Piano Roll Recording Artist - Diary entries
The details for piano rolls have been compiled from notes accompanying Wayne Stahnke’s two CDs entitled “A Window in Time” [Telarc: CD 80489 and CD80491], written by Stahnke and Daniel Pollock (1996). The information was later verified with a photocopy of the recording company’s original ledger, kindly supplied by Mr Stahnke.
April 7 1919
Rachmaninoff's role: Piano Roll Recording
Notes: From the attached copy of a page from Ampico's ledger of recordings by individual artists, it is clear that Rachmaninoff recorded reproducing piano rolls of his Second Concerto (the complete ledger is viewable at the online Digital Repository of Stanford University Library). His recording of the orchestral reduction ('2nd piano') of the slow movement was, apparently, not unusual: as with Hofmann's recording of Chopin's E minor concerto, the accompaniment would have been recorded during playback of the solo part, with the intention that the two rolls would be amalgamated in production. There are references to the solo roll of the second movement being played in public, such as in Chicago in 1983, as Barrie Martyn notes in his book (p. 499). The attached article from the Chicago Tribune muddies the water through its reference to the 'first movement', however all other sources indicate that the roll of the second movement was in fact played. The unpublished rolls for reproducing piano should not be confused with the existence of player piano rolls of the same concerto, one of which is believed to have been created in Dresden in 1908 and published by Aeolian in 1910. It seems doubtful that this roll was 'hand played', yet it has been suggested that Rachmaninoff was involved (see, for example, the article by Rex Lawson on pianola.org). Gregor Benko, in liner notes to the 1973 Complete Rachmaninoff recordings release, writes about Satina recalling Rachmaninoff 'gleefully' pedalling through these player piano rolls at Ivanovka in the years before emigrating to the West (i.e., prior to 1917).
April 4 1928
Rachmaninoff's role: Piano Roll Recording
Notes: It seems likely that this second recording on the day was made in New York, NY.