Unsung Composers

The Music => Composers & Music => Topic started by: andrewt on Saturday 13 August 2011, 05:00

Title: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: andrewt on Saturday 13 August 2011, 05:00
Hello, I've been reading this board on and off for awhile, and just finally registered. It makes me happy to know that I'm not the only one who has heard of some of my favorite composers (Myaskovsky, Gretchaninov, etc.)! Anyways, you guys seem quite knowledgeable and I figure you may be able to help me. I know Grieg's not exactly an unsung composer, but I'm looking for old recordings of his music (particularly songs) that may or may not have made it to cd. The older, the better; it would be great if I could find some from Grieg's time or shortly after (I have the recordings of Grieg himself on the Marston label).

I normally use ArkivMusic to find recordings, but their database only includes in-print cds. Any leads you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

Andrew
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: jerfilm on Saturday 13 August 2011, 16:54
Welcome to the Forum, Andrew.

I have an excellent MIDI file from a DuoArt reproducing piano roll of Grieg playing Le Papillon from his Lyric Pieces, opus 43, #1.  If you'd like a copy, just send me your email address.  MIDI files are small like 15kb and easy to send via email.  Can be played on virtually any computer or digital keyboard or piano.  These are much better than player piano rolls as the reproducing piano did, indeed, reproduce the nuances of dynamics and pedaling.

Incidentally, if anyone else is interested, I have hundreds of these things and very many of composers playing their own works.  Examples, X Scharwenka, Gershwin, Rachmaninoff, Medtner, D'Albert, V Herbert, Richard Strauss, Cadman, Mahler, D'Indy, Carpenter - the list goes on and on.  If anyone has an interest, I could zip a bunch of them up and upload it......

Jerry
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: andrewt on Monday 15 August 2011, 05:27
Thanks, Jerry! That would be great if you could upload them, if not, would you mind emailing them to me? Thanks!
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: eschiss1 on Monday 15 August 2011, 19:27
iTunes for Mac does an ok job of midi to mp3 conversion I think...
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: TerraEpon on Monday 15 August 2011, 20:55
Actually the quality of the sound card isn't what makes it good or bad. It's the quality of the MIDI sample library. My own card is a very good one but it only comes with basic MIDI sounds which were bad 15 years ago...

If I can, I'll give these a go with Finale which comes with a very good piano sound.

(Edit: And it seems I can't even get Rapidshare to load at all at the moment)
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: jerfilm on Monday 15 August 2011, 21:07
Terra, I removed the links to the Rapidshare midis.  I couldn't access them either.  Will try it with another sharing program.  Meanwhile, I also started converting them to mp3s and enhancing the quality.  Even using Roxio Creator 10 is a big improvement......

More later.

Jerry
Title: Re: Unsung Grieg recordings?
Post by: TerraEpon on Monday 15 August 2011, 23:21
What happened was the links had FTP instead of HTTP....changing it to HTTP let me DL it