Edvard Grieg: Piano Concerto

[Chiburb]

Edvard Grieg is still perhaps getting his due as one of the most lyrical of 19th century composers. While these performances may strike Grieg aficionados as patently odd at times, the chance to hear the composer himself playing his own work, as well as one of his favorite interpreters, should more than offset any qualms about the artistic choices made by these famous pianists.

As with most 2L releases, we're treated to both a Blu-ray, with three audio options, as well as an accompanying SACD. 2L does not skimp on its recordings, and that love and devotion are evident throughout all three of the Blu-ray's rather pristine sounding mixes. The Blu-ray offers two DTS HD-MA mixes, a 7.1 at 24/96KHz and a 5.1 at 24/192kHz, as well as a standard PCM 2.0 at 24/192kHz. The recording itself was made with a 352.8 kHz sampling rate, in an audio format known as Digital eXtreme Definition, which preserves 8.4672 Mbit/s per channel. That's a lot of numbers, but what it adds up to (no pun intended) is an amazingly lifelike performance with abundant hall ambience. The listener is literally surrounded by the orchestra, though I was a bit surprised to hear the piano playing through all the surround channels rather than being focused front and center. I was also a bit underwhelmed by the thinness of the piano sound in all but the Violin Concerto, something that may have to do with the piano rolls themselves. I'm not sure if that ancient technology was able to record with any real fidelity such things as attack and decay (though evidently one of the editing tricks Grainger "cut and pasted" was a pronounced sostenuto). The piano utilized was a concert Steinway, but it has little of the renowned Steinway resonance and full spectrum, at least in the Concerto and the piano solos. Strangely, it sounds just great on the Violin Sonata, but that is the one piece whose piano roll provenance is not clearly explained in the liner notes. Conductor Rolf Gupta and the Kristiansand Symphony do a remarkable job staying with Grainger's odd phrasing choices, and both DTS mixes offer remarkable warmth and immersion. Grieg's lovely use of reeds and winds is especially lyrical in this recording, wafting through the surround channels with appealing directness.

More here:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Edvard-Grieg-Piano-Concerto-Blu-ray-Review/6367/

 

[pianola]

Thank you for a very thoughtful review. I'm rather glad you liked the Violin Sonata, not least because I was the pianola player! I put two paragraphs in the liner notes to cover the style of rolls used for the Sonata, which are as follows:

Although the Pianola was used mostly for solo piano music, it was also possible to
accompany singers and instrumentalists, and the first recorded use of this kind occurred
on Thursday 2nd August 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when Charles Parkyn, the
Aeolian Company’s chief “Pianolist”, supported Luigi von Kunits in a performance of
Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata, one of the very works on this CD. History has a way of repeating
itself – von Kunits was at the time the concertmaster of the Pittsburg Symphony, while
Øyvind Bjorå holds the same position in the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra.

Most early music rolls were not recorded at a keyboard, but instead were transcribed
directly from the sheet music, the roll editors drawing pencil lines on large, blank master
rolls, whereupon less skilled staff punched out the holes with hammers and punches. If
played without any musical thought, such a roll will sound completely mechanical and
dull. So it is with the rolls of the Violin Sonata, and therefore in this case the musical
interpretation of the accompaniment has been performed by Rex Lawson.

There were also paragraphs describing how the pianola works and is played, but I recognise how unfamiliar this must be for those raised on digital electronics, so I'm happy to answer questions, as long as I remember to check this forum!

Rex Lawson