Ancient performance with today's sonics...


I stumbled over a CD which I find of interest. Scott Joplin (of ragtime fame) made many piano rolls of his compositions. That was about a hundred years ago. But those rolls can be played back on a piano today and recorded with sonic fidelity that is lacking in the earliest phonograph recordings.

I bought Biograph CD 30159, which has about half the selections played by Scott Joplin himself. Somehow this makes the recording special. Audiowise, the piano is well recorded on this CD.
eldartford

Showing 2 responses by eldartford

Newbee...Piano rolls do not duplicate all the subtleties that a pianist can impart to the performance, so, because of this I think that ragtime/honky tonk music is more suitable than classical music for this media. Current versions of the automated piano do capture the pianists "touch", as well as the keys he hit, and can therefore give better results.
Newbee...Thanks. I will look into these recordings. Perhaps when they transcribed the punched rolls to a digital file they were able to do a little editing to restore some aspects of the original performance.

I have heard the Bosendorfer reproducing piano, and it really is good.