pianola
Posts: 38
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« Reply #28 on: 11:44:28, 02-07-2008 » |
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Alistair, you are such a kind man. We might form a double act on the stage.
Well, then. The vast majority of player piano rolls were not recorded by anyone, at least not in the way we tend to define recording nowadays. The recording angel does not sit at the keyboard of a Steinway or Bosendorfer, but simply records names in a ledger.
Most rolls were made by people drawing pencil lines on blank master rolls, by reference to the sheet music, after which other workers used hammers and punches to create the perforations. The duration of individual notes was reckoned on an almost metronomic basis, so that one crotchet might equal half an inch, say. This regularity was quite deliberate, in that the intention was to provide a basis for individual pianolists to create their own interpretations. We have no equivalent of this today. Computers generally have to be programmed in advance.
I attended a performance of Stravinsky's "Les Noces" (1919 version) in Paris two years ago which pretty much reduced me to tears. The player piano part had been programmed on to a MIDI device, which in turn fed a Yamaha Disklavier. There was no means of the MIDI instrument following the conductor, and in any case the Disklavier imposes a 500 millisecond delay on all incoming MIDI, in order to give it time to play the quiet notes, which are slower to sound, at the same moment as the loud ones. The conductor wore headphones which gave him a "click" track, and the performers all followed him rigorously, and with palpable nervousness, since, if they had once lost their synchronism, there would have been no way of getting back in.
The wonderful spontaneity of Les Noces, the moments of elation, of drunkenness, of pathos, were all completely lost, because there was no time for anyone to breathe. And of course, the pianola unfairly took the blame. Someone will reply that Les Noces has an inexorable onward momentum, so let's agree that, while the ritualistic rhythm takes precedence, it should still allow individual singers the odd brief split second of emphasis. Otherwise it might as well be performed by robots.
We all take breath and pause during our spoken conversations, and so it should be with most music. Every tiny accent which we make in music has its corresponding hesitation. This is something that generally only pianola players learn, because the inflections are so small that pianists use them instinctively - they are simply part of their humanity. Someone completely new to the pianola will make it sound mechanical in very obvious ways, because they will not understand that one needs to pedal in step with the music, or that fewer notes need less effort for the same dynamic. More experienced players sometimes fail to throw off the mechanical quality, because they accent without the corresponding hesitation, and so the flow of the music sounds irregular.
Anyway, to return from my digression, since we were talking about Rachmaninov, I simply (well, perhaps not so simply!) made the rolls from the score, by transcribing them on to a computer program which I wrote many years ago, whose files I can now send by serial transfer to a PC, which in turn operates a perforating machine, thanks to the expertise of a good friend. I enter the details, punch by punch, by pressing various keys on the computer keyboard.
In performance, like any other pianolist, I create the dynamics with my feet, set the speed and rubato with my right hand, and balance treble against bass, melody against accompaniment with my left hand, which also operates the sustaining pedal. Playing Nancarrow is incredibly simple, since the rolls are intended to run at a constant speed, and the dynamics are based on terrace levels. Since most audiences have no clue about what a pianolist does, they usually applaud on the basis of perceived sweat. George Antheil's "Ballet Mecanique" is great for this, because there are three long rolls that are all full of loud repeated chords, and one is completely dripping by the end. Even the most ascetic of audiences likes to endue its performers with just a little heroism, and sweat has the appearance of valiance!
I like the way Rachmaninov plays his own music, so my interpretation of his Third Concerto owes something to him, though I have my own ideas as well, and anyway, one is influenced by the conductor and the audience. I tend not to play wrong notes, of course, and I do play all the notes, which is probably quite unusual in that concerto. Funnily enough, at the very end there is an ossia of either triplet or quadruplet octaves in both hands, and of course I chose the latter. In rehearsal the conductor (Yoel Levi) stopped me and tactfully enquired whether I might have transcribed the music incorrectly. He was stunned to realise that such an ossia existed, because in his whole career he had never heard anyone play it.
I should say that Rachmaninov at one time played the Pianola himself. There was an instrument at Ivanovka, and his sister-in-law remembered his pedalling, with some glee, the three rolls of his Second Piano Concerto (orchestra included) published by the Aeolian Company in London. I suspect he did this at the time he was writing the Third, and I wonder whether the final ossia, and one or two other fiendishly agile passages, owe something to his enthusiastic use of the tempo control.
Anyway, that's enough for today. Alistair, the best to you too, and it's about time you pointed me towards the Sorabji thread!
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