I am forwarding email sent on 10/4 to Bob & Bill whose radio program is heard on
NPR, at bmorelock@mpr.org. You can see I am beating on them in an inexcusable
pedantic way for misattributing an Artis Wodehouse recording as a freshened-up
original Gershwin acoustic recording. I didn't seem to get the point across,
since today (10/25) they presented an apparently electronically edited acoustic
recording as an electronically engineered re-recording of Kickin' the Clouds
Away. Oh well, I hope I am listening accurately, but their program comes on
right in the middle of the workday....

_______________________ Forward Header ___________________________¶
Subject: Gershwin--The Piano Rolls¶
Author:  Karl Petersen at Preco¶
Date:    10/4/95 8:43 AM

I usually assume you guys are being cute when you give out outrageous obvious
misinformation, but this was not clear yesterday. The recording you played
Tuesday was not a "direct" "live" pre-1937 acoustic recording of Gershwin's
playing.

On the off chance you are not aware of the idiom and the availability of titles,
there are literally thousands of pre-1930 performances of popular and classical
piano performances which you can hear without scratchy surface noise because
they were "digitally recorded". Every new wave of audio recording medium gets
its rash of new releases of these old recordings, since each successive
"hi-fidelity", stereophonic, audio tape, AAD,ADD,DDD CD mode, will offer
improved results from the original recordings which sound as clear today as they
did in 19XX when they were originally played. Special colorings based on room
acoustics and piano quality can also be applied to the new recordings. Want to
hear Wanda Landowska play the harpsichord on CD? I have recordings of her
playing Mozart. Sorry, Mozart did not record for the medium himself, but a great
number did who missed getting their grooves in wax.

The art vs. technology arguments can point out flaws in the process:  George
G.'s agogic accents got muddled in the first half of Rhapsody in Blue for
Duo-Art; musicologists wonder how Josef Lhevinne, while a fine Julliard
instructor and concertizer and a lack-luster disc recording artist, somehow
surpassed the playing of Rubenstein on the Ampico recordings.

Even the "straight" player piano rolls, when "assisted" in attack, tempo and
other accent by an experienced technician, give surprisingly credible
recreations of original technique.

Since your forte' is clearly in the side-aisles of musicology, this should be
one to pursue. If you don't have studio space and budget to do it directly
(there are well-restored instruments even in Minnesota, if you contact the AMICA
organization to find out), there are many recordings and enthusiasts who would
direct you to more info and analysis of the field, the artists, the recordings
and the technology.