Mechanical Music Digest  Archives
You Are Not Logged In Login/Get New Account
Please Log In. Accounts are free!
Logged In users are granted additional features including a more current version of the Archives and a simplified process for submitting articles.
Home Archives Calendar Gallery Store Links Info
MMD > Archives > October 1996 > 1996.10.16 > 09Prev  Next


Re: Gershwin CD
By Dan Wilson

Spencer Chase <wspencer@MAIL.TELIS.ORG> said:-

> I so completely disagree with Rick Pargeter's assesment of the
> Gershwin CD that I can't help but write. I don't own the second
> and would not accept it if offered as a gift. I was given the
> first by a fellow piano collector as a joke. It is music like
> this that gives reproducing pianos a bad name. After the
> midi-izing and the editing there is not a shred of the original
> music left.

One of these days I must get round to buying one of these danged new-fangled Compact Disc players. People seem reluctant to give them away when they're tired of them.

So I have no CDs, but have heard tracks from this set several times. The effect to me is of reproducing rolls reduced to hand-played and then played with a modicum of skill on a pumper connected to a very new grand piano. In other words, if you know the originals, an overall disappointment but not a total disaster. I sometimes hear original records of GG playing on BBC Radio 3 (the classical channel here) and often get caught out, thinking this is a poor reproducer: he did have a surprisingly leaden touch.

The cause celèbre on this side of the water is the Nimbus project to produce a lot of Duo-Art replays using the push-up built by Gordon Iles (late of Universal Music Co at Hayes and then Artona Music Rolls) in the 1970s, on a Steinway. Some of these tracks are quite acceptable and some are just plain awful, compared to a performance by an original instrument. The problem was noted by plenty of keen listeners when the push-up was new: it's much too literal in its interpretation of Duo-Art codes, snapping from level to level like an Ampico when the old machines had an exponential delay characteristic which the roll editors allowed for. Because the piano is such a fine one, it just sounds to the ignorant but musical listener as if everything has been got right except the reproducing system which must therefore be intrinsically inadequate. If a well-known record company like Nimbus can get it this wrong, one despairs of ever getting reproducing piano CDs right.

Dan Wilson


Key Words in Subject:  CD, Gershwin

Home    Archives    Calendar    Gallery    Store    Links    Info   


Enter text below to search the MMD Website with Google



CONTACT FORM: Click HERE to write to the editor, or to post a message about Mechanical Musical Instruments to the MMD

Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are those of the individual authors and may not represent those of the editors. Compilation copyright 1995-2024 by Jody Kravitz.

Please read our Republication Policy before copying information from or creating links to this web site.

Click HERE to contact the webmaster regarding problems with the website.

Please support publication of the MMD by donating online

Please Support Publication of the MMD with your Generous Donation

Pay via PayPal

No PayPal account required

                                     
Translate This Page