Beginning in 2007, audio software pioneers Zenph Studios began collaborating with Sony Masterworks to bring classic, but poorly recorded piano recordings from yesteryear into the modern digital age. The idea was to capture the full range of musical performance nuance for each note – volume, tempo, articulation, pedal action, etc. – using sophisticated computer encoding, and then to re-record the performance as "played" by a comparable acoustic grand piano fitted with Zenph reading computers and hardware. The result is a Zenph Re-Performance®, bringing state-of the art fidelity to timeless interpretations by the great pianists of the past. The first two collaborations, Glenn Gould's historic 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations (2007) and a 1949 live concert of jazz wizard Art Tatum at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, as Piano Starts Here (2008) received rave reviews. Now the pair presents Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff, based on a set of recordings made by the great composer/pianist between 1921 and 1942 of five original works – including the famed Prelude in C#-, Op.3, No.2.

Classical Archives is pleased to offer a review of all three recordings, presenting each album in its entirety, along with a brief description of the processes involved. In addition, the Rachmaninov and Gould presentations are adorned with a fascinating set of select comparative recordings – both between the Zenph Re-Performances® and the original recordings, as well as between the interpretations of these two piano titans and those of other great pianists in our collection. Enjoy!!