SONY BMG MASTERWORKS AND ZENPH® STUDIOS RELEASE GLENN GOULD'S BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (1955)
John
SONY BMG MASTERWORKS AND ZENPH® STUDIOS RELEASE GLENN GOULD'S BACH
GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (1955)
SONY BMG Masterworks and Zenph Studios announce the release of a
breakthrough in the history of recorded music. Zenph's re-performance
of pianist Glenn Gould's renowned 1955 rendition of the Bach Goldberg
Variations lets listeners hear this celebrated work like never before
and provides for a sonic rediscovery of an iconic recording.
The Goldberg Variations by Gould is one of the jewels of the
Masterworks catalogue, continuously in print for over half a century.
Zenph's new technique lets the performance be heard for the first time
in state-of-the-art sound on a new SONY BMG Masterworks hybrid
multichannel SACD/CD disc, which includes versions tailored for
surround sound and headphone listening.
Zenph's innovative re-performance process takes audio recordings and
turns them into nuanced live performances that precisely replicate the
original recording but offer vastly improved sound quality. Listeners
are now able to go back to the moment of creation and experience
Gould's playing as if they were in the room when the original
recording was made.
Re-performances replicate the original musician's touch, timing and
sound – including glitches in the original performance. "We've
preserved every single note, including the mistakes," said John Q.
Walker, president of Zenph Studios. “The improvements are all related
to the sound quality. This is something that needs to be heard to be
fully appreciated."
Zenph captures the musical nuances of the original piano recording's
every note, with details about the pedal actions, volume and
articulations – all with millisecond timings. The digital data is
transcribed into high-resolution MIDI files and played back on a state-
of-the-art Yamaha Disklavier Pro™ concert grand piano. The process
allows for the production of new recordings that transcend the
limitations of the original recording process.
SONY BMG assembled its top producers and engineers for the Gould
project, including Steven Epstein, five-time Grammy® Award winner for
"Producer of the Year," and Richard King, senior recording engineer
for Sony Music Studios in New York and a three-time Grammy® winner.
Hailed worldwide, Zenph's work was named one of the Best Ideas of 2006
by The New York Times Magazine. “The re-creations are uncanny," wrote
Paul D. Lehrman in Insider Audio magazine. “The timings and variations
in the keystrokes are so subtle, it's easy to imagine the pianist is
in the room, his fingers pushing the keys down."
Last year, at a live re-performance of the Goldberg Variations held at
the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, members of the Glenn Gould
Foundation stood and applauded after the last note faded.
David Fox
This is a joke I hope.
DF
Peter123
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, you can listen ( see Listen!) to a before and after on a Cortot
recording here:
Mark Obert-Thorn
> Re-performances replicate the original musician's touch, timing and
Yes, but will they replicate his humming and grunts in SACD?
Mark O-T
Nick Sun
I have an idea. How about use a modern recording as the originals,
say, Naida Cole's Ravel for instance, and let them go through all
those fancy processes, Midi pianos etc, to give us a faked recording
in SACD? I am sure our folks can listen to it and test how close the
alleged technology are to the real thing! :-)
Damian R
> I have an idea. How about use a modern recording as the originals,
> say, Naida Cole's Ravel for instance, and let them go through all
> those fancy processes, Midi pianos etc, to give us a faked recording
> in SACD? I am sure our folks can listen to it and test how close the
> alleged technology are to the real thing! :-)
And just imagine how much further Joyce Hatto's recorded legacy could be
extended.
Kalman Rubinson
wrote:
If you have the .1 channel for the subwoofer. ;-)
Kal
John Harrington
No one would ever accuse you of possessing an open mind, I guess.
J
Todd Schurk
Wow!! That is amazing! Please everyone try to hear these Cortot before
and after bits...astonishing!
david...@aol.com
The Hatto principle lives.
-david gable
Steve Emerson
> the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, members of the Glenn Gould
> Foundation stood and applauded after the last note faded.
I saw a demonstration several years ago of Zenph's work, which included
their recreation of a Cortot Chopin etude.
It sounded no more like Cortot than the man on the moon.
This is partly because the piano that does the playing is a Yamaha. The
dynamics weren't accurately represented either. So you had Cortot's
rubato executed on an instrument with a different sound, with cruder
gradation of dynamics. It just sounded weird.
It didn't help that, in order to show the audience what a huge
improvement this was, the Zenph man played an unremastered digital
recording he'd made from a Cortot 78, and said, See how much easier mine
is to listen to? IOW none of the many excellent available transfers was
used for the comparison. This struck me as tacky and even a little
unethical.
He also had a Tatum recreation, which sounded much more accurate and
attractive, probably because of Tatum's lesser concern with dynamics.
SE.
Paul Goldstein
Obert-Thorn says...
No, those will be patched over with splices from Joyce Hatto's recording.
tomdeacon
Leave off the "open" part.
The rest is correct.
TD
tomdeacon
Should work well with GG, then.
TD
eric....@gmail.com
This is basically just a very fancy piano roll.
First, they deliberately chose a Prelude that uses little or no pedal
(true also of the Goldbergs). They'll never get pedaling, because it's
so specific to the individual instrument.
Second, I agree with Steve: a pianist adjusts his touch to the
instrument to create 'his' sound.
Third, I get a surprisingly 'persuasive' performance when I take a
MIDI version of the Eroica and apply Furtwangler's or Toscanini's
tempo fluctuations, you really do start to forget it's a computer. But
that's as far as it goes.
Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica
John Wilson
wrote:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
JW
Tommy, tell the nurse that it's time to change your diaper again.
John Wilson
wrote:
>On Feb 28, 4:29 pm, "John" <janorf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
And the squeaking of the chair he always used.
John
Mr. Mike
Gould's ashes, reassembling them, jump starting them in a saline
solution to bring him back to life. Then he will perform these works
over again, live!
This, of course, will pale in comparison to the sound of Zenph
Studios' efforts ...
Frank Berger
"Mr. Mike" <m...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:fgheu2lici6r28l7s...@4ax.com...
> Next thing, Xmorphl Studios & Laboratories, Inc., will be gathering
> Gould's ashes, reassembling them, jump starting them in a saline
> solution to bring him back to life. Then he will perform these works
> over again, live
Muzzled, hopefully.
Ward Hardman
Actually, this would have been the ideal solution to William
Barrington-Coupe's dilemma over the alleged "grunts of pain" in the
(possibly mythical) original Joyce Hatto tapes.
"Zenphing" Hatto would have provided an immaculately gruntless
recording. ;-)
--Ward Hardman
"The older I get, the more I admire and crave competence, just
simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology."
- H.L. Mencken
O
Mark Obert-Thorn <Trans...@aol.com> wrote:
They can't do it with old technology, but I have invented a new
technology to handle this omission.
Called the Grunting Piano, this specially modified Steinway B with
disClavier and special MIDI encoded Grunt Activated System (GAS), can
duplicate the anatomical sounds of several of our late, great pianists.
Our first project (which has turned out to be the most technically
difficult, simply because of the quantity of grunts) has been the
vocalisations of Glenn Gould, which has turned out to be note-perfect
in every way. Activated by Intelligent Score Noise Optimization
Technology (ISNOT), GAS scans the score forward for what it calls
"lamentable passages" (LP) for which it tabulates a score, or Grunt
Index (GI), which determines whether a grunt should be emitted, what
kind of grunt, the quantity of grunts (uh-uh-uh instead of just
uhhhhhhhh), and grunt pitch, timbre and rhythm.
The Grunting Piano will have a suitable price as befits its utility.
-Owen
Ward Hardman
> In article <1172700537.377039.160...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
Can you listen to this on one of those Gruntig Radios?
John
O
<m...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> Next thing, Xmorphl Studios & Laboratories, Inc., will be gathering
> Gould's ashes, reassembling them, jump starting them in a saline
> solution to bring him back to life. Then he will perform these works
> over again, live!
Oops, bad news!
Gould's ashes have been found on Joyce Hatto's piano.
-Owen
Soundfield
colorizing? ;-)
I'm sure this will have plenty of bass for ansermaniac.
dd
On Feb 28, 4:29 pm, "John" <janorf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >From the Sony BMG Masterworks web page:
>[...]
>
> SONY BMG assembled its top producers and engineers for the Gould
> project, including Steven Epstein, five-time Grammy® Award winner for
> "Producer of the Year," and Richard King, senior recording engineer
> for Sony Music Studios in New York and a three-time Grammy® winner.
>
> [...]
The Sanity Inspector
> >From the Sony BMG Masterworks web page:
>
> SONY BMG MASTERWORKS ANDZENPH® STUDIOS RELEASE GLENNGOULD'SBACH
> GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (1955)
>
> breakthrough in the history of recorded music.Zenph'sre-performance
> Variations lets listeners hear this celebrated work like never before
> and provides for a sonic rediscovery of an iconic recording.
The NYT covers it this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/music/12conn.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The Jam
wkasimer
>It didn't help that, in order to show the audience what a huge >improvement this was, the Zenph man played an unremastered digital
>recording he'd made from a Cortot 78, and said, See how much easier >mine is to listen to? IOW none of the many excellent available >transfers was used for the comparison. This struck me as tacky and >even a little unethical.
That's probably what appealed the folks at BMG/Sony. As I recall, BMG
did something similar with their "Caruso 2000" series - included an
unprocessed transfer of an extremely worn Caruso 78 as a comparison.
Bill