Ignace PADEREWSKI
(1860-1941)
Minuet Op. 14 No. 1 – played by Ignace
Paderewski
Johann STRAUSS
(1825-1899) arr.
SCHULZ-EVLER
The Blue Danube, Arabesque – played
by Josef Lhevinne
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
(1835-1921)
Rapsodie d’Auvergne in C major Op. 73
– played by Camille Saint-Saëns
Fryderyk CHOPIN
(1809-1847)
Polonaise in F sharp major Op. 44 –
played by Josef Hofmann
Niccolo PAGANINI
(1782-1840) arr.
Franz LISZT
Paganini Etude No. 5 in E major- played
by Egon Petri
FRANZ SCHUBERT
(1797-1828) arr.
TAUSIG
Marche Militaire in D major – played
by Télémaque Lambrino
Alfred GRÜNFELD
(1852-1924)
Dinner waltz (from The Man about Town)
– played by Alfred Grünfeld
Maurice RAVEL
(1875-1937)
Gaspard de la nuit No. 1 Ondine – played
by Walter Gieseking
Josef HAYDN
(1732-1809) arr.
SAINT-SAËNS
Andante from Symphony No. 94 Sunrise
– played by Rudolph Ganz
Jean-Philippe
RAMEAU (1683-1764) arr.
GODOWSKY
Minuet in A minor – played by Hans Haass
Georges BIZET
(1838-1875) arr.
HOROWITZ
Virtuoso Fantasy (from Carmen) – played
by Vladimir Horowitz
Alexander GLAZUNOV
(1865-1936)
La Nuit – played by Rudolph Ganz
VOGRICH
Staccato Caprice in F sharp major –
played by Yolanda Mero
The Welte-Mignon piano
used a series of carbon rods attached
to each of the keys which lowered into
a trough of mercury to complete an electrical
circuit when the pianist hit a note.
The circuit caused inked rollers to
mark a roll of paper with the note itself
and also the speed and depth of the
attacked note. Playback was possible
before the roll was manually perforated
for public consumption on a player piano.
Theoretically then dynamic shading and
pedalling could be registered by the
complex system but Welte-Mignon was,
irrespective of the secrecies and ambiguities
of the system, something of a world
leader in the player piano world. Something
of their eminence can be gauged by the
composers who went to record for them
– Mahler, Ravel and Debussy amongst
them.
The rolls on Naxos
first volume in their new Welte-Mignon
series date from 1905-27 – though some,
such as Rudolph Ganz’s recordings and
Gieseking’s are undated. Using a restored
Steinway-Welte piano we have pristine
sound quality albeit the action of the
piano is rather noisy. Clearly the considerable
controversy that the player piano has
engendered over the years will not simply
disappear. Because some of the processes
were somewhat opaque and because the
level of "post-editing" and
manual intervention is unknown some
critics have exercised considerable
caution in the claims made on behalf
of the system, whether Welte-Mignon
or Ampico or any other of the many companies
that produced such rolls. Others have
welcomed the recordings on the "more
the merrier" principle. My own
feeling is that the layer of mechanical
intervention causes insurmountable problems
but that we should still willingly listen
to them for any light they may shine
on the pianists concerned. Such was
the case when I
reviewed the rolls of the American
Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, who made
no disc recordings. In such a case the
piano rolls were, however imperfectly,
an important component of her legacy.
To my ears Hoffmann’s
Chopin Polonaise shows signs of the
roll’s besetting weakness, that of rhythmic
stiffness. The now little known Télémaque
Lambrino may indeed have played Schubert’s
Marche Militaire in such a bluffly unrelieved
way – or again it may be an inevitable
corollary of the system under which
he was recorded. Was Hans Haass really
so rhythmically eccentric in his Rameau
and though Horowitz drives into the
trademark Carmen Fantasy parts of it
sound unconvincing in the light of what
we know of his playing from contemporary
78s. Similarly we do know very well
what Grünfeld sounded like and
he sounds correspondingly and predictably
vivacious here.
I’m looking forward
to this series unfolding. Notes are
good and I’m indebted to them for some
technical details.
Jonathan Woolf
see also
review by Don Satz
Recorded on Welte-Mignon piano rolls between
1905 and 1927 
