Crackpottery aside, I have already at some time posted Bach's setting of In dulci jubilo where each pair of crotchets is concurrently rendered as triplet quavers. Since here we see 3 quavers being used in the time of 4, does this not indicate that each group extends over two beats?

Glad to be of service...

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Before anything gets out of hand, I believe Member Pianola intended simply to imply that there was no error in the transcription of the roll.

Shucks! There I was, hackles raised, all ready to whoosh a ten-page essay across the ether.

I don't quite see how I can say this next bit without appearing immodest, so my apologies for that, but I believe I have undertaken more research into the probable recording processes of reproducing piano rolls than anyone else. As an example, my best mate, Denis, and I are the only ones who have minutely examined the Duo-Art originals at the University of Maryland, and, by measuring the spacing of perforations at different distances into the rolls, I was able to prove that both the American and British Duo-Art recording machines used take-up spools of about the same diameter as the playback instruments, so that the paper acceleration (you hadn't yet thought of that, had you!) cancelled out. I do have a number of articles on the subject to my credit over the years, in the Pianola Journal and other similar publications.

This is for many an extremely arcane subject. I'm delighted to be stimulating interest, but it seems to me that I probably ought to start another thread. This one clearly covers a much wider range of musical sources, and it wouldn't be fair to hijack it in such a way.

I think for the moment I would simply say in this case, trust me, the speed is genuine. Welte had test rolls, all their rolls in theory ran at the same speed, and this particular pianist also managed some remarkably fast tempi on 78, where the pitch is a guarantee. Once I can establish the general accuracy of piano roll speeds to everyone's satisfaction, then I might be prepared to give a little ground with regard to individual cases, but there was an overall repertoire of some 10,000 recordings over the main systems, and the vast majority of what has survived is generally believable.

I am used to listening to hundred-year-old performances, almost daily. I much prefer the subtleties of tempo and the genuineness of passion from that time, as compared to what I regard as the competition-fed uniformities of today, where marketing ensures that all emotion is suitably tasteful. Give me full-blooded anarchy any day! This performance of the fugue makes me smile, and I daresay there was an element of "showing-off", but this pianist drew huge audiences, who may in some ways have been more innocent than we are today, but were perhaps more instinctively in touch with their humanity.

I'm enjoying this; thank you Baz and all for the interest.

Cheers, Pianola

That is very kind of you Mr. Pianola, but please do not trouble. We are quite happy with our .pdf photocopy; here it is - 40 Mb - for any other Members who are interested. Perhaps instead you might give your spare copy to some sensitive youth who will treasure it and apply its teaching throughout the course of a long and productive life.


Apart from a few strangenesses (individual notes too quiet or coming in too soon, mostly at the beginning of a bar) your Prelude is a fine rendition at a good tempo, and the rubato is just on the right side of shocking. The Fugue though seems very quick indeed; perhaps this stems simply from the performer's too literal understanding of the word "fugue" itself! We conducted a little desultory googling but could not find his name - please do enlighten us!! Is it perhaps Camille?

The photograph gives us a rare glimpse into a world of civilisation and culture just prior to its precipitous collapse a hundred years ago. (Incidentally we have been looking a little at www.pianola.org and find it quite fascinating! We also found several exciting piano-roll sites offering thousands of MIDI files.)

Coming back to what seems to us the excessive speed, it is much the same effect as we get from watching old cinematographical pictures is not it? It is proof that time does not pass as physicists assume at a constant rate, but that its passing in fact accelerates. This observation finally puts paid to lunatic theories such as the expansion of the Universe and the "Big Bang" does it not?

For the record, the apparent time taken by the gentleman in the recording is one minute seventeen seconds, faster than Glenn even, who takes one minute thirty-three.

Mr. Sudden's message has been a real revelation. After years of inserting hyper-links the wrong way we have at last seen how to do it properly! Until now we have 1) copied a link to a file or photograph; 2) pasted it into our reply; 3) highlighted it; 4) clicked the "globe" button; 5) navigated to the first "]"; 6) changed it to "="; 7) navigated to the second "["; and 8) inserted a "]".

Now thanks to Mr. Sudden the right way has been revealed to us; as he says: 1) copy a link to a file or photograph; 2) click the "globe" button; 3) navigate to the first "]"; 4) insert "="; 5) paste the link.

These clean-cut but often over-sweaty Oar-stralians can sometimes nevertheless be quite ingenious!

I am ashamed to admit that I have always cut corners here with a view to 'ultimate simplicity'! When there is a link I wish to post (e.g. from sendspace or Youtube), the first thing I do (on the source page) is COPY it to the clipboard. I then click back to this MB, and at the point where I wish to place the link I actually type " [ u r l = " (without the spaces!) then I paste in the copied bit, then I actually type "]" followed by the word I mark it with (e.g. CLICK HERE) followed by "[/url]".

To my shame, it was Mr Sudden's post that actually taught me the meaning of the third icon symbol!

Baz

Hm. We have not actually heard this work but to us it seems to be not 'in 6' but 'in 1' - or at the very least 'in 3', and in any case we do not actually see something extending across the beat...