Scriabin plays Etude in d# minor Op.8 #12

[arensky]

The composer plays his most famous work on a Welte Mignon roll from 1912 or 1913, recorded on a Steinway "D" grand via a Welte Vorsetzer in 1963. Fascinating...

Click here for more detailed info about Welte Mignon and to hear more rolls including Scriabin playing the Poem Op.32#1.

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

[jakev2.0]

I find these very depressing to listen to. It's like looking at an x-ray. They give you the bear outlines only. Scriabin is not playing that particular piano.

When I finally got my hands on Busoni's 1922 Gramaphone recordings, I really didn't know what to expect. But through all the hiss, I could make out clear attributes of a great pianist. I can't find Scriabin in these piano rolls.

PS: sorry for getting this thread off to a bad start, and thank you for sharing the piano roll. 

[arensky]

I agree with you to a point; there's certainly something missing but the phrasing (or an x-ray of it) is there as well as all the wrong notes, it tells us something about how he played. What with all the d# minor activity right now I thought it would be cool to share this, seeing that it's out of print and I can transfer LP's to mp3's.

[counterpoint]

First thing, we can learn from recordings like this: throw your metronome away!
Then: modesty. Composers don't make such a show about their pieces. They play in a way, that you can hear, what they have composed - what's in the piece. Not the spectacular effect, but the structure of the piece. That does not mean, that playing should be unemotional. But the emotion has to go with the piece - not against it.

Very interesting recording - much to learn from it!

[infectedmushroom]

Here another recording of a Piano Roll....

[drone]

If a modern pianist played it with the rubato that Scriabin did, they would be slated!

[arensky]

If a modern pianist played it with the rubato that Scriabin did, they would be slated!

Yes, but isn't the composer always right, according to modern "scholarship"?

Hmm.... 

[ramibarniv]

Yes, but isn't the composer always right, according to modern "scholarship"?
Hmm.... 

The composer is always right as the composer, not at all always as the performer!!!
This is a bad performance and wouldn't pass any now-a-days critical auditioning.
Best,
Rami
https://www.youtube.com/user/barniv
https://ramisrhapsody.tripod.com/

[jakev2.0]

Heh, I gave these piano rolls another chance, and I must say they are absolutely fascinating and wonderful playing. Thanks for posting, Arensky! 

[arensky]

The composer is always right as the composer, not at all always as the performer!!!

True, but when a great composer (particularly a piano composer) who is a competent instrumentalist plays their own work it provides insight into how he wanted it to be played, or it provides a look into another side of their musical being. They should be heard, good and bad. Ravel is possibly an example of the latter, (weak technique in anything not slow) but his interpretations of Pavane pour une infante defunte and La Vallee des Cloches (caps?) are strikingly original, and like this Scriabin roll give an indication of appropriate style, direct from the horse's mouth.

This is a bad performance and wouldn't pass any now-a-days critical auditioning.

It's a bit sloppy techwise but you cannot deny that there is an incredible personality present at the piano in this performance. As for "nowadays critical auditioning", that has come after the fact of this performance, and is irrelevant in evaluating it. My point in posting this here was to let people hear that "what was" often has little to do with "what is", nowadays. We would probably find performances of Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven bizarre and inexplicable, and they would find our performances of their works to be the same. If you are a note hound then Scriabin's playing is certainly not to your taste. But this roll bears out some criticisms of his pianism by his contempoarires, that he employed extravagant rubato and could be sloppy, but that he had a unique personality and an incredible power of expression. This roll corroborates written history, and so is a valuble document. To judge the past according to our own dictates is incorrect, and can only veil the truth of what was.

[m]

But this roll bears out some criticisms of his pianism by his contempoarires, that he employed extravagant rubato and could be sloppy, but that he had a unique personality and an incredible power of expression.

I much prefer his sloppinnes, but with such a passion and character!!!

[jakev2.0]

The composer is always right as the composer, not at all always as the performer!!!
This is a bad performance and wouldn't pass any now-a-days critical auditioning.
Best,
Rami

No offense, but if you went back in time, you couldn't even play in the same room as Scriabin.

[m]

No offense, but if you went back in time, you couldn't even play in the same room as Scriabin.

Yep, if we went time back in time we would'n need a "now-a-days critical auditioning".

People would care not about how many mistakes or missing notes you had, but about who

you are, what is your personality, and how you express it in the music.

Those glorious times!!!

[ramibarniv]

No offense, but if you went back in time, you couldn't even play in the same room as Scriabin.

How is this relevant?
I feel sorry for you guys, forced to live in the wrong time...
Best,
Rami
https://www.youtube.com/user/barniv
https://ramisrhapsody.tripod.com/

[lavalse]

This is a bad performance and wouldn't pass any now-a-days critical auditioning.

Really, not just an unfashionable performance...?

[mattgreenecomposer]

Fantastic, loved these recordings!  Maybe the "piano chops" are not up to what people would expect form such great composers, but these people had something to say!  Like them or not, I noticed how each performance was different from each other.  Not art for the sake of art.  Pianists today seem to sound the same.
thanks for posting.