Robo-music gives musicians the jitters

When "Les Misérables" moved from London's Palace Theatre to the Queens Theatre in 2004, the new orchestra pit had room for only 11 musicians, not 20-plus, Lazarus says. The show might have closed rather than sound radically different with a tiny orchestra. Mr. Mackintosh decided to augment the smaller group with Sinfonia, despite union protests. "I like to think I've created 11 musician jobs," Lazarus says, as well as saved the jobs of everyone else in the production.

Raphael, a former member of the musicians' union, says he's "totally opposed to the musicians' union position" against the virtual enhancement of orchestras. "Ultimately, what they do ends up giving the world less music, not more music," he says.

He hopes his Music Plus One eventually will be used more widely, not only as a practice aid but also to make new music and open up possibilities for composers. For a virtual orchestra, no notes are too fast to play, no rhythms too hard to understand, he says. "So you can create pieces here that ... would be extremely hard to do with human musicians," he says.

Today's classical pianists already have to compete with historic recordings by the great masters of the keyboard from the first half of the 20th century.

The moderns have had an edge, so far, in the technological sophistication of their recordings. But now that edge may be gone, with new recordings "performed" by legends such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, or Vladimir Horowitz.

First to be resurrected is Canadian phenomenon Glenn Gould (1932-1982), whose 1955 recording of J.S. Bach's "Goldberg" Variations is prized by his legion of fans. On Sept. 25 at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the late pianist once again "performed" the Goldberg. Or rather, a computer-controlled Yamaha Disklavier Pro piano programmed with all of Gould's attacks, keystrokes, pedal work, and other idiosyncrasies captured from the 51-year-old original recording did the performing. A digital recording in surround sound of the "new" performance is expected to be released by Sony Classical in March 2007.

"It's a chance to sit in the room, essentially, as Gould plays, as opposed to hearing it from a mono[phonic] source," says John Q. Walker, president of Zenph Studios in Raleigh, N.C., which developed technology to extract the essence of a pianist's playing style from old recordings.

The new version, Mr. Walker says, is "more immersive. It's more real." He likens it to the difference between HDTV and regular TV.

To capture Gould's style, Zenph analyzed 10 things about every note. What was the microsecond when it was struck? What was its duration? How hard was the note struck, and how was it released?

Then there's "All the stuff to do with the pedals," Walker says. The original recording conditions had to be factored in, too, including where the original microphones were placed, how the sound reverberated off the walls, and how much of the full dynamic range of sound the original recording captured.

At some points, skilled musicians had to help out. "There are a lot of things we don't know how to do automatically, so we have humans guide the process," Walker says.

Zenph has a contract with Sony Classical to produce 18 CDs using its technology. Half will be works by classical pianists, half by jazz pianists. The next artist up for "re-recording" is jazz great Art Tatum.

Eventually, Zenph may reach back as far as a 1903 recording by French pianist Raoul Pugno. That would be "quite doable." Walker says. But recordings made before then, such as one of Johannes Brahms himself playing the piano, aren't good candidates. They're "simply too primitive," Walker says.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3