This is an Ampico Recording, Preludes C-sharp Minor by Rachmaninoff, played by the composer.

Played by the composer.

That's.

That's amazing.

I mean, so Rachmaninoff's own performance is encoded on that piece of paper.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Yeah, it's done...

It's done very, very well.

So how does he, how does one record onto a piece of paper?

How does that work?

They recorded on a monitoring roll, which then translates it to paper.

So it's almost that way.

What did Rachmaninoff think of his own recording?

Rachmaninoff was totally enamored by hearing himself on the roll.

He was able to set many different tempos and hear him to hear him play any way he wanted to play.

Well, he loved the technology, right?

- Yes.

And he stayed with them for a number of years.

Fantastic.

Can we hear it?

- Yes, you can.

The tempo is shown on the roll at 90 and we turn it on just like so.

And now we hear it.

♪♪ This was long before high fidelity recordings.

It must have been as amazing for Rachmaninoff to hear his actual performance as it was for us.

You know, he was sort of panned by the critics for kind of rigid interpretations, but it's certainly not coming across at all in this performance.

You know, I remember hearing his performance of his third piano concerto when I was much younger and thinking, this is so effortless and so fast.

And it's like quicksilver.

It just it just kind of goes, he doesn't ever dwell on anything.

He just kind of goes.

And I hear some of that in the performance on your piano.

I mean, there's there's this kind of elegance and he just kind of lets the music flow He changes tempos liberally.

Its very singing - It's very singing.

He, he was noted for playing as if he was narrating a story.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It's not surprising he embraced this technology and used it to grow a new American audience.