DCD34040-CD

Wilde plays Brahms

David Wilde’s power and individuality make a separation between composer and performer, between creator and re-creator unrealistic. He sees the simple grace and lyricism favoured by many pianists as an evasion of a deeper poetic truth, and if he gives us all of Brahms’s exulting strength in the fugue from the ‘Handel’ Variations, he is no less responsive to darker nights of the soul in the Three Intermezzi.

Always there is an open invitation to reappraise Brahms’s genius, not by a radical re-interpretation (the determinedly ‘different’ way of, say, Gould or Pogorelich) but by a probing look beneath the music’s surface life. David Wilde may be true to the composer, but he is a pianist to make you think again.

"…the most impressive aspect of this disc is the beautiful sound Wilde coaxes from his superbly voiced Steinway (recorded by Beth Baxter in the Reith Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh) with its pliant treble and richly resonant bass."

"This Brahms disc is highly recommended covering a wide vista of the composer's music from the full-blooded pair of Rhapsodies in Opus 79 the second of which is particularly exciting."

"Wilde’s pianism is consummate in every way and his technique is effortless with a huge variety of colour and dynamic shading. These were insightful readings, richly successive whilst still placing primacy on the musical line rather than surface beauty; the closing moments of the Handel Variations have an overwhelming sense of direction and culmination. Highly recommended, as is his Liszt disc, and I eagerly await the Schumann disc which is due for release shortly."

Release date: 2 March 2009
Catalogue No: DCD34040
Total playing time: 1:21:26
 
Recorded on 3-4 September 2008 at Reid Concert Hall, Edinburgh
 
Producer: Paul Baxter
Engineer: Beth Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Simon Smith
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
 
Design: Drew Padrutt
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Cover image: Drew Padrutt
Photography: Paul Baxter & Raymond Parks
 
 

Album Booklet

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