Carl Reinecke (1824-1910): Mozart - Piano Concerto in D K.537 - Larghetto

Reinecke is best known (if at all) today as a composer. He was also a highly regarded pianist and conductor, and he has the honour (?) of being the oldest pianist to commit any performance to a recording. He made no acoustic recordings, but made a number of piano rolls for the Welte reproducing piano. This system captured dynamics, pedalling and attack of notes. It did not satisfactorily reproduce the tonal variations or the subtle inner voicings within chords so well. Bad rolls, or badly adjusted reproducing equipment can easily lead to rhythmically lumpy playback or other aberrations, leading to a bad name for piano rolls amongst many critics. However, in a good reproduction the recording can be very fine, and convincing.

This performance is Reinecke's transctription of the slow movement Larghetto from Mozart's Piano Concerto in D K.537. The roll dates from 1905, towards the end of Reinecke's life.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• carl
• reinecke
• piano
• roll
• historic
• recording
• welte
• mignon
• mozart
• Piano
• Concerto
• K537
• Larghetto

[peudargent]

Thanks for sharing this! I am writing an article about Reinecke for a german music magzine right now, that's why I stumbled into this. One question: If this Welte-recording is from 1905, when was his first recording? You say, that he was the oldest pianist to commit any performance to a recording. was it even before - let's say - Brahms in 1889?

[d60944]

@peudargent Reinekce's only recordings are piano rolls, and as far as I know, the first of these are the 1905/06 ones for Welte. A full rollography for Reinecke can be found by googling. My phrase means that Reinecke was the "oldest" as in born before anyone else, to leave behind some kind of recorded performance (no-one born before him left us anything)... Well, unless the anonymous pianists on the 1888 Mendelssohn and Sullivan Edison cylinders were in fact pensioners by then :-)

[JoeTownley]

Remember how your piano teacher would whack your fingers with a ruler if you did not keep your hands together? I'll bet Reinecke's fingers were in shreds after his lessons, judging from this recording. Or was this just the style of piano playing in the Romantic Period? It'd have drove me nuts to listen to the LH play before the RH that many times, or are those just rolls?

[d60944]

@JoeTownley What you are hearing is a fundamental part of keyboard playing technique prior to around 1920. It is not an mistake, nor a flaw in the roll. It became unfashionable in the 20th century.

[JoeTownley]

@d60944 Very interesting. Thank you for that info, D. I can see why it fell out of fashion. It's irritating as hell.

[d60944]

@JoeTownley Only to ears not used to it!

[mirkojorgovic]

Brahms born in year 1833

[marcxopoco]

@JoeTownley doesn't know that Reinecke is making a transcription of the orchetral score here combined with the piano part.

Phony 'critic' Joe doesn't have a clue what that means.

Reinecke was the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra for 35 years. He was Mendelssohn's successor there.

Joe could give Reinecke lessons.

LOL

[wks1978]

@peudargent To be perfectly honest, there was no type of permanent recording before 1888 when Edison perfected his paraffine wax cylinders.

Even so, very few musical performances were recorded before 1895 and those that survive have physically degraded since then as the wax that they were made from is prone to biological decay.

As far as reproducing pianos go, the earliest machines that were capable of faithfully recording what was played into them date from around 1900.

[peudargent]

@d60944: Of course -the oldest composer, not the oldest recording! By the way: I just received an e-mail by his great-grand-son. How times change...