4.0 out of 5 stars
an internal comment, June 24, 2009
This review is from: Simon Barere: Live Recordings at Carnegie Hall, Vol. 1 (1946) (Audio CD)
My comment goes on the reconstruction process from the old, original acetate records to the new, finished master (analogue or digital). I'm highly sensitive to sudden changes in pitch - being an experienced record-collector and educated musician (conductor). In Barere's recording of Fantasy and Fugue (Bach), more precisely in the fugue, a sudden change in pitch occurs, at the point of acetate disc shift - and highly disturbing! The reason to this error is of course that assuming all acetate-cutting equipment to run at same and even speed (78 rpm), which they sometimes do NOT!!!
Speed in old records is a highly complicated issue. My old friend Claus Byrith made a beautiful issue of a CD with "Three Danish Woman Pianists" (vol. 1), where the same type of error occurs in the most sensitive of sensitive places: the funeral march of Chopin's b-flat minor sonata (played by Galina Werchenska), an, in other aspects, wonderful recording. I have the original shellac discs, and the first side of the funeral march runs 78 rpm. - but the next side runs 77 rpm. (and is, erroneously, transferred at 78 rpm., making the pitch suddenly rise a quartertone).What a shame! And blemishing an otherwise fine issue.
Back to Barere. May he not be an outstanding musician, he was certainly an outstanding pianist!
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