A compilation of blogs, articles, and some general information on the pianist.
I didn't know anything about Mr. Wolfram until just recently, and I have been discovering all kinds of interesting and fascinating information about the artist.
The Dribble writes about a masterclass:
I hosted a Master Class with Bill Wolfram (who's in town for the Schumann piano concerto with the RPO) today. On the topic of "old school interpretation of music" (taking liberties with what are normally strict rhythms and passages, allowing the music to speak rather than be rigorous...Horowitz was one of the last great ones.) and its difficulty he said the following:
"That, I think is why people shy away from this method. It's like being asked to write an essay on what you did over the summer, versus being asked to write an essay on anything in the world. You'd almost rather just be told how to express yourself within guidelines."
Pertaining to Beethoven's Opus 2, #3, Allegro con brio:
"With these thirds, on the 16ths, put just a little swoosh of pedal. It's like a little extra butter in the pan."
"Here's another sforzando...well, that was ugly what I did, but you know."
"A recording is one thing, but a performance...you're out there, no clothes on."
An article, published in the New York Times in 1987 about Mr. Wolfram's experience in the competitive circuit:
WILLIAM WOLFRAM seems to have survived the competition process with most of his sensibilities intact. He is a busy warrior in the field, and fresh from his victory in the William Kapell piano contest at the University of Maryland, Mr. Wolfram gave a piano recital at Alice Tully Hall on Friday night.
The grimness of combat was not entirely absent - in the fiercer moments of Schumann's ''Humoresque'' and the Rachmaninoff B-flat-minor Sonata - a wintry exercise in virtuosity that seems to demand either victory or defeat from those who play it. But there were also moments of real grace in the Schumann and a use of rubato that was natural, not ''tacked-on.'' Mr. Wolfram gave Haydn's A-flat Sonata (Hob. XVI/46) probably more smoothness and elegance than its calculated unevenness really needed, but again the slow movement worked and the finale never became merely hectic.
Most revealing was the Liszt: a brisk, graceful, lean-sounding ''Vallee d'Obermann,'' not particularly weighted down by profundity, and indeed a little undernourished spiritually, but also perhaps a fitting young-man's performance. Mr. Wolfram's instincts are sound, and they have a good chance to settle and expand. I suspect that if he gets the career he so obviously yearns for and probably deserves, he will have much to tell us in about 20 years.
Last year, the Polyphonic Blog described a performance with our Hero:
The Grieg was played compellingly by Bill, who really is one of the best musicians of any kind on the circuit today. (I had the pleasure, years ago, of doing the Brahms songs for alto, viola, and piano with Bill, and it was only strolling through an airport a few days later, singing to myself, that I realized that not once during the performance had I felt constrained by the piano - something that had never happened to me before when playing with anyone except once or twice in quartet. I simply did what I wanted to do, and it was magically and perfectly together with Bill. Pretty clearly it wasn't my fault that it was so together either.)
And, of course, his artist page, with a collection of reviews.
It looks to me like Wolfram is a truly genuine soloist - playing with (not over) colleagues, and bringing real technical virtuosity and a subtle but present originality to his performances. All of a sudden I am looking forward to the Rach 3 almost as much as Shostakovich 5! You should totally come out.
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