In my review of Tacet’s
release of Strauss’s Welte-Mignon rolls
I commented that their reproducing piano
sounds in fine estate; there were no
off-putting noises, no noisy action
and the piano sounded in tune - review.
They have kept up the good work here.
The reproduction and the excellent piano
chosen for this role are welcome aspects
of a series that has done its utmost
to present these rolls in their best
musical light.
The vexed question
of the piano roll is one that is endemic
to the system and the more releases
there are on CD – Naxos, Tudor, Pierian
and Tacet have their own series as do
other companies – the more the issue
will be aired. Not that it’s lacked
airing in the past of course. Given
that I have had my say in each of the
many roll discs I have reviewed it might
be as well to draw a succinct view for
newcomers to the system. Clearly the
considerable controversy that the player
piano has engendered over the years
will not simply disappear. Because some
of the processes were somewhat opaque
and because the level of "post-editing"
and manual intervention is unknown some
critics have exercised considerable
caution in the claims made on behalf
of the system, whether Welte-Mignon
or Ampico or any other of the many companies
that produced such rolls. Others have
welcomed the recordings on the "more
the merrier" principle. My own feeling
is that the layer of mechanical intervention
causes insurmountable problems but that
we should still willingly listen to
them for any light they may shine on
the pianists concerned. Such was the
case when I reviewed the rolls of the
American Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler,
who made no disc recordings. In such
a case the piano rolls were, however
imperfectly, an important component
of her legacy.
Here we have Reger,
a strong upholder of his tradition and
lineage of piano playing. With him as
fellow performer is a trusted executant,
Frieda Kwast-Hodapp, who performs the
only extended piece in the set, the
Variations and Fugue on a theme by
Telemann. This was a work dedicated
to her husband, James Kwast, a famous
performer and pedagogue. A year later
Reger dedicated his Concerto to Frieda,
so impressed had he been by her playing.
Recorded for Welte-Mignon in 1920, six
years after it had been composed, the
performance of the Variations indicates
something of Kwast-Hodapp’s obvious
stature. It’s also of note that she
performs her own edition, something
to which Reger seems to have willingly
acceded; there are some cuts therefore
but the basic structure remains intact.
Salient features of the performance
are its rhythmic latitude, though how
much of this can be ascribed to her
rubato and how much to the inevitably
mechanical nature of the roll system
is open to doubt. To my ears some of
the phrasing is impossibly lumpen.
Reger performs the
rest of the items, small pieces from
various collections. The reflective
romanticism of the second of his Silhouettes
survives the transition from touch to
roll. And the nagging left hand and
evocative right give the fifth (a moderato)
of his Aus meinem Tagebuch a
strongly defined shape. But the eleventh
of the set sounds stodgy and deficient,
betrayed by the system Reger sought
to preserve his intentions. Even the
carnal Lisztian energy of the fifth
of his Six Intermezzi fails really
to register as it should.
Nevertheless this disc
does preserve something of Reger’s poeticism,
albeit highly compromised, and does
make one wonder what kind of Regerian
tradition could have been established
by such as Kwast-Hodapp who died in
1949 and the age of sixty-nine.
Jonathan Woolf
for
details
Max Reger (piano) 
