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Moving performances! Rachmaninoff lives!

Customer Rating:
I'm not an expert, indeed I know almost nothing about the piano roll technology, but I thought the end result was magnificent! The playing is full of power, energy, and emotion. I was most surprised by how well the dynamic changes were preserved. And there are no distracting audiences noises, of course, like you have on modern live recordings of his work.

I haven't taken this one out of my cd player since it came in the mail, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good introduction to the music of Rachmaninoff.

Amazing performance!

Customer Rating:
The quality of the reprocessed recording from original 1919 piano rolls is truly remarkable. If I did not know better, I would have guessed that the recording had been made very recently on a modern grand piano. It is fascinating to compare the differences in Rachmaninoff's performance of his own works from his written scores.

I really like this

Customer Rating:
I heard this on a pair of Magneplanars at an audio shop, and then we listened to it on some other high end gear. That did it for me, had to have it. Very good recording, excellent sound and performance. Intriguing approach to recording.

Interesting, but not Rachmaninoff

Customer Rating:
My earlier review, part of which is below, is not as helpful as I intended it to be. The recordings of piano rolls are interesting. They sound very good because they use modern recording techniques and excellent pianos. We can probably assume the rolls sound very much like the rolls originally produced by the artist and duplicated for sale 85-90 years ago. BUT...a piano roll cannot possibly sound like the performance that created it. The crucial data that makes one pianist sound different from another, makes a pianist sound different from a piano machine, and makes artistry from the composer's notes, this crucial data was never recorded on the rolls. This makes the rolls a curiosity - nothing more - and you are fooling yourself if you think the listening experience is anything like being in the room while Rachmaninoff played.

Piano roll technology is so limited that any experienced pianist will tell you it cannot possibly sound like the original performance. Even modern sequencing technology falls short in some aspects. First, the advanced Ampico machine of the time is only a record of the original timings of the notes and pedal work - and that is only relative. The artistry comes in all the subtleties beyond the mere timings. This equipment simply could not record the infinite variety of touches used by a great virtuoso. I'm not just talking about volume, which Ampico could pick up to some degree, but the approach. Nor can it record the subtle use of the pedals. In the hands of a master, the piano is capable of so many colors depending on the particular techniques applied. Also, remember that the piano not only responds to the player, but the pianist responds to the instrument. The virtuoso is making thousands of judgements based on what he/she hears back from the piano and the acoustics of the room. And even the most minute variances in the adjustment of the action and pedals changes how the pedals will work and how the hammers will respond to the keys. The one thing the Ampico does capture fairly well is the rubato as used by an artist like Rachmaninoff. Because the roll moves at a constant speed during recording and playback, it will capture hesitations, tempo changes, fermatas, etc as executed by the player. No, even with the hiss and scratches, the primitive old sound recordings are a much better record of the great pianists of the first half of the 20th century. Eventually, it may be possible with digital sound editing to bring those recordings closer to the original sound quality experienced by witnesses to those great performances.

Beautiful!

Customer Rating:
I love this disk, and would recomend it to anyone. For someone, particularly a young person with a short attention span, the first second and fourth tracks would be a great quick intro to Rachmaninoff and the his musical style and moods. The C sharp minor Prelude has been recorded by many great pianists, but this is the only recording of "Lilacs" I have, and I love it. I'm not that well versed on the nuances of Rachmaninoff's piano technique and style, but these recordings sound very much in the same style as the records of his playing I've heard. I do have a preference for this CD over the other because it's his compositions and arrangements. To me, hearing Rachmaninoff playing others' music is a matter of interest - hearing him playing his own, a matter of reverence.

As an aside, there is a DVD, "The Art of Piano", about the greatest pianists of the 20th century, and there is heavy emphasis on Rachmaninoff's music, along with a couple short film clips of him with his playing in the background. Of course, there will always be arguments about great pianists who were left out of the documentary, but I doubt many would say that Rachmaninoff, Hofman, Horowitz, Arrau, Gould and the others don't belong. The most interesting clip is Georgy Czifra (spelling?) playing Liszt's "Grand Galop Chromatique" (or something close.) Remarkable keyboard athleticism. Seeing the styles of each great pianist in a group like this helps the musically slow-witted (like myself) catch on to some of the stylistic differences between very great musicians. I've been playing (barely) for about ten years, and watching these guys, I figure, I'm about at the level they were approximately 12 minutes after they sat at a piano at the age of four or five.