Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
AUGUST 26, 1922
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
335
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The Player-piano Is a True Orchestra in Miniature, and Player Musicians
Will Find a Profitable Field for Exploitation and Experiment in the Preparing
and Transcribing of Orchestral and Organ Music for Music Roll Use
In the July issue of the Flayer Section a great there they made their great mistake. Music
deal was said about the possibility of organiz- transcribed for piano from orchestral, organ or
chamber music scores is necessarily changed in
ing the automatic expression for the benefit of
the composer who wishes to develop the un- character and often vastly weakened by the
limited tonal and technical capacities of the necessity for confining it within the scope of
player action. General observations on the new two hands or ten fingers. And it ought
art of musical composition for the player-piano from the start to have been as plain as
only have been likewise made in previous issues. the nose on one's face that it was will-
fully silly to make player arrangements from
We now desire to discuss another matter of
parallel importance. This is the question of these emasculated and often actually mutilated
making transcriptions of orchestral, organ or editions of elaborate polyphonic or otherwise
other instrumental music for the player-piano. highly organized music when the player could
take care of the original scores with perfect
Some Ancient History
- -
Those who criticise the musical shortcom- ease.
Some Horrible Examples
ings of the player-piano, and especially the musi-
cal short-sight of those who have had to man-
One need not. go far afield to show many
age the production of libraries of roll music, examples. In his remarkable little book, "The
need to remember the peculiar conditions in Piano Player and Its Music," Ernest Newman
which the birth of the player-piano took place. has quoted several examples from the rich lit-
The Pianola and the Angelus, the Simplex and erature of Wagnerian arrangements. Now, ar-
the Apollo were all developments from self- langements of Wagner's orchestral music, such
playing organs. In fact, the player industry as the "Tannhaeuser Overture," the "Magic
was founded and built up into practical shape Fire Scene" and "Ride of the Valkyries" from
by men trained in organ building who had taken "The Valkyr," the "Love-Death" from "Tristan"
up the automatic idea and worked it out in those or the "Prelude to the Meistersingers," ought to
remarkable instruments which came to be be among the most effective things the player-
known as the Aeolian, the Symphony and the piano does. To make rolls from pianoforte ar-
Orpheus organs, to name the best-known. rangements of these is simply absurd. They
These organ men had provided a certain quan- .sound thin, flat, unsatisfying to the last degree.
tity of music for their automatic instruments, The piano arrangement of the "Tannhaeuser
and from it built up the piano-player music Overture" is noisy but shallow, complicated but
which had to be provided before a piano player not highly organized and fatally disappointing.
of any sort could be sold. It is not surprising Why? Because the roll reproduces the devices
that a good deal of this early music was quite which the arranger invented to give the best
impossible from the standpoint of piano play- two-hand imitation of the general effect of the
ing. The organ and the piano are not musically orchestral music. In so doing he relied to a
on a level just because they both arc played very great extent upon the skill of the pianist
from keyboards any more than an acolyte is a who should play it, especially in respect of the
cardinal because he commonly wears a red cas- latter's competent use of the sustaining pedal.
sock.
But when the arranger copies him he has no
high musical skill of player-pianists to rely on
Weakness of Two-hand Fetish
It was not very long, of course, before the as a matter of course. The music is usually
business of producing a library of music suit- played in all its bare two-handedness, and it is
able for the piano player was brought to a therefore thoroughly disappointing.
practical basis. Then the work of reducing the
The Player's Special Idiom
literature of the piano to perforations was be-
Of course, this sort of music ought not to be
gun in earnest. Unfortunately, however, the ar- copied badly on a music roll, even from the
rangers failed to observe the difference between orchestra score, if the highest results are to be
piano music and music transcribed and ar- obtained of which the player-piano is capable.
ranged for the piano. Finding that a great deal We know from Doctor Schaaf's researches that
of music had been transcribed for piano from the player-piano action has an individuality of
scores originally composed in view of organ, its own which is not all mechanical evil, and
string quartet and orchestra, they hastened to that when its nature is thoroughly compre-
make player-piano rolls from these, and right hended it can be made to produce effects ex-
clusive to itself quite inconceivable otherwise,
and musically most valuable. Still, it would be
better to have a "Tannhaeuser" roll copied
note for note from the orchestral score than
to be obliged to put up with two or four-hand
pianoforte arrangements of it.
One could enumerate many examples from
the better-known Wagner transcriptions which
have been copied in music-roll form, but need
mention only one gross example. Most of the
rolls of the "Magic Fire Scene" from "The
Valkyr" are copied from the pianoforte arrange-
ment by Brassin or Josef Rubinstein. Each is
skillfully made from the point of view of the
pianist, but is hopelessly inadequate neverthe-
less. One of the most important points in this
music is at the emergence of the Siegfried Mo-
tive in the midst of the crackling rhythms of
the "Magic Fire." The pianoforte arrange-
ments cannot manage this and so simply aban-
don it. How absurd that it should be also left
out in the piano player arrangement, made for
an instrument which could play every note in
the orchestral score with perfect ease!
One could enumerate many other examples,
but these must suffice. Every orchestra piece
of which we personally know has been more or
less mutilated in the course of its transcription
into player-piano form, usually because it has
been copied from two or four-hand arrange-
ments for piano. The statement is true with
regard to concertos and symphonies, as well
as to operatic excerpts. It is even true to a
considerable extent of string quartets, player
arrangements of which have often been unjus-
tifiably emasculated by arrangers who have ap-
parently supposed that they were making the
music more pianistic.
More Than a Piano
But that is just the point. The player-piano
is not a piano, but something much more than
a piano. It has its own voice and therefore its
own musical idiom. The player arrangements
of the future must therefore be not merely
copies of piano arrangements, but, still more,
arrangements made with an understanding that
the player-piano is a true orchestra in minature,
needing to be treated in sympathy with its own
peculiarities and requirements. Doctor Schaaf
has shown us the way to a proper comprehen-
sion of the idiom and to a knowledge of how to
use it. What fools we are not to take advan-
tage of the truth when we can get it for noth-
ing!
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