THE LAST OF THE SHOWMEN

By ELLIOT RAVETZ

WHEN EARL WILD PERFORMS, the Golden Age of the keyboard suddenly reappears. Like the great romantic showmen who flourished before World War II, Wild revels in the sensuality and sheer kineticism of the piano, reminding his listeners that it is the only instrument capable of emulating both the tender nuances of vocal music and the thunderous range of the orchestra. When Wild plays, the pallid noodling that often passes for pianism these days vanishes: one hears the grand echoes of Paderewski, Rachmaninoff and Josef Hofmann.

Just turning 80, Wild is as productive and more musically rewarding than ever. This week he plays a birthday concert in Carnegie Hall, featuring works by Lizst, Chopin and Beethoven. Sony Classics, meanwhile, has just released a new CD, The Romantic Master, which is largely devoted to Wild's own dazzling transcriptions, among them the delightful Reminiscences of Snow White, a fantasy on Frank Churchill's music for the 1937 Disney animated film. But lest one think that Wild is all flash and no substance, his recent recording of Beethoven's thorny "Hammerklavier" Sonata, on the Chesky label, is grandly conceived and brilliantly executed, from the soulful (and lengthy) Adagio to the triumphant final Fugue, a supreme test of both fingers and musical intelligence. Wild's reputation may rest on his pyrotechnics, but his musical sensitivity is growing even richer with age.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wild was sight-reading by age six, his fluid technique already a source of wonder. As a teenage student of the formidable Egon Petri (a tough, intellectual pianist renowned for his sturdy Liszt and penetrating Beethoven performances), Wild was already a concert-hall veteran, a kind of young American version of Vladimir Horowitz. In 1942, the legendary Arturo Toscanini invited him to play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the NBC Symphony. Wild remains the only American soloist ever to play under the fiery Italian maestro.

Still, for many years the musical world has seemed loath to view Wild as anything other than a consummate master of a vanished pianistic style. For the past 40 years audiences have favored the colder, more analytical approach of pianists like Leon Fleischer, Gary Graffman and Maurizio Pollini. The brief romantic revival of the late 1960s highlighted his expertise with such composers as Chopin and Lizst, but Wild has never received the critical acclaim he deserves.

Whether playing a finger-twisting show-stopper like Leopold Godowsky's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Johann Strauss II's "Artist's Life," or kiddin' on the keys with Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm, or digging into one of the late Beethoven sonatas, Wild brings the same impeccable attention to structure and detail. "I spend a lot of time with these pieces," he says, "because if you don't know them thoroughly, you're just struggling like crazy to play the notes. But when you hear middle voices and the other details--when you have the tones in your head--it makes it much easier because you're occupied with the music."

His mastery is perhaps most evident in his recording of the Godowsky piece--a work only the greatest virtuosos will dare--on his 1964 Vanguard album The Virtuoso Piano. Wild commands its many contrapuntal voices, shifting chromatic harmonies and labyrinthine technical complexities. "When the ears become more important than the fingers, then you have something," he explains. And audiences are just wild about it.