Johannes Brahms - Wilde Plays Brahms

Facts 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.