![]() ![]() It is thanks to his collection, and his persistence and perfectionism, that these historic performances are now available in astonishingly clean and detailed recordings. “It has been a labor of love, 43 years of dogged work and listening,” says Kenneth Caswell, the recently retired general manager of the Austin Symphony in Texas. The Pierian Recording Society-Pieria was the ancient Macedonian site where the Muses were worshiped-has released discs of Debussy and Granados playing their own music, and a double-CD set of the legendary Austro-American pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler. Now a new series of CDs is mining this artistic trove seriously. Electronic phonograph recording was in its infancy, limited in time and sonic dimensions, while reproducing piano mechanisms faithfully captured the styles of artists ranging from Victor Herbert and George Gershwin to Claude Debussy, Enrique Granados, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.Īs recording technology developed, sporadic efforts have been made to transfer this legacy from piano rolls to other media, with scant expressive success. ![]() Yet the reproducing piano was the high-tech, high-fidelity wonder of early-20th century music recording. Say “reproducing piano” and the response is probably, “What’s that?” Say “player piano” and you are probably thinking of a pizza parlor and the tinny plinka-plinka of mechanical ragtime. ![]()
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