Very enjoyable. Those old cylinders are a pretty good guide as to how the music is supposed to be played. I am somewhat fascinated by old recordings, particularly jazz. I don't see much advantage in playing old classical recordings, if a digital production is available. Former Sony President Joseph Tushinski hosted a program in the early 70's called "Keyboard Immortals Play Again in Stereo. He featured Welte Vorsetzer rolls being played on an Imperial Boesendorfer. These were rolls made by the likes of Rachmaninov, Hoffmann, Paderjewski are all I remember now. It would be nice to revisit a project like this, to see what modern technology could do. Ron Poire ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Brekne" <ricb at pianostemmer.no> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>; <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:45 PM Subject: [CAUT] Grieg Experiment > Hi Folks > > I recently was privileged to be the technician for a very special > recording on Edward Griegs own old Steinway B. To make a long story > short... old wax roles of Edvard Grieg himself were used to reference his > playing style so that a present day pianist could recreate his exact style > on Griegs own instrument. There has been some controversy as to how fast > to play these old roles. One thing that came clear was that playing them > so as to achieve present day pitch results in the music being very fast > and rather makes Grieg the pianist sound a bit comical. The folks behind > this project were convinced that Grieg was adamant about using a much > lower concert pitch... 434-436 and when playing these roles so as to > achieve that pitch the playing becomes much more lyrical and beautiful... > more what one might expect from a musical genius such as Edvard Grieg. > So we tuned his instrument down from its present day usual 442 to 436... > which had a dramatic affect on the sound of the instrument as well... > virtually eliminating a very prevalent killer octave area. > In anycase... the link below is a sample clip which interlaces the new > recording with digital copies of the old wax roles of Edvard Grieg himself > playing. I hope you enjoy this little taste of the project. Interesting > to be sure. The segments where the wax roles come in are easily > distinquished because of all the static that could not be filtered out. > The rest is our recording on Griegs Piano. Hope you like it ! > > Pianists Sigurd Slåttebrekk / Edvard Grieg > Producer and Sound Technician Tony Harrison > Pianotechnician Richard Brekne > > http://www.pianostemmer.no/music/Grieg.wav > > Cheers > Richard Brekne > >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC