Hello Don, Robbie, & MMDers,  First of all, Robbie has my permission to
post the file of the performance.  The copyright restriction notices on
the performances are against commercial use, and I generally give
permission to all who ask for use of the MIDI files for non-commercial
use (for which an MMD posting certainly qualifies).

Second, regarding the direct conversion from MIDI to WAV without using
the sounds from a soundcard or (external) synth module.  There are
several software packages which will convert directly from MIDI to WAV
files on your hard disk.  In order to do this conversion, they all need
to have some files of their own containing the sounds of the musical
instruments, since the MIDI files contain only the instructions for
playing the notes.  I have made some very large piano sound sample sets
for use with these software packages, including Seer Systems, which Don
mentions, but which is now out of business.

Another program is AudioCompositor, which is designed to do this
rendering directly from MIDI to WAV file format.  There is a similar
one called WaveMaker, which I have not used.

The Gigasampler/Gigastudio software, although designed mainly for
real-time playing, is also capable of writing WAV file output directly
to hard disk, rather than requiring use of an external audio recorder
application.

Similarly, the Halion software, when combined with Cubase as a
sequencing package, can write the output directly to your hard disk.

Cakewalk's Sonar sequencing program uses DXi plug-ins, including
soft-synths like Live-SynthPro, and VirtualSampler (for which I have
smaller piano sample sets), and can write the audio output directly to
your hard disk as a WAV file.

Links to most of these software programs are included on my web site on
the pages describing the piano sets on the various CDs I have for each
of these applications.  Start at: http://www.wstco.com/pianosounds/

In short, there are many ways to do the conversion directly from MIDI
to WAV file, without using the sounds in your soundcard and an external
recorder.  These all require some sort of built-in sampling/synthesizer
for the actual instrument sound by the very nature of MIDI.  In most
cases, you can employ the user-selectable piano sounds of your choice.

Hope this is helpful.

Regards,
Warren Trachtman
http://www.wstco.com/