I seem to be turning
into a politician with this series,
constantly referring interested parties
to the
review I wrote some weeks or months
ago. Then I wrote about some of the
more contentious aspects of the recording
and reproducing of rolls and this latest
release, the third, serves only to reinforce
those views. Take Fannie Bloomfield
Zeisler, a famous American pianist who
left no disc recordings, and the two
examples of her playing here. The double
CD set I reviewed on this site of her
piano rolls (on Pierian) contains the
same Chopin recordings as here. The
pitch remains unaltered but the timings
differ – in the case of the Waltz by
only (though that’s a relative term)
13 seconds but in the B minor Scherzo
the difference is a full three quarters
of a minute – in a piece not nine minutes
in length. So to add to the mechanical
and post-editing secrets and complexities
of the system we have to contend, as
we always knew, with differing methods
of reproduction on restored pianos.
Is the difference due to roll shrinkage
or to reproduction speed or to any other
of the ancillary problems inherent in
the system?
It’s best to attack
that problem musically. The chaotic
introduction of the Scherzo on Naxos
is not, I think, the real Bloomfield
Zeisler. I can’t believe that this lauded
musician could produce such a mess.
The Pierian transfer is different; it’s
more lithe, quicker, the passagework
more lucid, the phrasing rather more
natural. Of course that company’s transfers
are also not ideal; there’s a slightly
out of tune piano on some of the tracks
whereas Naxos’s restored Steinway-Welte
certainly sounds splendidly forward,
as does its very noisy action. But as
for the transfers I know on whom I’d
place my money.
The performers are
the usual mix of patrician lions and
relative unknowns. I would prefer Busoni’s
few Columbia discs, however imperfectly
recorded and however much he despised
the whole process, to his piano rolls.
And the same goes for Olga Samaroff,
whose Brahms is indifferent on rolls
(not helped by the system’s dynamic
constrictions). Yolanda Mero, one of
the less well-known pianists here, is
fluent and fleet in Heymann and another
leading woman pianist of the time, the
Clara Schumann student Fanny Davies
appears in the first six scenes from
Kinderszenen. This roll was made in
1909 and we have her Columbia discs
of the same work, which she made twenty
years later (on Pearl). I think even
a cursory listen will reveal that, however
attractive it may be to hear her roll,
the disc recording preserves the authentic
voicings and sense of colour and fantasy
that the roll fails to convey. It may
be that the time constraints of the
78 made her hurry a little (the disc
performance is faster) – and this is
one of the advantages of the roll in
its ability to capture a lengthier uninterrupted
span – but there is little similarity
tonally between the two performances.
The tonal homogeneity of the rolls is,
in any case, a wearying feature of the
system.
My advice is very much
as it was in my reviews of the first
two volumes; caution as to the authenticity
of the rolls as accurate artefacts but
an informed welcome to the series, given
the reservations noted above.
Jonathan Woolf
Other Volumes
Volume 1 Jonathan
Woolf Donald
Satz
Volume 2 Jonathan
Woolf
Donald
Satz
