I was delighted to have been invited by the Ross McKee Foundation in San Francisco to present a filmed introduction to historical piano recordings. I was approached several months ago about the possibility of presenting one of their monthly Piano Talks, now taking place online due to CoVid circumstances. Usually they would work with local speakers but since everything had shifted to an online platform, they were able to extend the invitation to those living elsewhere – an opportunity for which I am extremely grateful.
We discussed a bit what topic I should choose – whether I should focus specifically on a particular pianist or on certain styles of playing – and then we decided that a general introduction to historical recordings would be preferable as there’s not much of this kind of ‘entry-level’ exposé available on the topic.
One of the challenges of a presentation lasting only around 45 minutes is how little could be covered in such a broad topic – I wanted to cover salient points of observation and also present some recordings, and so I had to make some alterations to what I’d originally hoped to include (my first attempt at filming was well over an hour). So while the musical examples are relatively brief, I think that I’ve covered the key issues relating to historical piano recordings and introduced a few performances and artists that demonstrate their great value and importance.
Going through the process of filming, I can truly empathize with how musicians feel in a studio with no audience and just interfacing with equipment – it is no surprise to me that the playing of pianists can be different in concert than in such conditions… I am certainly somewhat more vivacious when not only facing a recording machine! I eventually warmed up and settled into ‘film mode’ and I think the points get across… but I do understand why Schnabel referred to the recording studio as ‘the torture chamber!’
And so, here is the video – and beneath, I will elaborate on a few points!
One question that was posted to my Facebook page after posting this video had to do with the pianos and the artists’ timbre, as I’d mentioned that certain pianists are so distinctive as to be instantly recognizable, but one reader stated that perhaps the choice of instrument can sometimes be what makes a performance so distinctive, such as the very special piano used in Marcelle Meyer’s “Ondine” performance.
The piano Meyer used was indeed remarkable, and although it sounds more like a Pleyel or Erard, it is in fact a Hamburg Steinway chosen for Les Discophiles Français by Lili Kraus, and it is the same piano used by Kraus, Meyer, and Yves Nat for their recordings on that label, and is most likely the ones used in other sessions engineered by André Charlin at the Studio Adyar around the same time, which includes Germaine Thyssens-Valentin for her Fauré cycle and Albert Ferber for his Debussy cycle. While there is indeed some similarity between what we hear amongst these pianists, there is also quite a difference – the trills in Nat’s Brahms Handel Variations puts one in mind of what one hears in Meyer’s Rameau, but in many ways we hear very different playing and sonorities elsewhere. And in recordings of Meyer made elsewhere – including Swiss and Italian broadcasts – her tone, touch, and approach are still distinctive even if the sonority is not 100% the same.
The same goes for Steinway 299 used at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio. The late 1940s/early 1950s recordings by Lipatti, Solomon, Cortot, Schnabel, Moiseiwitsch, and Anda all used that same piano, yet I would say that I can recognize a number of these pianists by their tone and style when on other pianos too, in recordings made in different periods or in the case of Anda at the same time (some broadcast recordings from the 1950s demonstrate the same deftness of touch and rhythmic bite), and that’s certainly the case for Lipatti – we know Cortot used a Bluthner for his Prelude, Chorale et Fugue in 1929 but you can recognize his tone in that recording as you can in the late 1940s on Steinway 299.
I do think that the instrument and engineering make a big difference in all these cases, but I don’t think it’s the only factor … we do hear, to choose two pianists particularly close to my heart, Meyer and Lipatti’s distinctive tone, touch, and approach in their recordings on other instruments and in different conditions too.
As for where these beautiful instruments are now: someone mentioned in a recent comment on my Facebook page that the Steinway 299 was sold at auction years ago. In 2008 I spoke with the elderly gentleman who owned the one used in Meyer’s recordings – he unfortunately lived too far from Paris where I was briefly visiting for me to go in person at that time. He had worked at the sessions and shared some interesting details about them and the piano, including Yves Nat’s intense dislike for the instrument and the colourful language he used to curse at it. I hope this one has been well preserved as well. And: when I introduced Harold C Schonberg to Meyer’s playing around 1989 – he had never heard her before and I sent him a cassette – he made a point of talking about how much he loved the piano, which he noted was more light-actioned than a Steinway… I think no one could have expected that it was in fact one of their instruments!
The pianos used back then were indeed different than the kinds of pianos we have now – there’s been a movement towards a brighter sound in recent decades – but I don’t believe that pianos are the only thing that have changed, as the playing clearly is different … though some of the pianos used in pre- and post-War recordings are indeed wonderful instruments!
As stated in the introduction, this topic is certainly a rich one beyond the scope of a 45-minute presentation, but I think it is a worthy exploration and I hope you’ll enjoy it!