Most of us, when we think of the pianola at all, imagine a piano that plays itself without outside assistance. There is one virtuoso, however, whose creative life is devoted to the art of maximizing the playback of the piano roll through careful and judicious use of pedaling and adjusting tempi by hand: Englishman Rex Lawson. Lawson's work is the central focus of Other Minds' The Virtuoso Pianolist, which includes Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces as scored by the composer for piano roll and five other works especially ...
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Most of us, when we think of the pianola at all, imagine a piano that plays itself without outside assistance. There is one virtuoso, however, whose creative life is devoted to the art of maximizing the playback of the piano roll through careful and judicious use of pedaling and adjusting tempi by hand: Englishman Rex Lawson. Lawson's work is the central focus of Other Minds' The Virtuoso Pianolist, which includes Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces as scored by the composer for piano roll and five other works especially transcribed for the pianola by Lawson.The main work here, Les Noces, was scored out for Pleyela rolls in 1919 by Stravinsky himself for intended use in a performance of the work in combination with a group of singers and percussionists. When he discovered that, owing to the technology of his day, direct synchronization between the live performers and the roll was impossible, Stravinsky abandoned the concept, but the rolls were nonetheless made to his specifications by Pleyel in Paris. Lawson...
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