This recital, recorded in 1964 and now admirably transferred to CD, provided my first encounter with the supreme virtuosity of Earl Wild. It celebrated a time when Wild's playing was at its most superfine and scintillating. Understandably it prompted critics to write of ''an incredibly smooth pianism in works that dare the performer to conquer them'' and even drew comparisons with the sound of a finely tuned Ferrari!

Wild's performance (marginally but disappointingly cut) of Godowsky's monstrous Kunstlerleben paraphrase with its snaking progressions and labyrinthine complexity is more idiomatic and darkly glittering than Rian De Waal's fluent and heroic Hyperion performance, and in page after page of the Thalberg and Herz items his nonchalant dismissal of every difficulty (showers of repeated notes, glissandos in thirds, etc.) suggest an infallible keyboard mechanism.

His Hummel Rondo is tossed aside with a dazzling tick-tock momentum and his Rubinstein Etude (guaranteed to strike down even the most intrepid player with Saint Vitus's dance) is mischievously and delightfully embellished; an added touch of spice. Paderewski's Variations, a more domestic, less outsize experience, are played with characteristic affection and aplomb, but all these performances are of a truly extraordinary relish, verve and agility; unique qualities, I feel, most oddly ignored by the major record companies over the years.

-- Bryce Morrison, GRAMOPHONE Review of Vanguard 08.4033.71