Also, as a pianist I can (most people can) tell that the transition from pp to ff (or whatever it is). With the octaves in the first mvt of the Appassionata MIDI is too steady: pianists will begin the crescendo in the LH on the D or E flat octaves and again on the first G or A flat whereas the MIDI just grows consistently louder from the initial C octaves, as though someone was turning up the volume.
Secondly - and this was the problem with the Faulkner test as well - you cannot take elements out of their context. Part of the genius of artists like Mitsuko Uchida or Alfred Brendel is the way they approach the work's form - what they want to bring out and emphasise in repetition (indeed whether they play repeats or not); how they want to shape the work; how they react to the composer's dynamic and tempo markings - these are clearly not the same with every interpreter (Adorno claims that performing was the foremost way of interpreting and understanding a work).
So even if MIDI could replicate the piano's sound (which would make the test more difficult) and people got questions wrong it wouldn't necessarily mean that they were frauds who only pretended to know the difference: much of the genius of these artists can only be seen after one hears the whole work. Anybody who owns two recordings, one played well and one played badly, can easily tell the difference.
Simon
> From: "Michael Simkin" <simkin_michael at hotmail.com>
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 20:15:12 -0800
> Subject: [lbo-talk] MIDI or virtuosi?
>
> Can you distinguish MIDI, i.e. music scores played
> by a computer, from performance of world-renowned
> virtuosi?
>
> Take this quiz to find out:
>
> http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~simkin/midi_or_virtuosi.html
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