The history of recording and sound-reproduction is quite fascinating, and the numerous advances (and, occasionally sonic retreats) that have come about give one ample reason to pause. Early cylinder recordings (using everything from foil to wax) had obvious fidelity issues, and the plentiful issues affecting reproducing pianos are well-known and formidable, indeed. But it is through these early technologies, however imperfect, that we have the ability to gain insight into the abilities of some of the important musical figures of by-gone eras.

Alas, sometimes due to the quality of the technology itself, it might be best to do without the resultant recording. Ravel's clunky recording -- through no fault of his own -- of his Pavane (on a perforated piano roll) is a good case in point. Not all such technologies were lacking, though. The Welte-Mignon piano-roll reproduction technique was quite ingenious for its time, for example, and is the subject of this month's CCM. Unlike the perforated rolls, the W-M system records all aspects of the pianist's performance (including pedaling) and is then reproduced not via a machine built into a piano-shaped-object, but rather by aligning the machine with a real piano. Thus one can get a reproduction on a truly excellent instrument.

Many fine musicians made W-M rolls (including Strauss, Grieg and others). Though one would kill for the opportunity to hear a work conducted by Gustav Mahler, there are only four known recordings of him performing in existence -- all of them W-M rolls. He made them rather late in life, after he had long discontinued following his pianistic ambitions in favor of a startlingly successful career as a conductor (principally of Opera), and, of course, his ever-present compositional life. He is clearly out of practice -- there are some wrong notes, among other things -- and there are no do-overs in the making of a piano roll, but one can still get a great sense of his artistic abilities, and characteristics as a performer, through these recordings.

The work is one of Mahler's best-known tunes, "Ging heut' morgens übers Feld," from the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. The melody itself will, of course, end up in Mahler's First Symphony.