Introduction
By the blog author
Suppose it were possible to take great piano performances from 70 or even 100 years ago and bring them up to standard as modern digital releases. It sounds impossible, because the sound of a concert grand piano is so complex and the ancient recording instruments and microphones were not able to record the entire range of sound.
But the digital age has made it possible to classify and diagnose the ancient recordings and determine the piano touch, loudness, pedal action and other aspects of a recital piece and to instruct a mechanical keyboard and pedal to repeat the original intended actions. This makes a ghostly computer re perform an old but classic performance by a piano master.
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Beginning in 2007, audio software pioneers Zenph Studios began collaborating with Sony Masterworks to bring classic, but poorly recorded piano recordings from yesteryear into the modern digital age. The idea was to capture the full range of musical performance nuance for each note – volume, tempo, articulation, pedal action, etc. – using sophisticated computer encoding, and then to re-record the performance as "played" by a comparable acoustic grand piano fitted with Zenph reading computers and hardware. The result is a Zenph Re-Performance®, bringing state-of the art fidelity to timeless interpretations by the great pianists of the past. The first two collaborations, Glenn Gould's historic 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations (2007) and a 1949 live concert of jazz wizard Art Tatum at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, as Piano Starts Here (2008) received rave reviews. Now the pair presents Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, based on a set of recordings made by the great composer/pianist between 1921 and 1942 of five original works – including the famed Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2.
[Here is the Classical Archives review of the reperformance of Rachmaninoff solos:]
The most recent addition to the Zenph-Sony partnership is the album Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, featuring a set of thirteen tracks, recorded between 1921 and 1942, of his original compositions and transcriptions – including such favorites as his Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2, and the arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee. For this Re-Performance®, Zenph fitted their digital software to a 1909 Steinway D acoustic grand powered by the SE reproducing system, implemented by Richard Shepherd of Live Performance, Inc. This 2009 release marks the 100th Anniversary of Rachmaninov's US recital debut. As with the other two recordings, the Sony release presents the full album program two times, the first in standard (redbook) stereo, and the second in "binaural stereo", re-creating the aural experience that the pianists themselves might have had.
Classical Archives presents the complete new Sony Masterworks release, along with several fascinating comparative recordings. We first present comparisons between Zenph Re-Performances® and the original recordings (re-mastered in 1989) on three tracks: Rachmaninov's Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2, and his arrangements of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee and Kreisler's Liebesleid; we then offer comparative recordings of Rachmaninov's performances and those of other famed pianist on two tracks: Etude tableau, Op. 33, No.2 (Vladimir Horowitz) and Moment musicaux, Op.16, No.2 (Vladimir Ashkenazy). Finally, we present an excerpt from the liner notes by Max Harrison, author of Rachmaninoff: Life, Works, Recordings.
Besides being a great composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was also a marvelously accomplished and original performer on the piano, an instrument which has never lacked outstanding players. He cut gramophone recordings between 1919 and 1942, a period during which many improvements were made in the quality of recorded sound. Yet by twenty-first century standards Rachmaninoff's work for the gramophone sounds relatively primitive, thin and lacking the full resonance of which the piano is capable. These Zenph re-performances, which completely eliminate the technological limitations of the past, use computerized captures of attacks, key-speeds, pitches, durations, plus interpretative nuances including those added by Rachmaninoff's always subtle pedaling. And all this is done on a 1909 Steinway concert grand in optimum condition such as the composer always played himself.
These re-performances are programmed in the order of their original recording. Indeed the sequence begins and ends with Rachmaninoff's paraphrases of items by his friend Fritz Kreisler, "Liebesleid" and "Liebesfreud." These are in both pianistic and harmonic terms elaborate, sophisticated settings of what initially were simple tuneful encore pieces. The perfumed luxuriance of such performances immediately establishes what an extraordinary pianist Rachmaninoff was and each gives a bewitching demonstration of the real meaning of rubato.
All the above from: http://www.classicalarchives.com/feature/zenph.html
Note from the Blog Author
What this actually sounds like is Rachmaninoff himself playing the piano in a modern digital studio. The piano is crisp, perfect and nuanced. The Zenph technology also makes a point that argues with what critics and performers have been saying about Rachmaninoff for decades. This great pianist was not mechanical, not unfeeling and not a throwback to anyone in the nineteenth century. His technique was that of a virtuoso performer that doesn’t make mistakes and who communicates his own moods in tremendous detail with unequalled honesty. As the moods change, the rubato often changes, too, which is anathema to many continental artists and critics. But it works and it makes sense. The performances also sharply rebuke those critics who have minimized Rachmaninoff as a composer and performer since his death in 1943.
Listening to the "earphone" recordings, with microphones placed where the composer’s ears would be located above the piano bench, actually does give a rendition played as the composer himself must have heard it. This is remarkable and informative.
Zenph re recordings of Glenn Gould and Art Tatum are also available. I can only wish that Zenph would re perform the now antique piano solos recorded from Ernesto Leuceona and Ray Turner!
By the blog author
Suppose it were possible to take great piano performances from 70 or even 100 years ago and bring them up to standard as modern digital releases. It sounds impossible, because the sound of a concert grand piano is so complex and the ancient recording instruments and microphones were not able to record the entire range of sound.
But the digital age has made it possible to classify and diagnose the ancient recordings and determine the piano touch, loudness, pedal action and other aspects of a recital piece and to instruct a mechanical keyboard and pedal to repeat the original intended actions. This makes a ghostly computer re perform an old but classic performance by a piano master.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Beginning in 2007, audio software pioneers Zenph Studios began collaborating with Sony Masterworks to bring classic, but poorly recorded piano recordings from yesteryear into the modern digital age. The idea was to capture the full range of musical performance nuance for each note – volume, tempo, articulation, pedal action, etc. – using sophisticated computer encoding, and then to re-record the performance as "played" by a comparable acoustic grand piano fitted with Zenph reading computers and hardware. The result is a Zenph Re-Performance®, bringing state-of the art fidelity to timeless interpretations by the great pianists of the past. The first two collaborations, Glenn Gould's historic 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations (2007) and a 1949 live concert of jazz wizard Art Tatum at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, as Piano Starts Here (2008) received rave reviews. Now the pair presents Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, based on a set of recordings made by the great composer/pianist between 1921 and 1942 of five original works – including the famed Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2.
[Here is the Classical Archives review of the reperformance of Rachmaninoff solos:]
The most recent addition to the Zenph-Sony partnership is the album Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, featuring a set of thirteen tracks, recorded between 1921 and 1942, of his original compositions and transcriptions – including such favorites as his Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2, and the arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee. For this Re-Performance®, Zenph fitted their digital software to a 1909 Steinway D acoustic grand powered by the SE reproducing system, implemented by Richard Shepherd of Live Performance, Inc. This 2009 release marks the 100th Anniversary of Rachmaninov's US recital debut. As with the other two recordings, the Sony release presents the full album program two times, the first in standard (redbook) stereo, and the second in "binaural stereo", re-creating the aural experience that the pianists themselves might have had.
Classical Archives presents the complete new Sony Masterworks release, along with several fascinating comparative recordings. We first present comparisons between Zenph Re-Performances® and the original recordings (re-mastered in 1989) on three tracks: Rachmaninov's Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2, and his arrangements of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble-Bee and Kreisler's Liebesleid; we then offer comparative recordings of Rachmaninov's performances and those of other famed pianist on two tracks: Etude tableau, Op. 33, No.2 (Vladimir Horowitz) and Moment musicaux, Op.16, No.2 (Vladimir Ashkenazy). Finally, we present an excerpt from the liner notes by Max Harrison, author of Rachmaninoff: Life, Works, Recordings.
Liner Notes (excerpt)
Besides being a great composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was also a marvelously accomplished and original performer on the piano, an instrument which has never lacked outstanding players. He cut gramophone recordings between 1919 and 1942, a period during which many improvements were made in the quality of recorded sound. Yet by twenty-first century standards Rachmaninoff's work for the gramophone sounds relatively primitive, thin and lacking the full resonance of which the piano is capable. These Zenph re-performances, which completely eliminate the technological limitations of the past, use computerized captures of attacks, key-speeds, pitches, durations, plus interpretative nuances including those added by Rachmaninoff's always subtle pedaling. And all this is done on a 1909 Steinway concert grand in optimum condition such as the composer always played himself.
These re-performances are programmed in the order of their original recording. Indeed the sequence begins and ends with Rachmaninoff's paraphrases of items by his friend Fritz Kreisler, "Liebesleid" and "Liebesfreud." These are in both pianistic and harmonic terms elaborate, sophisticated settings of what initially were simple tuneful encore pieces. The perfumed luxuriance of such performances immediately establishes what an extraordinary pianist Rachmaninoff was and each gives a bewitching demonstration of the real meaning of rubato.
All the above from: http://www.classicalarchives.com/feature/zenph.html
Note from the Blog Author
What this actually sounds like is Rachmaninoff himself playing the piano in a modern digital studio. The piano is crisp, perfect and nuanced. The Zenph technology also makes a point that argues with what critics and performers have been saying about Rachmaninoff for decades. This great pianist was not mechanical, not unfeeling and not a throwback to anyone in the nineteenth century. His technique was that of a virtuoso performer that doesn’t make mistakes and who communicates his own moods in tremendous detail with unequalled honesty. As the moods change, the rubato often changes, too, which is anathema to many continental artists and critics. But it works and it makes sense. The performances also sharply rebuke those critics who have minimized Rachmaninoff as a composer and performer since his death in 1943.
Listening to the "earphone" recordings, with microphones placed where the composer’s ears would be located above the piano bench, actually does give a rendition played as the composer himself must have heard it. This is remarkable and informative.
Zenph re recordings of Glenn Gould and Art Tatum are also available. I can only wish that Zenph would re perform the now antique piano solos recorded from Ernesto Leuceona and Ray Turner!
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