Scriabin playing his Preludes, Op. 11, nos. 13 & 14

[pianolist]

In connection with a Scriabin topic in the Performance section of PianoStreet, I said I would upload an mp3 of Scriabin playing two of his Op. 11 Preludes. They were recorded on to music roll in February 1910 in Moscow, and transferred to audio by means of a Steinway Welte-Mignon grand in London last April.

The acoustic is fairly dry, but the music room which houses the Steinway is if anything slightly larger than the room in which Scriabin originally recorded, if one can make a wild guess from the photograph that survives.

The original topic is at:

www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,2170.0.html

More information on Scriabin and other pianists on roll, at:

www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing.cfm

[zheer]

  Waw the man himself, loved it.

[pianistimo]

yes!  good thing there WAs such a thing as piano rolls!  we'd have never heard some of these composers play their own works as they wished to have them played.  i liked the slight rubatos here and there. the piano sounds a bit staccatoish - but the musicality is really there.

[piano121]

wow, that´s so cool! thank´s a lot for sharing it. I enjoyed booth scriabin, and the other pianists on the link you post.  The Chopin´s etude, and the papillon, are also fantastic!

It´s interesting, that all the repertoire they preseted at the pino rolls website was romantic. Of course the romantic music was the effervescence of the moment. I just wonder if pianists of that time didn´t play classic, or barroque stuff in public recitals. I assume they were very fulfilled with the stuff going on at the moment, maibe it was much more interesting.  Something similar to what happens these days with popular music. Usualy, on the 80´s people sort of left the 70´s music behind, like somthing old, something outdated. Just to be rediscovered in the future and then get fresh again.

I know Bach was considered for many time in 20th century, more of a study repertoire than music for recitals. People like Rubinstein, or even Horowitz, pretty much avoided Bach as much as they could. Was that the standard on that time? Did we just started to get back and revisit old music when people just stop composing at all? When we started to run out of new ideas? that´s what happened?

[arensky]

Thanks for posting this!    The only other other Scriabin recording I've heard is the Welte-Mignon roll of the Etude in d# minor op.8 #12. The similarities between that roll and the one of the Op.11 #14 Prelude are very interesting, the way the LH rushes slightly and the frenetic almost panicked feeling he brings to these pieces, which have the same mood as well as key signature in common. Also interesting to compare the Op.32 #1 Poeme with the Op.11 #13 Prelude. He plays them rather straightforward, without a lot of the tempo bending and rubato many pianists apply to Scriabin's lyrical works. Fascinating and very informative to hear this composer pianist ( one of my favorites ) play.

What other pieces did Scriabin record for Welte-Mignon and when will we get to hear them? Please, please... 

[franz_]

Oh daaaaaaaamn, why can't I opload this? Is there any other way I can hear it? If someone wants to post it on my email, please PM me.

[00range]

Check your PM, franz_.

[pianolist]

Aha! Arensky, you were here as well!

Visit www.rprf.org, where you can download some roll catalogues, including Welte. I don't agree with some of the stuff on that website, and the catalogues have been superseded by other more accurate and complete ones over the years, but they are a reasonable starting point.

As I said just now in the new topic I posted under Performance, player pianos have suffered over the years through being in the hands of collectors. People have wanted them because of their mechanical quaintness, and they have been far more interested in polishing them than listening to them. The same goes for many museums of such instruments, alas.

Recently, it has become possible to scan piano rolls, which means that new copies can be made that are absolutely identical to the originals. This in turn means that the repertoire is more generally available, so that those with the best pianos can also obtain the best rolls, which was not necessarily the case before.

Over 1600 Welte-Mignon titles are now available from a friend of mine in Germany, Tom Jansen, and his catalogue is growing every month. He is at www.maesto.com, in case you are interested. My best friend, Denis Hall, in London, has the finest Steinway Welte grand that I know, and he is gradually putting a whole range of pianists and composers on to private CD.

To answer piano121, they certainly did play other repertoire. I put a recording of Carl Reinecke playing Beethoven on the webpage at www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing_welte.cfm. But I'll post a couple of pre-Romantic pieces here. They are the Prelude & Fugue in F minor from Book 2 of the 48, played by Raoul Pugno, and a "Pièce de Scarlatti", arranged and played by Granados. Carl Reinecke was the earliest born pianist to record for roll, having been born in 1824, three years before Beethoven died. He was an expert on Mozart, and the way he plays it is very different from what we expect nowadays. I'll see if I can post some in due course.

Between us in the Pianola Institute, we have around 15,000 music rolls. If you include the non-recorded Pianola rolls, which are the majority, there is some remarkable repertoire. I could play you Arcadelt (OK, I admit it's arranged by Liszt), Byrd, Palestrina, all the 48, the Mozart Requiem, the Beethoven sonatas, oceans of romantic stuff, Bruckner, Mahler, Smetana's Moldau, all of Mastersingers (on 36 rolls), the complete Debussy Preludes, Widor's Toccata, Schoenberg, Marcel Dupré, the main Stravinsky ballets (see www.pianola.org/history/history_stravinsky.cfm), Nancarrow, Cage's 4'33" (on three rolls), Arabic music, and so on.

But it's 1.30 am, and I still have work to do. That's all for now. Thanks for the interest.

[pianolist]

The Bach didn't upload. I expect I failed to press the right button, so here it is.

[piano121]

Carl Reinecke was the earliest born pianist to record for roll, having been born in 1824, three years before Beethoven died. He was an expert on Mozart, and the way he plays it is very different from what we expect nowadays. I'll see if I can post some in due course.

Thanks a lot for sharing it! Please do post some more pre romantic stuf of you can.  It would be great to listen to his interpretation.  Thanks!

[jakev2.0]

Do any acoustic recordings exist of Scriabin?

[pianolist]

Piano121 - I already posted an mp3 of Reinecke playing a Beethoven Ecossaise, at:

https://www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing_welte.cfm.

My good mate, Denis, made the recording on his Steinway Welte grand, and there are three Mozart rolls that he put on CD as well. When you start to examine rolls in detail, life becomes very complicated. Welte had some way of recording dynamics automatically, and there is something about listening to their rolls that can make one feel the pianist is playing at that very moment.

But in their early days, they were not so good at copying the rolls exactly. They obviously didn't realise their own inaccuracies, and the effect is a certain roughness in the placing of notes, especially in fast runs.

To my ears, many of Reinecke's rolls have this rough quality, and we need to find late copies, or at least the most accurate there are. They can be scanned and copied nowadays, but it's an ongoing (and enormous) project. Of course, it could simply be that Reinecke was well over eighty when he recorded for Welte, but I'd like to give him the best chance I can, and I may hold back on the Mozart stuff for a bit. If you are in the UK, there are occasional opportunities for hearing the pianos live - get in touch through webmaster@pianola.org.

There is a website for Reinecke, www.carl-reinecke.de, which is run by his great-great grandson, who is a professional cellist in Leipzig.

Jakev2.0 - My friend Denis is the expert. As well as having the best reproducing pianos in the world, he used to transfer 78s to CD for Pearl Records, and he really knows his repertoire. Being retired, he calls every day for lunch, and I'll ask. An American friend, Ken Caswell, in Austin TX, has put Scriabin's rolls on to CD for the Pierian label, and these are currently available. Ken has an enormous Feurich Welte upright, with a soundboard every bit as large as a grand, so the results are very good. I still prefer Denis' pianos, but Ken's recordings are done with great care.

Pierian doesn't have a website, but there's a folksy article about it all at:

https://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/columnists/scantrell/stories/DN-pianoroll_0731gl.entertainment.805e81.html

[pianolist]

Jakev2.0 - I asked about Scriabin. Apparently he made no recordings other than his Welte-Mignon piano rolls in February 1910. To answer your next question:

2067    Preludes, Op 11, nos 1 & 2
2068    Poème, Op 32
2069    Preludes, Op 11, nos 13 & 14
2070    Never published - title unknown
2071    Désir, Op 57, no 1
2072    Prelude, Op 22, no 1, and Mazurka, Op 40, no 2
2073    Etude, Op 8, no 12

The Welte recording piano was taken to Russia in February 1910, and they also recorded:

Marie Barinova**
Grigoric Beklemischeff*
Anette Berlin**
Alexander Borowski
Helene Brick (!)**
Melchior Charitton**
M. Douloff**
Vladimir Drosdoff
Benno Ebann**
Irene Eneri-Gorainoff*
K.W. Feldmann**
Alexander Glazounow
Alexander Goldenweiser
R. Hill**
Nelly Hoffmann**
Konstantin Igumnoff
Leocadie Kaschperowa**
Friederich Kaula**
P. Khwostchinsky*
Marceline Kimontt**
Theodor Koenemann
Arseni Korestchenko
W. Krowski**
Arthur Lemba
Sergei Liapounow
Marc Meytschick**
Leonid Nicolaieff
A. Pawlow**
W. Pokrowsk**i
Lev Pyschnoff (Pouishnoff)
Vladimir Rebikow
G. Romanowsky**
D. Schorr**
A. Seiliger**
Emma Stember**
Isabella Wengerowa
Jadwiga Zaleska**

Some of these are well-known, others vaguely known*, and some entirely unknown**. At least they are known unknowns, as Mr Rumsfeld would call them, and if anyone can identify them, please do so. Some may be pseudonyms for in-house pianists.

[piano121]

Piano121 - I already posted an mp3 of Reinecke playing a Beethoven Ecossaise, at:

https://www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing_welte.cfm.

Thanks! it sounds amazing. I hope to listen to more stuff!