My favorite roll would be Chopin's "Ballade." It covers the gamut of
musical styles and shows off the Duo-Art's expressive range.
Another is Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu," which unfortunately suffered
a terrible re-roll meltdown against the tracking ears.
But perhaps my all-time winner is a roll that came with the piano,
"Prelude in C# Minor," the Rachmaninoff war-horse, played by Ossip
Gabrilowitz. We've all heard it a million times; but few other rolls
show off the dynamics as obviously, and the center section's fast
triplets really spotlight the theme-accenting abilities of the Duo-Art.
During the final closing bars, I would hook up my vacuum gauge to the
stack and let visitors watch the vacuum level slowly drop off as the
chords diminuendoed to a whisper.
Mike Knudsen
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