Wilder: Music for piano (Albany) - MusicWeb International

Alec Wilder (1907-1980)
Music for Piano
John Noel Roberts (piano)
rec. 2010, ACA Digital Recording Studio, Atlanta, USA
Albany TROY1294 [57]

I know little about Alec Wilder other than to link his name with the Great American Songbook. He worked with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and many other big names. His well-known songs include I’ll be Around and While We’re Young. There was also a classical side to his achievement, as this disc of piano music confirms.

This is a tricky disc to listen to and to review. Most of the eight compositions are collections of small pieces, on forty-four tracks. For example, the miniatures in Twelve Mosaics last between 20 and 57 seconds, and they rather blend into each other. That is true for the entire album. It all begins to sound the same. I listened to each suite or number separately, with a gap between bouts, but I was conscious of a sameness. If I am honest, I struggled to keep up enthusiasm. The only exception is the fifteen-minute Sonata-Fantasy. It is well structured, and the relationships between the four movements, especially the first and the last, give the work a cyclic structure.

In his wide-ranging pianistic writing, Wilder deploys elements of classical aesthetics, jazz tropes and popular songs, and tends to fuse those styles. Melodically, each number is attractive, if not always memorable. There are often appealing harmonies. No development: the very short pieces end before the “exposition” has barely begun.

What does Wilder’s piano music sound like? His biography on Classical Net says: “Wilder, at his best, represents a fascinating amalgam of three quite different composer-archetypes, here all rolled into one: George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Heitor Villa-Lobos.” This may be a finger in the air evaluation, but it gives one a fair idea of what to expect. Yet, Wilder produces no parodies or pastiche. It does seem to result from a clever personal synthesis of his models.

The liner notes offer a good introduction to the composer and his music, but dates are not listed for each work. The cover photo is a bit lugubrious. John Noel Roberts gives sympathetic accounts of the music.

This disc may will appeal to those who know Wilder’s pop songs, his film scores and perhaps one or two of his numerous operas or stage shows. Each piece is quite charming, well stated and beautifully played. It will help to remember that Alec Wilder was beholden to no-one. He composed what he wanted to, and how he wanted to write it. If that did not please the jazz enthusiasts, the pop music groovers or the classical aficionados, then it was just too bad.

John France

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