[CAUT] New CD !

[Richard Brekne]

    Beautiful recording.  Nice work getting the piano to sound so good. 
    It sustains quite well.

    I bet that pedal / damper system noise was driving you crazy,
    though.  I guess you have to live with such things in such an old
    instrument.  It would be interesting to hear what kind of things you
    needed to do in preparation for the recording, or if you had the
    freedom to do anything besides tune!

    Don Mannino



Hi Don,  I agree... the recording engineer and production was excellent. 
As far as the pedal and damper noise...and other such things that are 
apparent on the entire album.... whilst he managed to keep these things 
to a minimum... it was/is a bit of a detriment to the overall 
experience.... still on the other hand as you say its part of the game 
to some degree with such an old instrument.  It had been pretty darn 
well put back together in the mid 1990's, but is heavily used by its 
present owner. Torleif Torgesen.  He does most of the routine tuning and 
all the regulation of this instrument on his own so my hands were pretty 
tied as to changing things... tho there were some issues that simply had 
to be delt with as his playing knowledge of the instrument did not allow 
for Ms Glasser to compensate entirely... so we did a few minor letoff 
and damper things... but nothing major.  He noticed immediately after 
the recording week.

Most of my work was going in and tuning, retuning... listening with the 
producer/engineer as the recordings unfolded and cringing at this that 
and the other note. If you listen to the entire CD you will 
understand... tho all in all I am very very pleased at the result of my 
part in this as well.... actually a bit proud of myself, which in turn 
if I may so reflects very much on all of you... because you all have in 
this distant internet medium way... and in some more limited more direct 
fashion pushed me to try and get better all the time.  But Livs 
playing... you should have seen this 75 year old grand lady of Norwegian 
piano art work so hard.... and Erik Gard Amundsen deserve all the real 
credit.

As to other questions... the piano was built by Gottleib Hafner in 
Vienna in 1830 or there abouts. Restored by Edwin Deunk and Johan 
Wennink in 1994. Purchased by its present owner some 6-7 years ago and 
brought to Bergen.  Liv Glasser is coming to town next week for a live 
concert so I get to attempt a tuning that holds reasonably well up for 
some 45 minutes.  I picked these two cuts because I wanted you all to be 
able to hear both the power the thing was able to take... the beating it 
actually could hold up to, and in contrast the mellow soft beauty it has 
too offer for quieter more open singing.

The album is released by Simax, Grappa Musikkforlag AS in Oslo. I have 
to remove these recordings in a couple days of course But by all means 
buy one... its a unique and wonderful recording with 46 cuts from the 
work Scenes from Childhood, Op. 15.

I'll post a link to a place you can order in short order.

Thanks for all the positive vibes back folks....

RicB


    Beautiful recording.  Nice work getting the piano to sound so good. 
    It sustains quite well.

    I bet that pedal / damper system noise was driving you crazy,
    though.  I guess you have to live with such things in such an old
    instrument.  It would be interesting to hear what kind of things you
    needed to do in preparation for the recording, or if you had the
    freedom to do anything besides tune!

    Don Mannino


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