Rescuing Old Piano Rolls by George Gershwin

George Gershwin’s performances on player pianos--many of them seldom-heard collector’s items--are coming to CD next year via a process that converts the fragile paper into cutting-edge technology.

The new music, while not Gershwin himself, is what a TV pitchman might call “an incredible simulation.” The 65 rarities, including an obscure ragtime tune, debuted last month and will fill at least two CDs when released in 1993.

“In certain cases, there’s only one of these in the world,” Gershwin scholar Artis Wodehouse said of the yellowing player piano rolls.

“We found the first Gershwin roll arrangement of his own tune. I just about flipped when we found out a collector had it. . . . Others are very, very rare. I had to go to Australia for one. It was a worldwide search.”

The process is complex, yet simple: The piano rolls are played with a computer attached, and a detailed program converts the music into files on a floppy disc. The disc is plugged into a 3-by-3-foot box attached to the Disklavier, a high-tech sort of player piano that performs the tune.

The result: a ghostly Gershwin melody, with the keys banging, the pedals pumping and a version of the great American composer’s work from the early 20th Century pouring from the Disklavier. The piano seat sits empty as the music plays.

The machine looks like a normal piano, save for the collection of 3 1/2-inch floppy discs sitting above the keyboard. The new versions, based on the old rolls, were recorded at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in Manhattan.

As an example of the previously unheard Gershwin arrangements, Wodehouse played a 1917 version of “Pastime Rag No. 3” by ragtime artist Artie Matthews. Gershwin would often learn songs like this and redo them for the player piano, Wodehouse said.

“He was playing whatever he heard. He’d go in and cut a few rolls for the money,” Wodehouse said. “That’s what it was all about--the money.”