1935. A busy wartime career as ‘boy pianist’ brought Saxony in 1983. He has given many lectures him to the attention of the in both English and German, including his paper on psychology and the meaning of legendary pianist Solomon, who arranged for Wilde to study with his pupil and assistant Franz music, ‘Listening to the Shadows’. His analysis Reizenstein. Later, from 1949, Wilde studied of Liszt’s B minor Sonata, which he read and illustrated at London’s Analytical Psychology composition with Professor Richard Hall at the Club (of which he is an elected life member), Royal Manchester College of Music (precursor of the Royal Northern College of Music), of was originally written as a contribution to the book Analectia Lisztiana, ed. Michael Saffle which he was elected a Fellow of the RMCM (publ. Virginia Tech). in 1953, the same year he was awarded the prestigious Walter Dayas Gold Medal.

During the 1990s, having travelled to besieged Sarajevo to support his heroic colleagues there, In 1961 Wilde won a first prize at the LisztBartók competition in Budapest. The legendary Wilde composed several works protesting against human rights abuses in our time, Nadia Boulanger was a jury member, and notably The Cellist of Sarajevo (1992), the Suite invited him to visit her in Paris at any suitable time, so when in the same year Wilde was for Violin and Piano, Cry ‘Bosnia Herzegovina’, the String Quartet (of which the last movement awarded a senior scholarship by the Caird is a ‘Threnody for the Unknown Victim of War Foundation of Dundee he wrote to accept and Oppression’), and the opera London Under her invitation and ask if he might work with Siege, after an idea by Bosnian poet Goran her on a more regular basis. She responded most encouragingly, and Wilde joined her in Simic. The Cellist of Sarajevo, dedicated to Paris and at the Conservatoire Americain in Vedran Smailovic, is played the world over and Fontainebleau (of which Boulanger was then was recorded by Yo-Yo Ma for Sony Classical, Musical Director) in 1963, and again in 1964 and the opera London under Siege was and 1968, remaining in close touch with produced by the State Theatre of Lower Saxony ‘Mademoiselle’ for the rest of her long life. in 1998. The then Governor of Sarajevo travelled

to Germany to attend the first performance.

Wilde was twice honoured by the Bosnians: in 2003 he was awarded a diploma by the International Peace Committee of Sarajevo ‘for services to human rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina and throughout Europe’, and in 2005 he was presented with the ‘Symbol of the Open Door’, representing honorary Bosnian Citizenship.

More recently, Wilde has commissioned a sonata from Gabriel Jackson with funds from the Scottish Arts Council, the Britten-Pears Trust and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, and premiered it at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh in 2007. He gave the European premiere of this work during a recital in Braunschweig, Germany in October 2008.

Wilde has given many concert tours of the UK and played frequently with all the major London orchestras, all the BBC orchestras, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National and Hallé Orchestras.

He appeared regularly at the Henry Wood Proms with conductors such as Horenstein, Boulez and Downes. He has toured New Zealand and played and taught in India, Australia, Bulgaria, Russia, Canada, the USA, most countries of Western Europe and, of course, Hungary. His recordings include all of Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano and the sonata by Reizenstein with Erich Gruenberg, Alan Bush’s Variations, Nocturne and Finale on an English Sea Song (in a version for piano and orchestra which Wilde had premiered at the Cheltenham Festival), and concertos by Thomas Wilson (especially composed for Wilde) and by Sir Lennox Berkeley. In his recently published diaries Berkeley, who was present at the recording of his concerto, wrote simply: ‘David Wilde was first class.’

In 2007 EMI reissued Wilde’s 1968 HMV Liszt recital, coupled with Liszt recordings by Earl Wild. Wilde now records exclusively for Delphian Records: a Chopin recital (DCD34010), the complete piano works of Luigi Dallapiccola together with his Songs of Machado with soprano Susan Hamilton (DCD34020), and the seven Elegies of Busoni coupled with the Liszt Sonata (DCD34030) are already available, and a Schumann recital is in preparation, scheduled for release in July 2009.

Wilde has two children by his first marriage, and since retirement from his position in Hannover in 2000 lives with his second wife, writer and historian Jane Mary Wilde, in Bathgate, near Edinburgh.

David Wilde on Delphian Liszt: Sonata in B minor / Busoni: Elegies David Wilde piano (DCD34030) Bryce Morrison writes: ‘I first heard David play the Busoni Elegies at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. I also heard his earlier recording of the Liszt Sonata.

These performances, as cogent as they were lucid and powerful, have long stayed in my memory, yet they are far excelled by Delphian’s present offering.

Here, surely, is blazing confirmation of what Sir Michael Tippett once called “the immense effort of interpretation”, by means of a rare communicative vividness and force. In a time of increasing musical homogeneity David Wilde’s Liszt and Busoni stand out for their very special drama and integrity.’

‘Wilde lives up to his name in Liszt’s B minor Sonata … a performance heaving with free-flowing passion, power and zeal’ – The Scotsman, August 2007 Luigi Dallapiccola: a portrait David Wilde piano, Susan Hamilton soprano, Nicola Stonehouse mezzosoprano, Robert Irvine cello (DCD34020) Luigi Dallapiccola is one of the most celebrated Italian composers of the twentieth century. This disc features chamber music and songs alongside his complete works for solo piano. Whether drawing on the music of the past to nourish the contrapuntal organisation of his own, or concentrating on the opportunities for gentle lyricism afforded by bell-like vocal and instrumental sonorities, Dallapiccola’s commitment to traditional expressive nuance has been seen by critics as a powerful aspect of his Italian insistence upon cantabilità – songfulness. ‘a marriage of discipline and imagination of which Wilde is fully aware …

[Nicola Stonehouse] is eloquence itself in the Goethe-Lieder’ – Gramophone, April 2007

DCD34040