Finds From a Pre-Digital Age Unearthed

More fascinating albums from the enterprising Ivory Classics label: The first offers two of Robert Schumann’s masterworks, plus the finger-knotting Toccata; the second revives for our century the virtually forgotten complete preludes and impromptus by the great Russian pianist-pedagogue Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld (1863-1931), teacher of Heinrich Neuhaus and Vladimir Horowitz.

Wild’s masterly playing of the Schumann Symphonic Etudes and the Fantasy, Opus 17, is a supreme example of an almost extinct brand of golden age piano-playing. A contemporary of the late Shura Cherkassky and Jorge Bolet, the 84-year-old Wild offers pianism that excels in the interpretive succinctness, personal tone-painting and technical wizardry of both of them.

His Etudes are characterized by compelling musicality, poetic astuteness and breathtaking virtuosity. More important, a sense of continuity, of narrative, ties these disparate items together. The Fantasy unfolds with elegance and fury, a musical epic beautifully delineated. The Toccata is playful and authoritative.

Thomson, a resourceful, mid-career Canadian pianist, conquers the many technical hurdles in Blumenfeld’s digitally challenging works. Are they worth rediscovery? Only as a historical footnote. These are solidly late Romantic but musically indistinctive character-pieces. For all their charms, they show off the pianist but leave no special impression.