And, no, this isn’t a religious post either–they haven’t been resurrected. However, low-tech, scratchy recordings by dead piano greats Glenn Gould (who died in 1982) and Alfred Cortot (who died in 1982) will take on new life in a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina next month, when a Disklavier Pro piano will play MIDI files created from a recording Gould made in 1955 of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and one made by Corto in 1928 of a Chopin prelude. Zenph Studios’ new technology has recaptured every note from those old recordings and the MIDI-playing pianos will bring them to new life, recreating every note struck, down to the velocity of the hammer.
This, I think, is very, very cool. The closest thing we’ve had to this kind of technology before were piano rolls that performers such as George Gershwin cut; in a player piano, they can do much the same thing. (I actually have an LP of Gershwin’s piano-player versions of some of his work, purchased off the bargain rack of my university’s bookstore ca. 1977.)
