Brahms Plays On the Piano With Milwaukee Symphony, Feb. 5, 1998

You read it right folks, the electronic fiddlers have done it again.
The source of all this nonsense is none other than Yamaha and their
answer to the real player piano, the Disklavier.

Not satisfied to tinker to death the Gershwin rolls and make a fortune
in the process, now they have taken a Edison wax cylinder made in
Vienna in 1889 of Brahms performing his Hungarian Dance No. 1 and
mucked ( I can suggest another word to replace this one) it up for the
Disklavier.

The Dr. Frankenstein of the project is Composer Jonathan Berger from
Stanford University who, along with mathematicians from other big
league universities, have taken this poor wax recording and extracted
the noise from the recording as best they can, admitting that the sound
was extremely poor.  They even noted that on the recording was not a
clue as to nuances such as attack, dynamics, and playing style
(unimportant details, right?)  Pitches and notes were missing also.

No problem for these egg heads -- they added their own subject to what
they called "Brahmsian piano style as determined by statistical
analysis".  Then to top it all Berger said, "Yes, I cheated a little
("little"?) bit.  I shaped the dynamics (and pedaling choices)."

At this point Berger is a finalist in the Patron Saint of Muck-ups
contest!  So gang, Brahms made his 20th-century piano debut in
Milwaukee with Conductor Andreas Delfs at the Marcus Center Uilhlein
Hall.

It must have been God awful. It could only be interpreted as an
artistic and emotional lie told to an audience who no doubt trusted
their symphony never to make fools of their patrons.  Yamaha probably
sold some of their piano systems but at a cost that some day will be
too high for them to bear.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal music critic Tom Strini had it right when he
ended a promotion piece for his paper when he noted that Brahms was
playing " in Milwaukee -- sort of."

The old chestnut that "history is lies we play on the death" comes to
mind to warn us all that what ever we do with these historic recordings
we should not alter them to the extent that the performances become
lies we play upon the LIVING!

Jim Edwards

 [ If they reach back a little farther into the noise maybe they'll find
 [ Franz Liszt.  They say that sound never dies completely...!  ;)
 [ -- Robbie