Grand Piano is a series devoted to the art of the Reproducing Piano. It presents major performances by the legendary pianists who recorded for the Aeolian Company between 1915 and 1930.
The acoustic gramophone rarely attempted major keyboard works. The 78s' restricted sound and duration was acceptable for short virtuoso pieces but little else. In contrast, by 1915, the Aeolian Company's "Duo-Art" was already a highly sophisticated digital recording process. Pianists, well aware of the gramophone's limitations, turned enthusiastically to the reproducing piano. Hofmann, Bauer, Paderewski and Grainger were especially committed, not alone in believing that they had achieved the ultimate recording process. Great pianists joined them in recording their concert repertoire, including much that was never repeated on disc.
The reproducing piano was a tragic victim of the devastated economy of 1930's America. It disappeared, not because it was inadequate, but, because it was expensive. The pianist's faith in the reproducing piano remained overwhelming; one of the most exciting musical inventions of our age.
"Here Grainger plays Schumann's Etudes symphoniques with immense verve and true romantic feeling ... Bauer's contribution is a lucid but powerful reading of the more recondite Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, and a superbly confident dispatch of the Toccata, Op. 7. Both these musicians seem to leap into the room ... Nimbus is doing a great service with these excellently produced transformations of piano roll recordings."
Geoffrey Crankshaw, Classic CD