Grieg Experiment

[Ed Sutton]

Nice recording, Ric.
Is any of it 100% wax cylinder? The sound is pretty good on those sections.
Nothing radical about the use of 435hz as a pitch standard for 1900.
Given recent discussions about downbearing and soundboard stiffness, it 
isn't a wild leap to suppose that an instrument will have an optimal 
response to some particular string tension.
(My 1892 Mathushek has it's original strings in good condition. I'll explore 
this when the action is restored and playing.)
Ed Sutton

----- 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 1:45 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
>
>