Toccata, 12 Etudes Symphoniques, Fantasie: Wild(P)

Hearing this disc of virtuoso pieces by Schumann, the listener might never imagine that the notes coming from his or her speakers were being produced by a man in his eighties. Nevertheless, Earl Wild, at 85, has produced performances with all the technical dexterity of a youngster with a maturity and profundity that can only come with age.
The first track of this disc, the Toccata in C Major, was composed by an adolescent Robert Schumann in 1830; it features characteristics familiar in his music-spinning melody above filigree passage work, cross-rhythms, and a dizzying array of technical challenges requiring precision and endurance. To say that the 1997 Grammy Award-winning Wild performs this piece and the Etudes symphoniques on this album well would be an understatement. His dynamic contrasts and colors are incredible. He tosses off treacherous octave passages with aplomb. In his hands, music is heard as one long moment, in part due to a mastery of bringing out the inner voices-chiseling out the "line"-regardless of technical difficulty. The younger generation of pianists w be well served by listening to this legend.