About this Artist

• Biography

About This Item

In an ongoing collaboration to breathe new life into legendary performances that have been marred by the poor recording quality of past times, Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff follows upon the success of Zenph® Studios' productions of Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of The Goldberg Variations (2007) and Art Tatum's Piano Starts Here (2008). This new compilation of re-performances is made from original masters that the colossal Russian composer and pianist recorded during his lifetime and celebrates the 100th anniversary of Rachmaninoff's U.S. recital debut.

Sony Masterworks has newly recorded, in crystalline stereo sound, Rachmaninoff playing five of his own compositions in performances originally recorded by Rachmaninoff himself from 1921- 42. The production team selected and customized an instrument that Rachmaninoff likely played during his lifetime -- a 1909 nine-foot Steinway D grand piano and created a re-performance that makes it possible to experience the kind of recording Rachmaninoff would have made had he lived in the era of high-resolution audio reproduction.

Zenph® takes audio recordings and turns them back into live performances, precisely replicating what was originally recorded. The software-based process extracts and encodes the details of how each note was played, including musical nuances such as volume, articulation and pedal actions. The encoding is played back on an acoustic grand piano fitted with sophisticated computers and hardware, allowing listeners to experience the performance as if they were in the room when the original recording was made. This re-performance is then recorded afresh using the latest recording techniques. From the Label

Customer Reviews

• Listener Rating: