Re: historic recording materials

["Raphael Tennenbaum" raphael@xxxxxxxx]

if you're suggesting a copywriter put those words in Rachmaninoff's mouth, I'm not
going to argue. nor do I think there is a better record of those pianists than the 78
legacy. but I would say at the least some of those piano rolls are quite remarkable:
in the better ones, there is if not perfect reproduction, every sense of artistic
purpose. (and of course, be sure you're judging from a live performance on a
reproducing piano, which is what they were called, rather than a recording of a
piano.) another thing that interested me was a sense of digital recording
forshadowed.

that the
>poorest acoustic recording gives a far superior idea of a pianist's work
>than the best reproduced mechanical player.

that I'm not so sure about. I might even go so far as to argue that the enterprise of
recording music has to some degree made ghosts of all these artists, however we'd
like to believe otherwise.

apologies for going so far OT for this list -- but consider how much of what we
hear on CD is reconstituted -- played in studios to begin with, with sections
frequently (usually?) recorded over, even for purported "live" recordings, taken 17
times, individual notes corrected, let alone digitized all over in the end -- a case
could very well be made that recorded music is altogether sui generis and bears
little relation to a pianist's work. I can name at least half a dozen recording stars
whose recitals proved embarrassing disappointments, and I'm sure you can too. I
am thinking of one pianist in particular whose records I'd never give up -- but you
couldn't pay me to go hear him.


On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 21:29:56 +0000, Bill Troop wrote:

>As a pianist I can't take Rachmaninoff's remark very seriously. You need a
>microphone (or a horn) to capture Rachmaninoff's pianism. There is no player
>piano that can capture the ineffable lightness of his touch as he plays the
>acoustical version of the Spinning Song -- which by the way does not exist
>in a decent CD transfer that I know of -- you will have to listen to the 78s
>or a good LP transfer to get at the meat of it. (It's also famous for having
>required 17 takes -- for a three minute piece; the later electrical version
>is inferior.) (A good transfer, made from 78 to tape without doctoring, was
>used by James Irsay a decade or so ago for a show he did on WQXR.) There is
>so much more than simple pressure to the striking of a key . . . moreover,
>every piano is different, and every pianist adjusts his performance to the
>particular instrument. Not the least defect of player piano systems is that
>the reproducing instrument is unlikely to be one that the performer has
>heard. Yes, some sense of a pianist's dynamics and phrasing can be gleaned,
>but there is so much more to a pianist's performance than that,
>
>What we hear from a recording differs substantially according to the
>recording technology, the restoration and transfer technology, our listening
>equipment, etc. etc., even as what we hear live is different depending on
>where we are sitting in a hall or room. . . . . Horowitz was shrill in the
>front row of Carnegie Hall; limpid from the balcony. For whom was he
>playing? From whence should he be judged?
>
>On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 8:02 PM, flash  wrote:
>
≫ raphael@xxxxxxxx: ≪[Aeolian pianos] were a close to ideal
≫ synthesis of analog and digital: the pneumatic system particularly of
≫ the later pianos was quite sensitive, and phrasing essentially perfectly
≫ captured. but it is a little weird to behold one of the old Aeolians
≫ thundering out a Cortot or Hoffman or Rachmaninoff performance, like a
≫ ghost playing a recital. ≫
≫
≫ Rachmaninoff was very impressed with the technology and made many
≫ recordings using the Aeolian recording piano. After having heard a
≫ playback of one of his performances, he once said, "I have just heard
≫ myself playing."
≫
≫ 
≫
≫
>