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Acoustically Perfect - Edouard Risler's 1917 Pathé Recordings · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
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  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  please consider taking out a paid subscription
• 0:17
  to the Piano Maven, and you can do so by going
• 0:20
  to our Substack page. There's a link to the Substack
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  page in our episode description. Of course, you
• 0:27
  can take out a free subscription, but if you
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  do a paid subscription, you get all kinds of
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  goodies. So please consider doing so. I started
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  a little mini -series of episodes that fall under
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  the rubric Acoustically... which focuses on acoustic
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  piano recordings, a body of work of recordings
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  made prior to the advent of electrical recording,
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  where... Pianists had to perform in front of
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  a flare metal horn that gathered and funneled
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  sound waves and vibrations toward a thin diaphragm
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  at the end of the horn. And that vibrating diaphragm
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  caused an attached stylus to etch the sound waves
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  onto a master disc. that you would buy at your
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  local record emporium. I mean, you wouldn't buy...
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  Actually, the master disc was used to press other
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  discs, and it was those discs pressed from the
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  masters that you would buy at your local record
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  emporium circa 1910 or 1923, you know, before.
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  electrical recordings were invented. Sorry I
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  sound too technical about this, but I wanted
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  to briefly reiterate what the acoustic process
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  was like. The pianist we're going to talk about
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  on this episode is Edouard Riesler, a French
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  pianist. Although he trained and lived most of
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  his life in Paris and taught at the Paris Conservatory,
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  he was basically steeped in the Austro -German
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  school, and he was known for giving cycles devoted
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  to the complete Beethoven sonatas and the complete
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  well -tempered Clavier of Bach, along with Schumann
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  sonatas and Schubert sonatas. and he even made
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  a marvelous solo piano transcription of Richard
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  Strauss's tone poem Till Eulenspiegel. He also
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  arranged Wagner's opera Das Rheingold for two
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  pianos, and he used to play that with his younger
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  colleague Alfred Courtauld. I would give anything
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  to find a copy of that. It would be so much fun
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  to play Das Rheingold on two pianos with somebody.
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  But in fact, Edward Riesler played everything.
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  He knew the entire repertoire. And he also championed
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  new works. Paul Ducas, for example, dedicated
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  his humongous piano sonata to Riesler. And apparently,
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  Edward Riesler was a pianist who specialized
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  in delicate and subtle pedal effects, almost
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  anticipating Walter Gieseking in this regard.
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  But he also could play quite powerfully. Arthur
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  Rubinstein left flattering comments about Riesler
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  in his memoirs, and he said that he thought Riesler's
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  Beethoven touched his heart much more than Arthur
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  Schnabel's did. From all critical accounts, though,
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  Riesler's playing became kind of dry and reserved
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  in the later part of his life, after the death
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  of his wife from influenza at the end of the
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  First World War. And from then on, Riesler became
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  very corpulent, and basically he ate himself
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  to death at the relatively young age of 56. Edward
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  Riesler made his only recordings in the year
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  1917, all for the Pathé label, 18 selections
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  in all. The whole series was reissued. in 2002
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  on the Symposium label on CD in very, very noisy
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  transfers. However, much better transfers of
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  the whole Edward Riesler series were made available
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  on the Marston label as part of their Laniat.
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  Do I pronounce that correctly? Lagnap, L -A -G
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  -N -I -A -P -P -E series. Lagnap series. Lagnap,
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  whatever, however you pronounce it. This was
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  a limited edition series of discs that Marston
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  made available only to subscribers. Oh, you know,
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  there was another complete Rizzler CD that...
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  was in this Italian piano library series that
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  were free CDs given out with a music magazine.
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  So, I would try to get hold of the Marston transfers
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  first and foremost. Now, notwithstanding the
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  primitive sound and the use of a piano that does
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  not always hold its tuning. You can tell from
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  these recordings that Edward Riesler was a major
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  artist. We have just a few traces of what must
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  have been Riesler's great, great Beethoven playing
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  in performances of the Scherzo from the Sonata,
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  Op. 31 No. 3, and the finale of Op. 26. and also
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  what I think is Riesler's solo piano reduction
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  of the slow transitional movement from Beethoven's
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  Fourth Concerto. He plays the Mendelssohn scherzo
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  in E minor with great dash and great taste, and
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  his Chopin has a lot of individual touches as
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  far as phrasing and timing, such as in the black
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  key etude. He forgets to play that final concluding
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  G flat chord here. And then think of the sudden
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  vehemence midway through the otherwise tender
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  mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4. The writer
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  Harold Schoenberg accurately wrote about the
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  explosive accents in Rissler's recording of the
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  Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 11. Weber's invitation
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  to the dance conveys a wonderful conversational
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  character between the hands in that introductory
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  section. He displays a very elegant legato and
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  pliable phrasing in a waltz by Sasson, and he
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  plays little pieces by Chabrier, Granados, and
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  Godard with simplicity and nobility and tonal
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  shadings that you can hear in these old recordings.
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  I think it's kind of odd how even the most hardcore
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  piano mavens that I know don't really talk about
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  the Eduard Riesler recordings, maybe because
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  they haven't been so easily accessible as early
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  acoustic recordings by Rachmaninoff or Joseph
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  Hoffman. But there is a lot to savor in these
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  recordings. And as I said earlier, some of the
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  subtleties of his touch. and tonal shadings and
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  command of the pedal come through very clearly
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  through the acoustic horn. This is Jed Disler,
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  and you've been listening to The Piano Maven,
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  your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  Thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to
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  being with you for our next episode.