Joshua Bell- Rachmaninoff in a Zenph Re-performance is an amazing duet.

[bobjfs]

Well, I think it's outright spooky. It sounds wonderful.

[pianopera]

The special software developed by Zenph extracts every detail of a recorded performance and stores the data in a digital file that is played back on a real acoustic piano... I don't know how they managed to "unglue" Rachmaninoff's piano- and Kreisler's violin-sound when they recorded the Grieg Sonata. It is obvious that with a now "fixed" piano part the replacing violinist doesn't have much interpretative freedom, and feels the breath of Kreisler, but without loosing his own personality...

[flugelmaniac]

@pianopera, thanks for forwarding, good listening.........I wonder if that Steinway is quite a few years old?...if it is ,it's the better for it!.................Re the Zenph , it seems a good idea......but how sure can we be that EVERY note is reproduced as it was originally.....it' will always remain a skilled approximation of the dynamics, dependent on the skill of the editor....

[pianopera]

@flugelmaniac I guess it's the same Steinway that they used for the Zenph CD with piano solo tracks of Rachmaninoff -- A Steinway D from 1909 (pretty much the same as the composer played).

It's a completely computerized process, and quite exact... but somehow, some indefinable "magic" from the original is missing... and here we have an extra problem: the balance of the two instruments -- how were the acoustics of the original recording studio, and was the lid of that piano completely opened?

[flugelmaniac]

@pianopera ....1909!,that's good......I'm not condeming the Zenph process because it can be of value don't you think?.......Agree with you about balance of the two instruments,acoustics etc............... however, my main concern is that all the dynamics are completely manually input,note for note with this system,( using human aural assessment) although the tempo and phrasing is copied by an electronic midi conversion .......a difficult task indeed and by no means 100% reliable, I feel.

[pianopera]

@flugelmaniac I see, I didn't know that, the accompanying booklet of the CD doesn't give many details about the exact process... I agree, re-interpreting all the dynamics by ear certainly isn't 100% reliable indeed!

I think it has some value because it comes much closer to Rachmaninoff's original intentions than the sometimes awkward Ampico roll recordings, and eliminates surface noise and mono sound of the original recordings.

[avdota]

It's not Rachmaninov's piece. It's Grieg's Sonata

[a1s2d3f4g5q1w2e3]

@avdota You're right. Op.45, 2nd mvt. But the title refers to the names of the performers, comprised of Bell and Rachmaninoff ( realized via Zenph's reperformance).

[BenMcCormack91]

I don't know how I'd feel about performing like this. Bell plays beautifully, makes it sound wonderful, and probably reconstructs the violinist's original performance very nicely, but I feel like there's some level of interaction that's lost when a live musician plays to a pre-recorded track. When I've accompanied people, I know that eye contact - or at least a mutual interaction - is, if not necessary, tremendously beneficial.

[BenMcCormack91]

@BenMcCormack91 Though that being said, the Zenph re-performance recordings of solo piano music are wonderful.

[aspergershawn]

this is absolutely amazing - it IS without a doubt a wonderfully faithful re-performance of Rachmanoff, I am so astounded. I know his recordings like the back of my hand and this is really the Grieg which he played with Kreisler.

[ilyabialo]

Чудесный звук --или я ничего не понимаю!!!!

[avdota]

@ilyabialo Точно, чудесный)