Piano Rolls are once
again a hot topic. International Piano
Quarterly ran a long article with an
interview with the late Ronald Smith
in which the system was evaluated hereby
leading to a spin
off CD, offering aural "supportive
evidence". Naxos is up to volume
3 in its Welte-Mignon Piano Roll series;
the Ampico Rolls are now being extensively
released elsewhere and smaller companies
such as Pierian have also issued fine
sets – in their case collating the roll
legacy of an important pianist who otherwise
left behind no disc evidence of her
playing, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler.
Busoni of course did
record, sparsely, in London for Columbia.
His discs have been available on Music
and Arts for some time and Naxos has
also recently brought out its transfers.
So we do know to an extent the nature
– partial though it may be, a number
of discs were never issued – of his
pianism as captured at that time on
acoustic disc.
Since the question
of the authenticity of the piano roll
– as an artefact that accurately represents
playing – is one that has occupied almost
every reviewer (including me) who cares
to cast his fourpence, it would be better
to direct you in passing to some of
my comments relating to the Welte-Mignon
system in another review; http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Jan04/Welte-Mignon1.htm
These are in fact some
of the issues that John Hollis addresses
in his notes to Concert Artist’s release,
which cite Serge Krisch, a Busoni pupil,
Mark Hambourg, Alfred Cortot, Joyce
Hatto and others, very entertainingly
as well. Obviously the problems remain,
even though the Duo Art rolls, reproduced
here on a Steinway Duo Art Player Piano
are rendered very sympathetically. Unlike
other releases one could mention, the
action is noiseless and the piano is
in tune. The acoustic is good. One can
listen to the rolls with pleasure. The
performances of course clearly embrace
both the panoply of Busoni’s eccentricity
and grandiose intemperance (especially,
unfortunately, toward Chopin about whom
he remained imperturbably antagonistic)
and also the vagaries of the system
itself. The absurdly jerky C major Prelude
and the same dynamics that inform the
G major, the risibly choppy left hand
and legato right et al (no correlation
between them) are all astonishing documents
– but of what, well that would be harder
to say.
The non natural rubato
in the F sharp major is hardly an isolated
feature of course but the incredibly
stormy dénouement must say at
least something concrete about Busoni’s
volcanic pictorial and colouristic imagination.
In fact it’s the Liszt,
more so than the Bach-Busoni, that may
open up a more reasonable channel to
Busoni’s playing. La Chasse sounds
considerably more vibrant even though
the Chaconne (asynchronous chording
as ever) does manage to sound almost
dainty and wry in places – something
I’d never imagined possible. And in
its way remarkable to hear.
Busoni’s rolls should
certainly be heard and absorbed; the
discs provide the corrective evidence
necessary to put the rolls into a more
lucid perspective. These thoughtful
and expert restorations are particularly
effective and are recommended.
Jonathan Woolf
Concert
Artist complete catalogue available
from MusicWeb International
Ferrucio Busoni - reproduced via a Steinway Duo
Art Player Piano in the Concert Artist Studios
Cambridge 
