Romantisk musikkprogram* (Romantic music program)

Romantisk musikkprogram* (Romantic music program) explored the instrument called pianola.

About the pedal operator and romance of the reproductive piano, from the program of Black Box Teater for the festival Marstrand vol III: A la grande nuit (translated from Norwegian by Sceneweb’s Lillian Bikset):

"In the beginning of the 1900es, parallel to the development of the gramophone record, the mechanical piano was developed. The idea was simple, democratic and commercial: People were to get high-quality music into their own homes, without having to perform it themselves. At the time it was a madcap idea. With the mechanical piano one could listen to the great composers’ works the way they were performed by the most virtuoso pianists of the time, or even personally interpreted by the composer. Considering the sparse amount of reproduction of sound existing at the time, one can easily imagine that a self-playing piano, hammering out Rachmaninoff in the living room, must have made a pretty spectacular impression.

The technology that made this dream of a musical experience possible was "piano rolls", a storage medium in which the music was plotted in by technicians. It was a kind of advanced musical box, sometimes based on recordings, other times based on the written score.

Shortly summed up there are two types of mechanical piano, the player piano and the pianola (with an emphasised O). The player piano is a so-called reproducing piano in which the playing of the rolls happen electronically and in which the rolls contain all information about tempo, dynamics etc the way it is performed by a particular, often famous, performer. Most of the great pianists of the beginning of the 1900es made recordings for use for piano rolls, and now these rolls are important musical historical documents.

The pianola, on the other hand, is not electronic, but managed by pedals controlling air pressure. The pianola is usually placed on top of the keys of an ordinary grand piano, demanding a player to handle the pedals, and hence the control over tempo, dynamics, phrasing, in short, all other musical parameters outside of the tones. Not very different from a pianist, except that the fingers of a pianolist never get close to the keys. The pianolist Rex Lawson calls it "a foot-operated player piano [1]".

Pianola music was originally plotted directly from the score into rolls. To achieve a live musical expression there was need for a pedal operator controlling the playing and "interpreting" the rolls. If one plays a pianola roll in a player piano it will sound square-ish, mechanical and "wrong". Opposite, it is not problematic to play a roll for player piano on a pianola. In addition, this adds an interesting effect of double interpretation, because a kind of duet between the historical recording and the pedal operator.

The piano rolls are in particular important for the understanding of romantic music because most of the recordings were made by pianists who had worked directly with the great romantic composers. For instance, most of Franz Liszt’s music has been recorded by his secretary. In addition the futurists naturally found this instrument very interesting, and Ferruccio Busoni, who knew Liszt as well as Brahms personally and had students such as Edgar Varese and Percy Grainger, made several recordings.

Rex Lawson says "Pianola is a way to play the piano, more than an instrument. For better and worse it is different to play than playing with one’s hands."

A pianolist’s perhaps greatest challenge is trying to recreate, or compensate for, some of the unconscious information transferred through the fingers of a pianist, which are complicated to glimpse if you communicate with the keys through an automatic system. At the same time this exact system is what makes a radical performance practice possible, one that is still fascinating, even long after the gramophone record.

Rex Lawson is the world’s leading concert pianolist. He took part in the world wide premiere of Stravinski’s original version of Les Noces from 1919, conducted by Pierre Boulez, and he also took part in the revival of George Antheil’s Ballet Mèchanique in Carnegie Hall. In 2009 he contributed to the record Grieg Piano Concerto in 2L."

[1] Pianola is the name of a mechanical piano operated by pedals and air pressure. The name Pianola can be traced to a specific American producer of this kind of instruments.

The program for the evening in Black Box Teater was as follows:

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Prelude in Eb, op. 23, no. 6. Polka de W.R. (as performed by Rachmaninoff)
Alexander Scriabin: From Piano sonata no. 3
Franz Liszt: Etude no. 5  (Feux Follets) from Transcendental Etudes (as performed by Ferruccio Busoni)
Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy: Piano Trio no. 1 in D minor, Op 49. Molto allegro e agitato. Andante con moto tranquillo. Scherzo: Leggiero e vivace. Finale: Allegro assai appassionato
Catharina Chen, violin. Audun Sandvik, cello
Conlon Nancarrow: Study for Player Piano no. 3A. Study for Player Piano no. 6. Study for Player Piano no. 21 (Canon X)
Franz Schubert: Ständchen, D. 957 no. 4, (Leise Flehen meine Lieder). An Sylvia, D. 891, Op. 106, No. 4. Ellens dritter Gesang (Ave Maria), D. 839.
Soloists: Susanna Wallumrød, Eivind Buene, Fredrik Strid
Harry M. Woods: When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob - Bob - Bobbin' Along
Bricusse/ Newley: What Kind of Fool am I
Irving Berlin: Alexander's Ragtime Band
Louis/ Young/ Donaldson: How Ya' Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (Now that They’ve Seen Paree)

Source: Black Box Teater, blackbox.no, 03.05.2011, http://www.blackbox.no/content/festivalTitlePresentation.php?tid=2085