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Excerpts
The Pianola and its Institute: Rex Lawson
The pianola is a curious instrument; putting its conception in a nutshell, it was
developed back in the 1890s in order that the untalented daughters of rich American
businessmen should be able to play salon music at least to a mediocre standard of
artistry, and to save their mothers and fathers from the social embarrassment of a
silent piano. Expressed more seriously, it provided amateur pianists with an immediate
and faultless digital technique, but was not originally intended as the subject of serious
musical study, any more than is the compact disc player nowadays.
However. two unique features of the pianola soon became apparent, that were on occasion
to elevate it from the level of a domestic enterprise and into the realms of a concert
instrument. The first and most obvious of these was its facility to provide all the correct
notes of a piece, without placing any great restrictions on individual interpretation. Since
its music was not recorded, but transcribed directly from the printed score on to master
rolls by hand, there were no inherent dynamic controls and no elements of rubato or
phrasing. Thus the operator - pianolist is the approved term - was free to make as much
of a piece as possible, and a few professional demonstrators and devoted amateurs began
to elicit far more musical performances from roll than the pianola's inventors had, in
the writer's opinion, foreseen.
The Rachmaninov Legacy: Lionel Salter
It is deeply ironical that the only way for the musical world at large to hear and
study piano-roll recordings has been by having them transferred to disc, a medium which
they once challenged. Even so, assessment has often been clouded by obvious
maladjustments or imperfections in the reproducing pianos employed, and/or in the
re-recording process. However, the recent issue on seven well-engineered stereo LPs of
recordings from Ampico piano rolls by Rachmaninov, Lhévinne and Rosenthal
reproduced on a fine Estonia-Ampico instrument - thanks to the expert and devoted
efforts of Norman Evans, who checked, adjusted, repaired or rebuilt every detail of its
action - now makes it possible to form a clear opinion of these performances, and to
compare them with those (where such exist) by the same artists given for the
gramophone.
The piano roll's ability to reproduce fine tonal gradations is admirably exemplified
in Rachmaninov's airy transcription of Wohin? from Schubert's Schöne
Müllerin. He takes a little longer over the disc recording, which is
recognisably the same interpretation. For another Schöne
Müllerin piece, Liszt's transcription of Das Wandern, I prefer the
excellent 1925 disc version: the roll, though deliciously precise, is rather more
careful-sounding and less light-hearted for a lad setting out on his travels. John
Culshaw, a great Rachmaninov admirer, found it difficult to like his Schubert A flat
Impromptu, taking refuge in calling it 'individual' and 'deft'. Deft it certainly is, and
the gramophone version is tonally limpid; but the roll sounds rushed (it is half a
minute faster) and superficial, and the 'pecking' staccato applied to the chords after
the initial runs is strangely unconvincing. The frequently encountered accusation that
roll performances are nearly always untruthfully quicker (as against wax recordings, any
modification of whose speed would have affected the pitch) finds no support in two
Chopin Valses, the roll taking appreciably longer in both cases.
The Duo-Art Pianola Rolls of the Enigma Variations: Trevor Fenemore-Jones
Perhaps because of his own appetite for listening to music and his concern for the
increased dissemination of the musical experience and knowledge, Elgar was always well
disposed towards the reproduction of music by mechanical means. His particular
enthusiasm for the gramophone is by now well known; his interest in the player-piano or
'pianola' is, however, virtually unchronicled. This pneumatically operated piano played
by means of a music-roll was invented in 1897 and was in its heyday in the first three
decades of the twentieth century. In his lecture entitled 'English Executants' given at
Birmingham University on 29 November 1905, Elgar acknowledged the instrument as capable
of good execution. By 1910 he actually had a pianola at Plas Gwyn, and by 1916 he was
advocating it in an interview in The Music Student (August 1916, p. 346) in the
following terms: 'I am not sure that the pianola is not our best means of hearing piano
works well performed today ... properly used, the pianola can play with a very beautiful
touch ...' Exactly how far and how deep Elgar's interest in the pianola went is not
clear at present, but there is evidence that he was in touch with the Orchestrelle
Company (an early manufacturer of pianolas and related reed-organ instruments) as early
as 1904 and some recordings may have resulted. Certainly we know that on three
consecutive days in April 1910 he visited the Orchestrelle Company's premises to indicate
correct tempi for rolls of the A flat Symphony and that Lady Elgar adjudged the
performance 'quite fine'. Further research is required to clarify the whole subject of
Elgar and the pianola.
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