El Pelele by Enrique Granados (Introduction to Goyescas)

[crazy for ivan moravec]

dirty.
lots of fun.

[wzkit]

Bravo! I really liked the sensitive manner with which you handled the phrasing, nuances and pedalling. Really the work of a true musician. More more more...

[pianolist]

Hi Crazy,

I liked it very much too. You let the music flow fast and slow, with nice transitions. Perhaps Granados was not so loud in the loud passages, but that is a facet of the age we live in, with big concert halls and so on.

As a thankyou, and because I think it will mean something to you, here is the man himself (Enrique, that is) playing Los Requiobros from Goyescas. He originally recorded it for Welte-Mignon piano roll in about 1913, and the transfer to audio was done on 18 April of this year, by a good friend of mine who has a Steinway-Welte grand. I think my friend, Denis, has regulated his Welte so well that it is the best in the world. It's certainly better than most of the commercial CD transfers, and all the better for not being a concert grand, since Granados would have used a medium sized grand for the original recording.

Well done again!

Rex

[crazy for ivan moravec]

Bravo! I really liked the sensitive manner with which you handled the phrasing, nuances and pedalling. Really the work of a true musician. More more more...

thanks, wz.

although as usual, i'm pretty much not happy with this one. it sounds stale for me. i've played it better before, and how i wish that it happened that way during my graduation recital.:/

isn't it a little too rushed?

but anyways, thanks for the time to listen.

[crazy for ivan moravec]

Hi Crazy,

I liked it very much too. You let the music flow fast and slow, with nice transitions. Perhaps Granados was not so loud in the loud passages, but that is a facet of the age we live in, with big concert halls and so on.

As a thankyou, and because I think it will mean something to you, here is the man himself (Enrique, that is) playing Los Requiobros from Goyescas. He originally recorded it for Welte-Mignon piano roll in about 1913, and the transfer to audio was done on 18 April of this year, by a good friend of mine who has a Steinway-Welte grand. I think my friend, Denis, has regulated his Welte so well that it is the best in the world. It's certainly better than most of the commercial CD transfers, and all the better for not being a concert grand, since Granados would have used a medium sized grand for the original recording.

Well done again!

Rex

wow, thanks for the file! i loved it! how accurate would this be IYO?

thanks for your comment, rex.

[wzkit]

thanks, wz.

although as usual, i'm pretty much not happy with this one. it sounds stale for me. i've played it better before, and how i wish that it happened that way during my graduation recital.:/

isn't it a little too rushed?

but anyways, thanks for the time to listen.

Not at all, I think the overall choice tempo is just fine - my instincts would tell me to adopt such a tempo should I attempt this piece myself.  My only minor comment is that some parts could be articulated a little more cleanly (the ornaments especially)...not sure if that's what you meant by by playing too fast, and hence having difficulty in articulating these bits as cleanly as you would have liked.

[crazy for ivan moravec]

yeah, i felt it was too fast for what i could actually do- i don't know what happened up there, i seem to have forgotten to think before beginning, hehehe. it was a lil fast that i wasn't able to really articulate things which needed articulation, like the ornaments.. oh wel...

[arensky]

Outstanding. A musically sensitive mature performance by a real musician who has technique to burn . This piece is VERY difficult, and you make it sound easy. That's the mark of a great pianist. I hope you know that this ease of execution comes from your involvement in the music. Don't let anyone sidetrack you from where you're at in this performance; being at one with the music. Yeah too fast fast for the ornaments blah blah blah yes these are important details but they are details, not the big picture, which you have clearly in focus. Don't lose that please. You have something very important to offer in today's piano world; emotional warmth. You are a happy person and it shows in your playing, particularly of this piece. Thanks for posting this; I needed to hear this today, a rather disturbing personal anniversary.

kahanga-hanga   

[pianolist]

I agree with Arensky - emotional warmth in piano playing is all too rare these days. You don't hear much of it on the concert platform. Full marks for that. And I for one quite like the odd wrong note - people fuss far too much about them, but they actually are a reminder of humanity.

The question of the fidelity of reproducing piano rolls is long and very complex. I have lived with them for most of my life, so I have a good idea of the answers, but it's impossible to state them in a few sentences. This particular transfer is good; the original roll came from the private collection of Edwin Welte, the inventor, and was scanned and re-perforated a few months ago by a friend in Germany, who has the best set-up in the world for perforating Welte rolls. New copies tend to play better than old ones, though they need to be accurate, which this one is.

My London friend's Steinway-Welte is the best I have ever heard, and I have travelled the world listening to these things. There is a good upright in Austin, Texas, as well. Welte had a means of recording dynamics automatically - without lengthy explanations, you will have to trust me on that. Most of the writing on this subject is a load of junk! There may be instances of slight coarseness of dynamics, where the music is complex, but I'm sure you will still hear that it is a very sensitive performance.

There was a style of pedalling in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and in particular in France, where the sustaining pedal was regarded as a coloration device, and was held down over harmonic changes. It sounds strange to us, but you can hear it on 78s as well as rolls. I'd like to look at this roll very carefully, because there are places where the pedalling seems a little blurry, but my instinct is that he probably meant it that way - it is more likely to be correct than not.

When I get time, away from expanding the Pianola Institute website (the new, incomplete one is at www.pianola.org/exp), I'll send some lengthy and detailed posts to PianoStreet about player pianos and reproducing pianos. They are poorly understood by the general musical world - there are already in PianoStreet some very weird misconceptions of them.

Are you in London, Crazy? The way you play, you ought to hear, and would enjoy, some of the other pianists on roll. It might be arranged.

All the best,

Rex

[crazy for ivan moravec]

Outstanding. A musically sensitive mature performance by a real musician who has technique to burn . This piece is VERY difficult, and you make it sound easy. That's the mark of a great pianist. I hope you know that this ease of execution comes from your involvement in the music. Don't let anyone sidetrack you from where you're at in this performance; being at one with the music. Yeah too fast fast for the ornaments blah blah blah yes these are important details but they are details, not the big picture, which you have clearly in focus. Don't lose that please. You have something very important to offer in today's piano world; emotional warmth. You are a happy person and it shows in your playing, particularly of this piece. Thanks for posting this; I needed to hear this today, a rather disturbing personal anniversary.

kahanga-hanga   

thank you, arensky!

wow! you know someone who's filipino?!(i think i remember a conversation about your link to our country?)
nice to hear that word from you! thanks!:)

[crazy for ivan moravec]

Are you in London, Crazy? The way you play, you ought to hear, and would enjoy, some of the other pianists on roll. It might be arranged.

All the best,

Rex

thank you!!

unfortunately, i'm in the philippines, rex.

and thanks for the enlightenment. i've been told in the past five years that rolls aren't that accurate... but i guess the file you uploaded is really a good one, judging from its sound, and it's real. how nice to have the technology!

[pianistimo]

thank you very much for posting.  it was such a delight to wake up to this.  i don't see anything dirty in it, though.  well, play some more dirty music anyway.  the music is very sensitive and appeals to all four senses.  you can, as my old teacher used to say - smell the large fragrant flowers that bloom in spain in the springtime, hear the guitar expressions, feel the dance rhythms (click click click of the shoes, or clap clap clap) - ps i really like when you do the 3 clicks or claps fairly in succession - as there wouldn't be any hesitation on that, right?!

i just heard the spanish dances played on the radio by some famous guitarist and then - meant to write down his name and lost it.  it was a recording i wanted to copy the tempos for on the spanish dances.  very precise choices of tempi and they were such a contrast to one another.  does anyone know of this recording?  might be julian bream.

it's funny - i love BOTH renditions.  i liked the tempos you took, crazy for ivan, and also, the piano role - but ivan's had more of a 'pull' to me.  i liked it better, even though the role was clearer in spots.  the role had a more 'straight, mature version'  and ivan's was 'passionate and musically magnetic.'

[crazy for ivan moravec]

thanks!!!

a filipino playing a spanish piece will almost always succeed temperament-wise. what else was 300 years of spanish rule in our country for?!!?! might as well put it into good use.

(although americans although also had a great impact in such a short time of 45 years due to educational system which was available to everyone. the spanish educated only few filipinos, those whom they thought would be loyal to them, and left out the others uneducated in order to become intellectually more powerful and therefore stay that way) why am i talking about my country's history anyway?!?!?!

[tee_dee_es]

delightful! thanks, crazy.

[piano121]

Thanks for posting. Very, very well done. Good luck in your carrer!

[crazy for ivan moravec]

thanks guys. it's a surprise for me that of all the recordings i posted from my recent recital, this seems to catch more attention than the rest- the thing is, i thought that the rest were "ok" except for this one.

[arensky]

thank you, arensky!

wow! you know someone who's filipino?!(i think i remember a conversation about your link to our country?)
nice to hear that word from you! thanks!:)

I was the replacement bandleader on the cruise ship "Song of Flower" about ten years ago, I was suddenly in a Filipino Band!  LOL the regular guy never came back, and after a period of adjustment I was the bandleader on this ship for a year and a half. The Filipino guys in the band all knew each other from Quezon City high society gigs in the 60's and 70's, and soon I was one of them; lol they and the crew (filipino and others) started calling me "MacArthur"  Working with those guys was the best ensemble experience of my career; high level music, no attitude! Dance music was art (as it should be) with these players. No wonder Filipino musicians are the Jazz Cats of Southeast Asia.

Do you know or know of a trumpet player, Nestor Gonzaga? He's old enough to be my father, and your grandfather! Best trumpeter I've ever worked with, anywhere...

[crazy for ivan moravec]

I was the replacement bandleader on the cruise ship "Song of Flower" about ten years ago, I was suddenly in a Filipino Band!  LOL the regular guy never came back, and after a period of adjustment I was the bandleader on this ship for a year and a half. The Filipino guys in the band all knew each other from Quezon City high society gigs in the 60's and 70's, and soon I was one of them; lol they and the crew (filipino and others) started calling me "MacArthur"  Working with those guys was the best ensemble experience of my career; high level music, no attitude! Dance music was art (as it should be) with these players. No wonder Filipino musicians are the Jazz Cats of Southeast Asia.

Do you know or know of a trumpet player, Nestor Gonzaga? He's old enough to be my father, and your grandfather! Best trumpeter I've ever worked with, anywhere...

well, such a small world it is!!! nestor gonzaga is the father of a friend of mine who studies (or graduated already, he's way ahead of me in years) at the same uni- UP college of music.
my friend's name is Richie Gonzaga, already a known trumpeteer as well. Nestor Gonzaga is quite a legend here.

ok, MacArthur "i shall return", nice to know you worked with filipinos before. and yes, jazz is so much alive in this country!!! (but not classical, hehe).
we had the first Jazz Festival here earlier this year, and legendary jazz artists from around the globe came to participate.