Rachmaninoff and the Piano Roll: Assessing Repertoire Choices

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) recorded piano rolls over eleven sessions between 1919 and 1929, of which thirty-five were published. His repertoire ranged from popular ‘favourites’ to more serious compositions, including both his own music and works by other composers. While his selections were mainly also recorded for gramophone, six works were captured on piano roll alone. Rachmaninoff’s sister-in-law, Dr Sophia Alexandrovna Satina, embarked on an innovative project in the years immediately after his death, writing to concert venues, newspapers, and archivists. Her intention was to create a complete catalogue of concert programs spanning Rachmaninoff’s busy career, her guide being a small notebook which he had carried with him from 1907. Satina’s data – which were donated to the Library of Congress – have recently been incorporated into my ‘Rachmaninoff Performance Diary’ (www.rachmaninoffdiary.com), allowing an assessment of the musician’s activity in ways that were previously not possible. This paper will focus on the specific detail of each piano roll recording, outlining their adjacency to performances on the stage. As is the case with many gramophone recordings, the results are at times surprising: while certain works were regular inclusions within a season, others on occasion had not been played for some years, or were never formally programmed in a recital at all. The reading of Satina’s data alongside previously published resources on Rachmaninoff’s recording activity adds further context to the sessions, which in instances highlight how the making of a piano roll appears to have been a more satisfactory process than the gramophone recording, such as with Sgambatti’s arrangement of Gluck’s ‘Mélodie’ which was recorded in a single piano roll session while the gramophone recording was attempted over many months. The paper will conclude with an assessment of Rachmaninoff’s final piano roll recording, Chopin’s B flat minor Scherzo. The roll was made in 1929 yet not published until 1933, by which time the effects of the Great Depression had impacted the viability of the reproducing piano and its technology. The piano roll of the Second Scherzo – which was never recorded for gramophone – remains an example of Rachmaninoff’s interpretive and pianistic abilities at their height.