It would be idle to pretend that there has not been, and still continues to be, a prejudice against piano rolls. Not everyone is clear even about the distinction between those for pianola, where the operator is free to control speeds and dynamics at his whim, and those for the reproducing piano and which captured to a remarkable degree a particular artist's phrasing, nuances of pace and tonal variation. Even in the latter case, which is what concerns us here, sceptics have challenged the veracity of rolls, a commonly heard objection being that they were 'edited' – as if present-day recording techniques did not involve a much vaster amount of editing! The truth is that, while a wrong note could be corrected and small adjustments of dynamics made (in accordance with a number of aural and mechanical checks at the recording session), rhythm was mostly left untouched (as can be deduced from some sensitive flexibility in the resulting performances), and many artists were enthusiastic in confirming that the rolls presented a true picture of their playing. Other adverse criticism in recent times has, more often than not, been attributable to inadequacies in the process of transferring rolls to LPs or CDs, largely due to poorly maintained or improperly regulated mechanisms.
But some years ago L'Oiseau-Lyre issued a number of Ampico transfers of Rachmaninov, Lhevinne and Rosenthal (12/84 – nla) which caused quite a stir. And now Nimbus have embarked on an ambitious five-year plan to issue some 50 discs of great pianists, of the calibre of d'Albert, Carreno, Godowsky and Siloti, inter alia – the list of over 60 names, many of whom never made gramophone records, has one licking one's lips in anticipation – taken from Duo-Art rolls and played, via a 'robot' created in 1973, on a modern concert Steinway under the supervision of Gerald Stonehill, a world authority on the Duo-Art catalogue. As a result, these performances, recorded between 1915 and 1930, sound as vivid and sparkling as if they had been given yesterday – indeed, so vivid is the piano tone that it emphasizes brightness at the expense of warmth. To some extent this may be due to the difference in tone-quality between the instruments on which the recordings were made and that used for the reproduction, but sneaking doubts remain about the matching of the robot's responses, resulting in some lack of really soft passages.
Doubts about realism are lessened by a performance of Chopin's 'funeral march' Sonata by Hofmann (Cherkassky's teacher), revered by contemporaries such as Rachmaninov, and the first pianist to be honoured here with an entire disc. Though the dynamic range in the piece is not large (the limitations being at the ff end), it sounds a convincingly natural reading, except for some unexpected dragging in the central section of the funeral march. But better still are the A flat Polonaise, which boasts a fine crisp elan, the B minor Scherzo, which employs a very full dynamic range and, like the C sharp minor Scherzo, illustrates the real meaning of Presto con fuoco, and a delicately pearly A flat Waltz. The Berceuse, coolly played (but slowing down markedly for the last page or so), slightly suffers from a weakness also found elsewhere in the series – too obtrusive a middle register in relation to the melody above, whether due to the voicing of the piano or to a miscalculation in the adjustment of Duo-Art's two dynamic systems ('accompaniment' and 'theme'). This also applies to the two Nocturnes, where, however, the rolls cannot be blamed for Hofmann's unpredictability: departing from his usual clean style, here he indulges in mawkish left-hand-before-right treatment (the 'ker-plonk' approach) and, particularly in the D flat piece, mauls the rhythm about in excessive rubatos.
Hofmann is heard again, and at his stunning best, on the disc devoted to three Polish virtuosos. A group of five pieces by his teacher Moszkowski is notable for perfectly controlled staccato touch, vital rhythmicality, neat rapid repeated notes and some delectable lightness; and two works of his own show limpid arpeggios (La jongleuse) and breath-taking mercurial virtuosity (Kaleidoscope): how another critic could complain of a lack of subtle tonal colorations is incomprehensible.
Ignaz Friedman, born, strangely enough, in the same village just south of Cracow six years later, is represented by Moszkowksi's once popular Serenata (where imbalance between melody and accompaniment once again cannot be ignored) and by a handful of his own pieces in which he can display the superb technique for which he was famous. There is undeniably an air of exhibitionism about Elle danse and the elaborate fantasias on waltz themes by a singer friend (No. 3 particularly lavishly ornate); but with such coruscating playing who would want to complain? As a composer, Friedman shows in the second Estampe and the fourth Gartner Waltz an attractive feeling for chromaticisms.
Paderewski, much the most senior of the three and at first discouraged by Leschetizky (whose favourite pupil Friedman was to become), did not have the natural facility of the others – he was a late starter – but attracted huge and adoring crowds everywhere and was the most highly paid. There is a sparkle about his lively ''Caprice'' in the style of Scarlatti and a quite attractive, if conventional, nationalist feeling in the ''Cracovienne fantastique''; a lack-lustre performance of the G major ''Minuet'' is perhaps not to be wondered at – he must have been as heartily sick of it as Rachmaninov was of 'the' Prelude – but for the rest, his salon pieces, marked by sentimental 'ker-plonk' articulation, are musically not very interesting.
Besides these two discs there is an introductory 'sampler', ''The Great Piano Era'' ((CD) NI8801), offering foretastes of the series, though it also includes two or three items from each of the above. There are examples of another five pianists, of which the most substantial offering is by Busoni in his famous arrangement of the Bach Chaconne – wayward, intimidatingly iron-fisted and impossibly slow – which, as I had heard another transfer (infinitely less elephantine and more plausible) that took six minutes (!) less than the present 183÷4, had me shaking my head in disbelief. The Schumann Toccata from Harold Bauer sounds uncharacteristically hard-working and heavy-handed, but Lamond in Liszt's Un sospiro persuasively illustrates the Grand Manner, and Percy Grainger, rollicking through a fanciful and brilliant arrangement of his own of an Irish dance by Stanford, utterly disarms one by his verve. For me, however, the gem of this disc is Medtner's fascinatingly quicksilver playing of his Danza festiva.
Well, controversy between supporters and opponents of piano rolls seems set to continue, but despite some reservations – which I hope can be dispelled in future issues – I for one look forward eagerly to the continuation of the series (which, incidentally, is provided with first-class notes) and applaud Nimbus for their courageous enterprise.'