The AMICA BULLETINAUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS’ ASSOCIATION

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001 VOLUME 38, NUMBER 1

Entire contents © 2001 AMICA International 1

VOLUME 38, Number 1 January/February 2001

FEATURESBook Review — 9Leopold Godowsky — 10CD Review — 26The Piano and Its Antecedents — 27Ode to the Piano — 38

DEPARTMENTSAMICA International — 2

President’s Message — 3From the Publisher’s Desk — 3Calendar of Events — 4Letters — 5Tech Tips — 34People — 40Chapter News — 42Classified Ads — 63

Front Cover: Percy Grainger (See Page 6)

Inside Front: A.B. Chase Piano Ad

Inside Back Cover: Melville Clark Piano Co. Ad

Back Cover: The New Orthophonic

THE AMICA BULLETINAUTOMATIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT COLLECTORS' ASSOCIATION

Published by the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors’ Association, a non-profit, tax exempt group devoted to the restoration, distributionand enjoyment of musical instruments using perforated paper music rolls and perforated music books. AMICA was founded in San Francisco, California in 1963.

ROBIN PRATT, PUBLISHER, 630 EAST MONROE ST., SANDUSKY, OH 44870-3708 -- Phone 419-626-1903, e-mail: pianola@aol.comVisit the AMICA Web page at: http://www.amica.org

Associate Editor: Mr. Larry Givens Contributing Editor: Mr. Emmett M. Ford

AMICA BULLETINDisplay and Classified AdsArticles for PublicationLetters to the PublisherChapter News

UPCOMING PUBLICATIONDEADLINESThe ads and articles must be receivedby the Publisher on the 1st of theOdd number months:

January JulyMarch SeptemberMay November

Bulletins will be mailed on the 1st weekof the even months.

Robin Pratt, Publisher630 East Monroe StreetSandusky, Ohio 44870-3708Phone: 419-626-1903e-mail: pianola@aol.com

MEMBERSHIP SERVICES

New Memberships . . . . . . . . . . $37.00

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Address changes and corrections

Directory information updates

Additional copies ofMember Directory . . . . $25.00

Single copies of back issues($6.00 per issue - basedupon availability)

William Chapman (Bill)2150 Hastings CourtSanta Rosa, CA 95405-8377707-570-2258e-mail: shazam@sonic.net

To ensure timely delivery of yourBULLETIN, please allow 6-weeksadvance notice of address changes.

AMICA Publications reserves the right to accept, reject, or edit any and all submitted articles and advertising.

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AMICA INTERNATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL OFFICERSPRESIDENT Dan C. Brown

N. 4828 Monroe StreetSpokane, WA 99205-5354

509-325-2626e-mail: pianola@cet.com

PAST PRESIDENT Linda Bird3300 Robinson Pike

Grandview, MO 64030-2275Phone/Fax 816-767-8246

e-mail: OGM Bird@AOL.ComVICE PRESIDENT Mike Walter

65 Running Brook Dr.,Lancaster, NY 14086-3314

716-656-9583e-mail: mikew@freewwweb.com

SECRETARY Judith Chisnell3945 Mission, Box 145

Rosebush, MI 48878-9718517-433-2992

e-mail: jargc@juno.comTREASURER

Registered agent for legal matters

PUBLISHER Robin Pratt630 E. Monroe Street, Sandusky, Ohio 44870-3708

419-626-1903e-mail: pianola@aol.com

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY William Chapman (Bill)2150 Hastings Court, Santa Rosa, CA 95405-8377

707-570-2258e-mail: shazam@sonic.net

— COMMITTEES —

AMICA ARCHIVES Stuart Grigg20982 Bridge St., Southfield, MI 48034 - Fax: (248) 356-5636

AMICA MEMORIAL FUND Judy Chisnell3945 Mission, Box 145, Rosebush, MI 48878-9718 517-433-2992

AUDIO-VISUAL & TECHNICAL Harold Malakinian2345 Forest Trail Dr., Troy, MI 48098

CONVENTION COORDINATOR Frank Nix6030 Oakdale Ave., Woodland Hills, CA 91367 818-884-6849

HONORARY MEMBERS Jay Albert904-A West Victoria Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101-4745

(805) 966-9602 - e-mail: bkmeeder@aol.com

PUBLICATIONS Robin Pratt630 E. Monroe St., Sandusky, OH 44870-3708

WEB MASTER Terry Smythe55 Rowand Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3J 2N6

204-832-3982 — e-mail: tesmythe@home.comhttp://www.mts.net/~smythe

BOSTON AREAPres. Ken VolkVice Pres: Dorothy BromageSec: Ginger ChristiansenTreas: Karl EllisonReporter: Don BrownBoard Rep: Sandy Libman

CHICAGO AREAPres: Richard VanMetre - (847) 402-5391Vice Pres: George WilderSec: Curt CliffordTreas: Joe PekarekReporter: Kathy Stone SeptonBoard Rep: Marty Persky

FOUNDING CHAPTERPres: Bing Gibbs - (408) 253-1866Vice Pres: Mark PopeSec: Lyle Merithew & Sandy SwirskyTreas: Richard ReutlingerReporter: Tom McWayBoard Rep: Richard Reutlinger

GATEWAY CHAPTERPres: Yousuf Wilson (636) 665-5187Vice Pres: Tom NovakSec,/Treas: Jane NovakReporter: Mary WilsonBoard Rep: Gary Craig

HEART OF AMERICAPres: Ron Bopp - (918) 786-4988Vice Pres: Tom McAuleySec/Treas: Robbie TubbsReporter: Joyce BriteBoard Rep: Ron Connor

LADY LIBERTYPres./Reporter: Bill Maguire

(516) 261-6799Vice Pres: Keith BiggerSec: Richard KarlssonTreas: Walter KehoeBoard Reps: Marvin & Dianne Polan

MIDWEST (OH, MI, IN, KY)Pres: Judy ChisnellVice Pres: Stuart GriggSec: Judy WulfekuhlTreas: Alvin WulfekuhlReporter: Christy CountermanBoard Rep: Liz Barnhart

NORTHERN LIGHTSPres: Dave KemmerVice Pres: Jerrilyn Boehland -

(612) 780-5699Sec: Jason E. Beyer - (507) 454-3124Treas: Terry GoepelReporters: Paul & Barbara WatkinsBoard Rep: Dorothy Olds

PACIFIC CAN-AMPres: Mark Smithberg - (206) 763-9468Vice Pres: Kurt MorrisonSec: Halie DodrillTreas: Ward FolsomReporter: Dan Brown Board Rep: Carl Dodrill

SIERRA NEVADAPres: John Motto-Ros - (209) 267-9252Vice Pres: Sonja LemonSec/Treas: Doug & Vicki MahrReporter: Nadine Motto-RosBoard Rep: John Motto-Ros

SOWNY (Southern Ontario,Western New York)

Pres: Anne Lemon - (905) 295-4228Vice Pres: Mike HamannSec/Mem. Sec: John & Diane ThompsonTreas: Holly WalterPhotographer: Garry LemonReporter: Frank WarbisBoard Rep: Mike Walter

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAPres: James WestcottSec./Reporter. Shirley NixTreas: Ken HodgeBoard Rep: Frank Nix

TEXASPres: Jerry Bacon - (214) 328-9369Vice Pres: Tony Palmer (817) 261-1334Sec./Treas: Janet TonnesenBoard Rep: Dick MerchantBulletin Reporter: Bryan CatherNewsletter Editor: Bryan Cather

SOUTHERN SKIESPres: Debra Legg - (727) 734-3353Vice Pres: Bill ShriveSec: Howard Wyman (813) 689-6876Treas: Dee Kavouras (352) 527-9390Reporter: Dick & Dixie LeisBoard Rep: Debra Legg

CHAPTER OFFICERS

AFFILIATED SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONSAUSTRALIAN COLLECTORSOF MECHANICAL MUSICALINSTRUMENTS19 Waipori StreetSt. Ives NSW 2075, Australia

DUTCH PIANOLA ASSOC.Nederlandse Pianola VerenigingEikendreef 245342 HR Oss,Netherlands

PIANOLA INSTITUTEClair Cavanagh, Secretary43 Great Percy St., London WC1X 9RAEngland

INTERNATIONAL PIANOARCHIVES AT MARYLANDPerforming Arts Library, Hornbake 3210University of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742

MUSICAL BOX SOCIETYINTERNATIONALP. O. Box 297Marietta, OH 45750

NETHERLANDS MECHANICALORGAN SOCIETY - KDVA. T. MeijerWilgenstraat 24NL-4462 VS Goes, Netherlands

NORTHWEST PLAYER PIANOASSOCIATIONEverson Whittle, Secretary11 Smiths Road, Darcy Lever,Bolton BL3 2PP, Gt. Manchester, EnglandHome Phone: 01204 529939Business Phone: 01772 208003

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONDivision of Musical HistoryWashington, D.C. 20560

PLAYER PIANO GROUPJulian Dyer, Bulletin Editor5 Richmond Rise, Workingham,Berkshire RG41 3XH, United KingdomPhone: 0118 977 1057Email: jrd@ngcscd.demon.co.uk

SOCIETY FOR SELF-PLAYINGMUSICAL INSTRUMENTSGesellschaft für Selbstspielende Musikinstrumente (GSM) E.V.Ralf SmolneEmmastr. 56D-45130 Essen, GermanyPhone: **49-201-784927Fax:. **49-201-7266240Email: president@musica-mechanica.de

INT. VINTAGE PHONO & MECH.MUSIC SOCIETYC.G. Nijsen, Secretaire General19 Mackaylaan5631 NM EindhovenNetherlands

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Hi and Happy New Year!

With Membership Renewals in the works right now, Iwanted to bring up the topic of CHAPTER REPORTS to every-one. A few people have mentioned that they really do not carefor the Chapter Report department of the Bulletin. Unfortunate-ly, it is required of AMICA for our tax exempt status. What isalso required is that the chapters should be doing somethingeducational at their meetings too. Whether it is a tour of amuseum, a musical program or function, there are many thingsthat you can be doing. Inviting the public to your Chapter meet-

ing, if say you are having a musical program or a special tour, isa good way of not only making the public aware of AMICA,but also fulfilling part of our requirements for tax exempt sta-tus. Plus, isn’t it great to have some new faces attending too?

Another concern by some who have written or called me isthat sometimes there quite plainly is not enough information inthe reports to make them interesting or even worthwhile read-ing. I know that writing these reports can be a real chore, but byincluding the names and dates of the instruments or details ofits acquisition and restoration, coupled with good photos willmake you look good as a reporter and make the readers happytoo! Determining your advance meeting schedules and gettingon the AMICA CALENDAR in the Bulletin is a good way ofletting members know what’s coming, too.

I certainly appreciate all of the work that the AMICAreporters past and present have put into their reports and knowwhat a lot of work it is. Let’s put a few more historic details inthem. I know your hosts will be more than cooperative withyou. It’s a win-win situation!

Thanks! End of lecture . . .

Robin

Bon Voyage to those of you lucky enough to attend the convention inAustralia soon. I wish I could have joined you, but school districts justdon’t seem to understand the importance of improving international rela-tionships through automatic music. Have a great time and take lots of pho-tos.

As you probably have heard from now, Mike Hamann was not able tofollow through with assuming the duties of AMICA Treasurer and we arevery fortunate that Rob DeLand re-assumed some treasurer duties just assome important deadlines were approaching (the IRS non-profit organiza-tion verification, for example). I have contacted a number of individualsand chapter board representatives and now am asking the general member-ship for a volunteer or suggestions of a person with the time and ability totake on the job. We need to move quickly, as Rob resigned at the last con-vention due to personal and business commitments and those are stillaround. Rob has put the books in excellent order and it should be very

straightforward for someone to take over. The records are on the “Quicken” computer program, so knowledge of that would be anasset. If you have questions about the job, please contact me or Rob. This needs to be resolved very soon or we will be forced to hirea private person to complete the needed tasks. Please think about it and let me know any thoughts you might have to help resolve thisproblem.

On the good news front, the Pacific Can-Am Chapter has been doing a lot of investigative work and should have some news soonabout the 2003 convention. Members have been working with Frank Nix and after the chapter’s next meeting, should have anannouncement to make.

Amicably,

Dan Brown

President’s Message

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AMICA

Memorial Fund DonationsPlease think of AMICA as a place to

remember your friends and family with a dona-tion to the AMICA Memorial Fund.

Send to:

Judith Chisnell3945 Mission, Box 145Rosebush, Michigan 48878-9718517-433-2992jargc@juno.com

June 26-30, 2002 AMICA Convention, Springdale, Arkansas

September 1-2, 2001Pacific CAN-AM Chapter

Band Organ RallyConvention Center, Ocean Shores, Washington

Contact Norm or Sally Gibson360-289-7960

nsgibson@coastaccess.com

CALENDAR OF EVENTSANNUAL CONVENTIONS

CHAPTER MEETINGS

A Note From the

AMICA Data KeeperYour 2001 dues notices were sent out in

December 2000. If you did not receive a duesnotice, this means that 1) your dues are paid forthe year 2001, or 2) your address has changed.

If you have questions about your member-ship, please leave a message at 707-570-2258, orshazam@sonic.net, or mail 2150 Hastings Ct.,Santa Rose, CA 95405-8377.

I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Bill ChapmanAMICA Membership Secretary

Visit the

AMICA Web page

at:

http://www.amica.org

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Letters…Whittaker’s Musical Museum Phone: 09-372-55732 Korora Road, Oneroa, Waiheke Island 2-11-00

Dear Robin,

As AMICA members we appreciate the regular Bulletins we receive and the interesting articles and news they contain.

We note a number of articles on the world famous pianist/composer - Paderewski - one in July/August 1993 and then in your lat-est issue. He was regarded as the “King” of piano in his day, traveling worldwide through Europe, America and Australasia.

In 1904 he brought with him on his Australian and New Zealand concert tour, his 9 foot Bechstein Concert Grand (built in 1897).After performing in various cities around these two countries, he ended his tour in Auckland, (N.Z.) with performances from the 31stAugust to the 3rd September. Rather than ship his piano back to Europe, he sold it to a pianist in Auckland - a Mr. J.B. MacFarlaneand it was owned by three successive generations - 96 years in all.

Recently, we were able to purchase this very special Bechstein for our Museum. It has been totally restored, both inside and out -looks a picture! Now we perform on it six days a week during our “Live Show.”

Our Museum is a live, entertaining Museum, containing well over one hundred instruments, which we have restored and can playto the public. It is situated on Waiheke island, near Auckland and we understand that about ninety AMICA Members will be visitingus in March next year after the Conference in Australia. We certainly look forward to meeting and entertaining you all.

Thanking you.

Yours sincerely,

Lloyd (A.T.C.L. Pianoforte) and Joan Whittaker.

WICHITA THEATRE ORGAN, Inc. CD CORRECTION

Hi Robin,

Just got the AMICA Bulletin today and we’re delighted with the reviews of the WTO CDs. Thanks so much foryour support.

There is an error in the ordering information. Our email address should be

Wtopops@aol.com (it’s given as wtospops@aol.com)

If by chance, you have a “group” address for AMICA and you can send out a correction, we wouldappreciate it. Hopefully, if an ordering party can’t get a message to go, she/he will order by a different method.

Thanks again - Karen Coup, Wichita Theatre Organ, Inc.

To AMICA and AMICA Board Members,

Seasons Greetings

In the new millennium, facilities like the Internet will hopefully allow us to carry on with ourSociety for another number of years, reducing the demands on time and expenses that were both-ering us in the past. Whilst respecting identities and different approaches of each national MM-association, we do not really see the need for another all-embracing world organization and trustwe may all feel happy with the occasional exchange of information as need be. You may continueto ask for our intermediary when data, national reviews and addresses or historical matters fromIVPMMS files are required.

From International Vintage Phonograph & Mechanical Music Society19 Mackaylaan, 5631 NM Eindhoven, The NetherlandsPhone 31-40-815-394

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Letters continued…Percy Grainger Cover-Reference From “The Voice of the Victor” magazine, June, 1916

Sent in by Bill Knorp

C.J. Ianell, manager of the talking machine department at Bloomingdale Brothers, Fifty-ninth Street and Third Avenue,recently arranged to have installed a set of new record racks whichare equipped with rolling doors and which are as fireproof as humaningenuity can make them. The doors lock at night, and the racksprovide maximum efficiency and convenience for the members ofthe sales staff. Mr. Ianell reports the closing of a very satisfactoryFebruary, with a phenomenal increase in record business.

LeRoy Webb & Co., Atlanta, Georgia, who recently moved intonew quarters at 83 Peachtree Street, report an excellent business inthe Victor line, which they have been carrying for some time. Thebusiness has increased to such an extent during the past year thatlarger quarters were necessary. The new location is occupied jointlywith the Windmayer Music Company, dealers in sheet music and supplies. Fred C. Windmayer, manager of this concern, was formerly connected with the Phillips & Crew Company.

Paintings valued at a hundred thousand dollars, belonging to theBusch Estate, were on exhibition for one week this spring at theWaco Talking Machine Company’s store in Waco, Texas. It was agreat drawing card.

Mr. Grainger is listening to hisown compositions, “Shepherd’sHey” and “The Irish Tune fromCounty Derry” (Victor Record No.17897)

The Badger Talking MachineCompany expects to have its Badger Talking Machine Shop, theretail branch of its business, locatedin its new building at 425 GrandAvenue by May 1st. The companyhas a fifteen-year lease for theentire building - two floors andbasement - and the structure isbeing thoroughly remodeled. Thenew store when completed will beequipped with sixteen of the latestsound-proof booths provided with

ceilings with varying heights to afford purchasers acoustic propertiesas near as possible to those that exist in their own homes. Dailyconcerts will be a feature in the new store and novel ideas have beenplanned for these afternoon and evening entertainments. R.H.Zinke, enterprising manager of the Badger Victrola Shop, has metwith a steadily increasing business since he has been in charge.

A series of very cleverly worded and thought-out circular lettershave been bringing in splendid results for J.H. Pendleton Sons DrugCompany, Victor Dealers at Vernon, Texas.

The Hennessy Company, of Butte, Montana, in announcing theopening of their Victrola parlors, use some very interesting newspaper advertising. Before their carload of Victrolas and recordswas unloaded they photographed the freight car, on the sides ofwhich they had previously placed canvas banners and other signs.This photograph was reproduced and proved an unusually attractiveillustration for their opening advertisements.

George C. Baish, traveling representative for the W.F. FrederickPiano Company, of Pittsburgh, and a number of PennsylvaniaDealers were at the factory recently. In the party were C.A. Bowerrepresenting the M.H. Housel Company, of Williamsport; Fred S.Sammel, Dealer at Bedford, PA; Harve Tibbet of the Tibbet DrugCompany, Ebensburg, PA; Edward E. Smith, of the Clearfield Talking Machine Shop; F.A. Myers, of the Rothert Company,Altoona; and D.F. Whetstone, of Everett, PA. They visited the factory in the morning from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and were then entertained at luncheon in the Victor Luncheon Club. This was followed by an automobile ride through Fairmount Park up the Wissahickon, out to Willow Grove, passing on the way back thefamous Widener Estate near Elkins Park. Following the ride theywere entertained at dinner by representatives of the Victor Company.

An interesting photograph of Percy Grainger,

taken by H.G. Fisher in his Victor store at Fremont, Ohio.

A night photograph of a window display which speaks for itself.

The display of B.J. Shepherd Company, Savannah, Georgia, indicates very well the progressiveness of these exclusiveVictor Dealers. They have a thoroughly modern talking machinedepartment with soundproof booths and all the other equipments andrefinements so necessary to the customer’s comfort.

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Letters continued…

The Mirrie Tel . 01895-832009

Denham, Bucks. UB9 5DS, England Fax 01895-832009

November 2000

NEWS FLASHThe Frederick Chopin Society of Warsaw, Poland, makes an award once every five years of the “Grand Prix du Disque”,

to promote the finest recordings of the previous few years, but reserves the right to withhold awarding any prize, if the submis-sions are not up to the judges’ standards. This is an event which accompanies the International Frederick Chopin Piano Compe-titions. Great excitement preceded the decision announced on the 10th of October 2000 - at the Ostrogski Castle.

Previous winners have included recordings of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Elizabeth Soderstrom, Claudio Arrau, Dinu Lipatti and,please note, Alfred Cortot (on CDH 761050 2). Awards are made in the category of Contemporary recordings (made since01.01.1974) and of Historical recordings (re-editions from a previous period).

The “millennium” winner in the category of Historical recordings was announced as the Nimbus disc of Alfred Cortot intheir series of Grand Piano. This disc is NI-8814, available from leading record stores around the world or from NimbusRecords, Monmouth, Gwent NP5 3YZ, in Wales.

The award is a triumph for Nimbus, not only for making superb transfers from the (Duo-Art) computer-type perforated-paper rolls of Cortot’s playing, but for Nimbus’s perspicacity and enthusiasm for the splendour locked up in such ancient and fragile recordings.

Nimbus’ efforts included supervision by concert-pianist Martin Jones in England, and the erudite introductory booklets,accompanying the discs, written by Professor David Dubal, author of The Art of The Piano, of the Juilliard School in America.

The NI-8814 disc includes the following Chopin pieces:Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise in E flat major Op. 22Impromptu in G flat major Op. 51 No.3Nocturne in E flat major Op. 55 No.2Etude in D flat major Op. 25 No.8Etude in G flat major Op. 25 No.9Etude in G flat major Op.10 No.5Etude in A minor Op. 25 No.11Etude in C minor Op. 25 No.12

Also on the CD are Cortot performances of Liszt, Beethoven, Saint-Saens, Chabrier and Skriabin.

Transfers were made in the Nimbus Performing Arts Centre, using abrand-new German Steinway concert-grand piano. The rolls were playedvia the Stonehill-Iles vorsetzer, combining the Aeolian Company’s Duo-Art system, with refinements of the late Gordon Iles, inventor and chieftheoretician of the Aeolian Company in London. Gordon also constructed(The Silloth) aircraft pilot trainers during World War 2, made almostentirely out of Duo-Art piano parts, later emulated in the USA by theLink Piano Company with their Link Trainers.

The Grand Piano Series rolls were provided by Gerald Stonehill inEngland, who acts for Nimbus as Duo-Art technical consultant, from hisown comprehensive collection.

Dear Editor,The September AMICA Bulletin Magazine arrived today, which reminds me that my earlier

news flash about the Chopin prize is now in the past. Up-to-date information is attached.My own feeling is that recognition by the Frederic Chopin Society is a “feather in the cap”

for AMICA, the PPG and related societies, without whose enthusiasm for the potential locked upin the rolls, I, for one, might well have fallen by the wayside!

With best regardsGerald Stonehill

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The Midnight Special

A Thomas Purdue Mystery by Larry Karp

By Peg Kehret

Folks who love automatic musical instruments will appreciate the Thomas Pur-due mystery series by AMICA member, Larry Karp. Thomas is a neurologist, a clini-cal professor at New York’s Manhattan Medical School, but his real passion isantique mechanical music machines. A true collector, Thomas’s heart races at thechance to acquire any rare treasure.

The first book in the series, The Music Box Murders, introduced a cast of eccen-tric characters such as Broadway Schwartz, the picker who alerts Thomas to oldmusical items that are for sale, and Frank the Crank, the manic-depressive owner ofWind Me Up, a shop specializing in the kind of merchandise AMICAns love. Thisunusual group works together to recover a missing music box and to expose a desper-ate killer.

Next came Scamming the Birdman, a fast-paced caper where Thomas and hiscohorts outwit an unscrupulous man who has stolen a collection of mechanicalsinging birds. This laugh-out-loud book adds Cleveland Gackle (an extraordinarylock-picker) and 73-year-old Edna Reynolds, known as the Doll Lady because sherestores and creates automata, to Thomas’s unique circle of friends. Again, there aremurders to solve and treasures to track with plenty of surprises along the way.

The Midnight Special, published in March 2001, opens with Edna’s feelings ofhopelessness when a stroke makes it impossible for her to continue to restore herbeloved automata. Enter Marcus Wilcox, a slimy antiques dealer who tries to relieve Edna of her lifelong collection - for her own good, ofcourse. Add to the mix a missing music box, some art forgery, a murder or two, and Jitters, a young thief with a rare neurological disorder -and Thomas Purdue faces another extraordinary challenge.

Along with intrigue and a faithful depiction of the world of mechanical music collectors, Larry Karp offers insights into human nature.Several characters are Thomas’s patients, thus weaving unusual medical information into the intricate plots, and all three books explore therelationship between Thomas and his wife, Sarah, who can’t stand to live together but can’t bear to be apart.

All of the Karp books are rich with witty language, and peppered with references to the music that we AMICAns enjoy on piano rolls.What other hero hums Gershwin, has a usical cuckoo clock that plays Strauss, and asks his wife to dance to a recording of A Cup of Coffee,a Sandwich, and You?

The Thomas Purdue books are available at most book stores, from Amazon.com, or by mail from Write Way Publishing: 1-800-680-1493.

Peg Kehret has published 37 books, most of them for young people, and has won many national awards. Her web site iswww.pegkehret.com

Scamming The Birdman, by Larry Karp, published by Write Way Publishing, 2000, ISBN#885173-84-9

By Dan Brown

This second mystery by Larry Karp of the adventures and misadventures of Dr. Thomas Purdue is sure to lure the reader into an addic-tion to the series begun with The Music Box Murders. Again, automatic music is a key element in the story and mechanical singing birds area particular focus. All the great mystery elements are present: poison, theft, double-crosses, a villain everyone loves to hate and a herowho’s not above a bit of larceny and trickery for a good cause. Vincent LoPriore is The Birdman, the embodiment of all the worst aspects ofthe collector personality. He lives for the mechanical birds and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. The setting is New York again, sorealistically portrayed that you’ll smell the delis and hear the taxi horns. The suspense and danger will keep you interested, but it’s the char-acters who will intrigue and hook you in the story. A cliché, but you really won’t be able to put it down.

Larry Karp really has a winner with this story. You don’t have to be a collector, a doctor, or a New Yorker to appreciate all the nuancesin this tale, but those with any knowledge in these fields will revel in special touches Larry has interwoven in the tight and intricate mystery.He’s a master of the surprise ending and I won’t spoil it for you. Just be surprised by it and look forward to the next book in the series,which is thankfully on the way.

Copies can be bought directly from the publisher, Write Way, 1-800-680-1493; PO Box 441278, Aurora, CO 80044. It’s available atmany bookstores - more likely to be in stock at mystery bookshops but can be ordered by any bookstore. And of course Amazon.com. Listprice $24.95. Check Larry’s website: http://www.larrykarp.com

BBOOOOKK RREEVVIIEEWWSS

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The man whom Rachmaninoff describedas “the only musician of [his] age who hasgiven a lasting, a real contribution to the

development of piano music” has, followingyears of critical neglect, finally emerged as

one of the most important pianist-composersof the twentieth century. Jeremy Nicholas

has the story.

GOING IT

ALONEAh yes! The Golden Age of Pianists

- Rachmaninoff, Lhevinne, Hofmann,Godowsky, Rosenthal! Always thosefive who have somehow come to be considered as the apogee of pianisticfinesse and sophistication during thehalf century between 1890 and 1940. Ofthese five, though, Godowsky was theodd man out. He was, and remains, theonly world-class virtuoso to be completely self-taught - self-taught, thatis, in the sense that his musical education involved no lengthy course ata conservatoire, no systematic regime ofstudy, no important teacher. It wasundoubtedly the happenstance of hisearly life that created such an

independent mind unencumbered by academic preconceptionsthat led him to examine the potential of the piano in the waythat he did and which led Rachmaninoff to state that:“Godowsky is the only musician of this age who has given alasting, a real contribution to the development of piano music.”

Alone again among this quintet of legendary names, Godowsky’s recordings are, with few exceptions, disappointingly lacklustre and earth-bound, outshone technically, musically and sonically by the others. Yet - anotherof the many contradictions surrounding him - no one was heldin more reverence by his peers. “All acknowledge his masterfulart, authority and uniqueness,” wrote his friend and pupil, thecritic Leonard Liebling. Harold Bauer confessed simply,“There is no doubt that he is the master of us all.” Godowsky’smusic leaves a clear indication of the kind of pianist he musthave been in his prime. Harold C. Schonberg in his “The GreatPianists” described it as being “of such complexity, burdenedwith such elaboration of detail, crossed with so many innervoices, that none but he could play it” (an exaggeration, butonly a slight one - substitute “few” for “none” and you have it).From this, Schonberg judged that “in independence of hands,equality of finger, ability to juggle polyphonic strands, and general pianistic finish, Godowsky may have been unique inkeyboard history”.

Godowsky’s early years are shrouded in mystery whicheven his single chapter of autobiography, entitled “Retrospect,”does little to dispel, prompting as many questions as those it answers. It is an extraordinary tale of aleatoric events, a singular journey for any future international virtuoso, and isworth rehearsing at length in the light of his subsequent

achievements. In “Retrospect,” Godowsky tells us he was bornin “Sozly, a little town not far from Wilno [sic]’ on 13 February1870, the only child of Anna and Matthew Godowsky. “Fromhearsay I know he was a highly respected physician in Sozly, a man of extensive learning and of great kindness.” Neitherparent was musical and, ironically, it was only the early deathof his father in the cholera epidemic of 1871 that opened up theworld of music to the young boy for, left almost destitute, AnnaGodowsky moved to Vilna (or Vilnius), the then capital ofLithuania, to live with her friends Louis and Minna Passinock.“Uncle Louis” was “an extremely good amateur violinist” whoran a second-hand piano shop and wished for nothing more thana wunderkind violinist as a son (the couple had no children oftheir own).

“Aunt Minna” was a pianist of limited ability but, whenshe was not involved in her duties as a midwife, introducedLeopold to the keyboard - in secret, for her husband forbadehim to play the piano, so determined was he that the boy wouldbecome another Paganini. As a result, it is said that by the ageof five Godowsky had become proficient enough not only toaccompany his uncle in home recitals but also to play the solopart of Mendelssohn’s E minor Violin Concerto. In the sameyear he composed his first piece of music “The middle sectionwas a perfect canon,” he wrote in The Etude (January 1928).This is noteworthy because up to that time I had never heard acanon. I used this in another composition 23 years later.”

Passinock emerges in “Retrospect” as a charming rogue atpains to exploit his adopted son’s precocious talent for all it wasworth. Godowsky made his public debut at the age of nine,after which a series of knights in armour appear on the scenebent on rescuing the youngster from Passinock’s clutches. Alawyer from Grodno organized a full scholarship at the Petrograd Conservatory with Anton Rubinstein. Passinockturned it down. Next a banker from Konigsberg, Feinberg byname, equally smitten by Godowsky’s abilities, became hispatron and arranged an audition with Joseph Joachim at theBerlin High School for Music. His acceptance led to the onlyperiod of systematic musical instruction Godowsky everreceived. “I have not,” he averred in The Musical Leader of1919, “had three months lessons in my life.” It is often repeat-ed in articles that he was a pupil of Ernst Rudorff in Berlin and,later, of Saint-Saens. This, Godowsky insisted, was an errorand though he remained grateful for their friendly interest, “therelationship was not that of pupil and teacher” (The Etude, January 1928). The lessons in Berlin were not to his taste (“hisbrilliant natural endowment enabled him to be always ahead ofhis teachers,” recalled an unnamed classmate). After twelveweeks, using the money remaining from Feinberg’s gift, withhis mother and Uncle Louis (Minna having died in the meantime), Leopold Godowsky set sail for America.

Having arrived there in November 1884, he made his debuton 7 December in Boston as a member of the Clara Louise Kellogg Company. In New York, he found a third fairy godfather. His name was Leon Sachse (1829-91), who hadowned a number of “cigar emporiums” on Wall Street andBroadway. He was to have a lasting effect on Godowsky’s lifeand appears to have welcomed the teenager into his family likea long lost son. He already had five children, one of whom washis daughter Frederica (known as “Frieda”), born in the sameyear as Leopold. Sachse arranged to accompany Godowsky

LEOPOLD GODOWSKYSent in by Robert M. Taylor

From International Piano Quarterly Magazine

Leopold Godowsky onRiverside Drive, New

York, (9 August 1931)

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back to Europe in order that he could study with Franz Liszt at Weimar. The two set sail for France in July 1886.Extraordinarily, Leon Sachse then spent most of the next fouryears with Godowsky in Europe (Mrs. Sachse was eventuallysent for, though leaving her children behind!). From 1886, bothGodowsky’s mother and Louis Passinock fade from his life.Passinock’s fate is unknown and all we know of AnnaGodowsky is that she remarried, lived in Brooklyn and diedshortly before the First World War (she and her son seem tohave retained only nominal contact.)

As Sachse and Godowsky arrived in France they read thenews of Liszt’s death. No problem. Sachse effected an introduction to Saint-Saens. The composer, then at the heightof his powers, became so fond of the young prodigy that “hewished to adopt me, but with the proviso that I take his ownname; but this I refused to do, and it made him very angry.”Godowsky made his home in the French capital from the age of16 until he was almost 21.

In 1891, Leon Sachse died and this, as much as the lack ofrecognition he had gained, determined Godowsky to return toAmerica to try his luck there once more. He arrived back inOctober. Six months later, he gave a recital in Carnegie Hall,one of the first pianists to play there - on 24 April, two weeksbefore the hall officially opened. On 30 April he married hischildhood sweetheart Frieda Sachse (now Americanized toSaxe) and the following day became an American citizen. Concert dates were hard to come by, though, and he resorted toteaching, a calling which was to become a lifetime’s concern.At the age of only twenty-three, Godowsky was chosen in preference to Edward MacDowell to head the piano departmentat the Chicago Conservatory, a post he held for seven years. Itwas during the 1890s that Godowsky began to make arrangements of other composers’ music, not keyboard transcriptions of orchestral works but of extant piano music,arrangements that manifested a fascination with keyboardpolyphony, one that dominated his creative life. A set of 53pieces in this style, reworkings of 26 of the 27 Chopin Etudes,was produced between 1893 and 1914 and formed the basis ofhis reputation as an important composer for the piano. Indeed,apart from a few early songs, and a handful of arrangements forviolin or cello and piano (based on his works), Godowsky wrotefor no other medium than the piano.

By the end of the 1890s, Godowsky had played all overAmerica and Canada winning him solid, if unspectacular, attention. He decided to take a year’s sabbatical from the Conservatoire in an attempt to establish his reputation inEurope once more. He sailed for France on 4 July 1900

together with Frieda, hisdaughters Vanita (born1894) and Dagmar (born1898), and infant sonLeopold Junior (born1900).

On 6 December 1900,Godowsky made his debutat the Beethoven-Saal inBerlin. His reputation hadpreceded him and it wassaid that a more criticalaudience had probably

never assembled to hear a pianist play. The triumph of thatoccasion was certainly one of the most remarkable in pianisticannals, for overnight, Godowsky was acclaimed as one of thegreatest living pianists and became among the most sought-after of all instrumentalists. For the next three decades heremained at the top of his profession.

His two daughters and Leopold Junior were joined in 1906by Gutram (later anglicized to Gordon) and his home, whetherin Berlin, Vienna or New York, became celebrated as a focalpoint for all visiting artists. Few musicians have gathered sucha glittering galaxy of creative minds to their circle.Godowsky’s original compositions from this time include theSonata in E minor (1911) and the 24 Walzermasken (1912).What caused more of a stir were his continuing series ofreworkings of the Chopin Etudes, his clever suite Renaissance(16 re-harmonized works of old masters like Rameau andLully) and there three imposingly-titled Symphonic Metamor-phoses on Themes from Johann Strauss II’s Kunstlerleben, DieFledermaus and Wein, Weib und Gesang, among the best-known and most frequently recorded of Godowsky’s music -“Johann Strauss waltzing with Johann Bach,” as they have beencharacterized, and “probably the last word in terpsichoreancounterpoint.”

In 1909, Godowsky was invited to become the director ofthe Piano School of the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna.It was unprecedented for a Jew to hold this prestigious post, andGodowsky negotiated extremely good terms, a contract thatmade him the highest paid artist-teacher in Europe at that time.Among those who attended his master classes were Jan Smeterlin, Issay Dobrowen and Heinrich Neuhaus (the futureteacher of Radu Lupu, Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels).Karol Szymanowski and Artur Rubinstein were among themany young artists whom he befriended and helped in establishing. While engaged in his demanding roles of teacher,composer and father of four, Godowsky managed to tour widely. From November 1912 to April 1913 he was in America(playing under Stokowski, among others) where he also madehis first gramophone recordings (for Columbia). In July 1914,Godowsky took a villa at Middelkerke (on the Belgium coast)for the summer, taking his Vienna class with him as usual. Onthe day Great Britain declared war (August 4), the Godowskyfamily managed by sheer good luck to scramble on to the lastboat sailing from Ostende to England, in the face of the advancing Germans.

He arrived in London with only the possessions he hadtaken with him on vacation. After a brief stay in England,Godowsky and his family set sail for the United States and,although it was not long before his finances were restored, substituted his elegant home in Vienna for the Plaza Hotel inNew York. He was now 44. Godowsky was a small man - onlyfive feet three - with a high-domed forehead, a round, cherubicface, twinkling eyes and features that aged into Buddha-likeplacidity. From his thirties he acquired a figure that made him,while never less than sartorially elegant, compactly plump andthe owner of that most important of pianistic attributes, a largeand wide seat. What sort of man was he? Abram Chasins, thepianist and composer, left a most vivid portrait of life chezGodowsky in his book, Speaking of Pianists. “Once anyoneentered Godowsky’s door,” wrote Chasins, “he became a disciple . . . Everyone and anyone was welcome . . . Popsy[Godowsky’s nickname] loved people and loved to be surrounded by them . . . Everyone was treated with equal informality and graciousness. Popsy’s old-world courtesy andsparkling humour pervaded every word and action as he waddled between the living room and adjacent dining room

Left to Right LeopoldGodowsky with Leon Saxe(Sachse) and Charles Saxe(before 1891)Photo Stephen O. Saxe

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filling plates and glasses, emptying ashtrays, scattering remarksand vicious jibes.” He was renowned for his caustic wit. Whohas not heard the story of Heifetz’s American debut when, during the interval, violinist Mischa Elman remarked toGodowsky “Phew! It’s hot in there!”? “Not for pianists,” camethe quick retort. And yet Artur Rubinstein, while in awe of histechnique (“It would take me five hundred years to get that kindof mechanism”), thought Godowsky “an unhappy, compulsiveman, miserable away from the keyboard.” Dagmar Godowskydescribed her father as “terrifyingly wonderful and dazzlinglycelebrated. He knew everything and everybody . . But it wasnever easy to be close to him. I might be on his lap, butLeopold Godowsky was far away in another world.”

The same contradictions apply to him as a pianist. Chasinsmaintained that the public never heard Godowsky at his best.What he presented on the platform was, “never less than theprecise scholar and technical magician. But the dramatist andcolorist remained at home.” This was probably not the caseearly in his career but, certainly from his forties on, “no publicperformance, no recording I heard matched the freedom andbeauty of Godowsky’s playing in an intimate atmosphere, in thepresence of admiring friends and colleagues.” Josef Hofmannechoed this view when he told Chasins after an evening atGodowsky’s: “Never forget what you heard tonight. Neverlose the memory of that sound. There’s nothing like it in theworld. It is tragic that the public has never heard Popsy as onlyhe can play.”

In late 1916, Godowsky moved from New York to LosAngeles. His daughter Vanita, married the pianist David Saperton, future teacher of Abbey Simon, Jorge Bolet andShura Cherkassky and who later, despite his father-in-law’sopinion (“he plays like a butcher”) made the first substantialrecordings of Godowsky’s music. Dagmar meanwhile pursueda career in films and had some success as a vamp of the silentscreen. By 1926 she had been twice married and divorced.Leopold Junior developed an interest in photography, a hobbythat would lead - with his friend Leopold Mannes - to the invention of the colour photography process that becameKodachrome. In 1935 the Eastman Kodak Company acquiredthe production rights from the two for several million dollars.Along the way, in 1930, Leopold II married Frances Gershwin,younger sister of George and Ira. Gordon Godowsky, however,at the age of 25, abandoned his English literature studies at Har-vard to marry a vaudeville dancer. Godowsky was furious anddisowned him.

For much of the 1920s life was one of constant travellingand touring, giving concerts all over the world. In February1923, for instance, we find him in China. From there he proceeded to Java. This visit resulted in one of his most original creations, the Java Suite, in which he attempted totransfer to the keyboard the sonority of the gamelan. It wasalso during this tour that he began transcribing three solo ViolinSonatas and three solo Cello Suites of Bach - 37 separate movements in all. Kaikhosru Sorabji felt that the peaks ofGodowsky’s attainment were reached in these six transcrip-tions. His last major work, Passacaglia, was composed as atribute on the centenary of Schubert’s death. It is a large-scaleconception based on the opening eight bars of the “Unfinished”Symphony, comprising 44 variations, cadenza and fugue.

Then, in October 1929, came the first of a series of disasters. The Wall Street Crash left Godowsky in a financialposition from which he never recovered. The following year,having celebrated both his 60th birthday and 39th weddinganniversary, he flew to London to record all Chopin’s Etudesand the four Scherzi. On 17 June, just after completing the Emajor Scherzo, Godowsky suffered a paralytic stroke. His righthand and motor-reflex system were irrevocably impaired. Henever played the piano in public again.

In December 1932, Gordon Godowsky committed suicideby gassing himself. Frieda Godowsky’s frail health disintegrated and barely a year later, she succumbed to a heartattack. Following Frieda’s death, Godowsky moved to a NewYork apartment with Dagmar but, though he played the pianoconstantly (and whenever friends and admirers called, moreoften than not they would be treated to an impromptu recital),in reality, the life he had enjoyed so much and to which he contributed with such vitality, was over. For much of 1937 hewas confined to bed with heart trouble and gout. He died aged68 of stomach cancer on 21 November 1938. Tributes camefrom all over the world but it was in a bitter letter to Dagmar,written over five years before his death, that Godowsky pennedhis own epitaph. “I worked honestly with the highest ideals formy chosen art and beloved instrument . . . A few know theimportance of my having lived. When I am but a memory myworks and my influence will begin to live.”

It is only now, more than 60 years after LeopoldGodowsky’s death, that his prophecy is coming true. With theadvocacy of pianists like Jorge Bolet, Marc-Andre Hamelin,Carlo Grante, Konstantin Scherbakov, Francesco Libetta andothers (a far greater number than in Godowsky’s own lifetime)have we been able to appreciate and reevaluate his legacy to thepiano.

“DO NOT JUDGE MEBY MY RECORDS”

Godowsky’s famous plea, coupled with his enthusiastic endorsement of the piano-roll system, has understandably led many toassume that the direct-to-disc recording process misrepresented andeven distorted his artistic vision. Yet, as Charles Hopkins explains,

the situation is by no means as simple as it may at first appear.

“All of my piano records were made at a time when recording was very primitive. The left hand had to be louderthan the right hand; the pedal had to be used sparingly and notat all when the hands were close to each other. The fear ofdoing a trifling thing wrong augmented while playing. . . It wasa dreadful ordeal, increasingly so the more sensitive the artist.How can one think of music or emotions! Do not judge me bymy records!” Written in February 1938, less than a year before

First Row, right to left: Leopold Godowsky, Charlie Chaplin, FriedaSaxe Godowsky, a friend; Top Row, right to left, L.E. Behymer,

another friend, and Miss BehymerPhoto Musical Leader

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his death, to the Australian enthusiast Paul Howard (founder ofan International Godowsky Society dedicated to the promotionof a wider appreciation and understanding of Godowsky’s contribution to the advancement of piano playing and repertoire), Godowsky’s reference to the “nerve-killing tortures” he had endured in the recording studio reinforce theimpression of a great artist totally inhibited by a process withwhose perceived demands he felt compelled to comply.Although in poor health at the time he wrote these words - heactually attributed his collapse in 1930 to the strain of recording- there is no denying the deep and long-standing reservations heheld not only about his own recordings but about the medium asa whole. Even when the necessary technical adjustmentsrequired to address the shortcomings of the process had beensuccessfully addressed, for Godowsky the fear of making theslightest error became greater still.

Nevertheless, on the evidence of several of Godowsky’slater recordings in particular, the position is far less open andshut than his disclaimers would appear to indicate. Indeed,despite the exhaustion and tribulations of the sessions themselves, there is some reason to believe that he was beginning to resign himself to the rigors of the process (and notsimply for the necessary, if temporary, financial security itafforded at the time) and to play with greater freedom in thestudio, as, for example, in his readings of the Grieg Ballade andthe Chopin E-Major Scherzo. In these performances there isalso a suggestion of the colour and fire that his colleagueswould marvel at when he was playing in private for a knowledgeable and informed audience.

This said, however, Godowsky could hardly be describedas ever having been truly at home in the recording studio. Theinevitable compromises imposed by a medium that was still inmany respects highly experimental, and that by its very naturepreserved any passing imperfections for posterity, were irreconcilable with the artistic credo of a perfectionist such asGodowsky. Of course, there were artists such as Cortot andSchnabel, who remained comparatively unconcerned by theimmortalizing of their finger-slips, so long as the musical ideawas captured, as it were, on the wing. (Some blame for thereservations of many artists of the time may also be laid at thedoor of the reproducing equipment, which was on the wholescarcely more sophisticated than many of the purely mechanicalaspects of the recording itself. Expert remastering using modern technology has, indeed, revealed many subtleties thathave previously passed largely unnoticed beneath a seeminglyimpenetrable layer of surface noise). Moreover, the constantrepetition of separate sections of a work, thus fragmenting itsstructure and depriving the performer of any real feeling of continuity, let alone organic growth, would further cramp thestyle of any artist, particularly one such as Godowsky, whosewhole performance ethos was based on meticulous effects ofvoicing and the subtlest of tonal nuances, as well as a carefullycalculated, expository pacing of structural content. Godowskywas, of course, far from alone in his discomfiture in the recording studio. Rachmaninoff, a similar perfectionist, wasapt to become extremely nervous under studio conditions andfelt unable to concentrate fully and give of himself in the faceof the constant technical interruptions and the lack of audience stimulus. He also recorded side after side before reluctantlypassing a particular version, insisting on the immediate destruction of those he considered “failures”.

In addition, although Godowsky himself persistently maintained that his finest work was to be heard before an audience, something disputed by the majority of his admiring

colleagues, who believed that the extreme refinement andscrupulous attention to detail in his playing were virtuallyimpossible to project across the wider distances of a large auditorium, he admitted that the pressures of constant repetition, even in the concert hall, were apt to lead to anunavoidable impression of disengaged ennui in performance.Indeed, he was to observe that, in effect, interpretative spontaneity might be seen to diminish in direct proportion withthe number of occasions on which its simulation was required,the artist often finding himself “at 3 o’clock one afternoon upona concert platform, confronted with an audience and the need torehash and rechew - just as a cow does - a program of worksthat he has given over and over again.” Even before the strokethat was to bring his public career to an abrupt end, he had written to his assistant, Maurice Aronson, about the absurdity ofpublic performance and the sense of shame he felt for his collusion in its perpetuation. Later, he was to write even morebitterly of exhausting his energies “on unworthy listeners, ondeaf ears, on callous minds” and of spending his vitality “incasting pearls to s[wine].”

A further dilemma in contextualizing Godowsky’s recordedlegacy in relation to the surviving artistry of many of his contemporaries, as well as in reconciling the documentaryaccounts of his playing with the evidence of his recordings, isposed by the comparative objectivity of his approach. The cleardistinction he drew between private and public performance,indeed, suggests a modernity of outlook, which places himahead of his time. In private, to colleagues and othercognoscenti, he would allow himself the latitude to display thetype of contrapuntal dexterity and almost mischievous polyphonic espieglerie that were the envy of his fellow artists,yet without the kind of exaggerated distortion that was apt todisfigure the playing of any attempting to imitate him. In public, however, by contrast, the dramatic tension with whichhe invested his playing privately would invariably tend to bereplaced with an objective reserve that in its relative austeritytook on an aspect, however authoritative, of restrained didacticism, elegantly proportioned andperfectly controlled, yet ultimatelylacking the inner fire and momentum tosustain the imagination of the listener.Even in the early years of Godowsky’scareer, when he might have beenexpected to have indulged in a certainamount of playing to the gallery in pur-suit of the goal of establishing a solidreputation as a virtuoso, his approachwas more likely to call to mind a chessplayer solving a problem rather than alatter-day Promethean stealing firefrom the gods. Public performancewas, in essence, an almost priestly cer-emony so far as Godowsky was con-cerned, one in which the composer’sword was the ultimate authority, not thepotentially distorting commentary andinsights of the individual performer.He had little time, for instance, for the attention-seeking idiosyncrasies ofPachmann on one hand, nor for the thunderous pyrotechnics of Rosenthalon the other. There were, of course,many aspects of their playing he didadmire - he dedicated pieces to each of them and himself performed Rosenthal’s Papillons and Study in

Godowsky’s hands

Photo APR

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double notes on the Minute Waltz of Chopin - but he was totallyout of sympathy with what he saw as their inclination to exploitmusic as a vehicle for theatrical sensationalism.

When it came to recording, his approach was scarcely lessrigorous, while the frustrations caused by the inherent inadequacies of the system at the time, as well as the distastefulcompromises forced upon him in the studio, not least the constant cuts, even in shorter pieces, necessary to accommodatethe restrictions of side length (three minutes, or thereabouts, inthe case of a 10-inch side, four to four and one half for a 12-inch) all added to the pressures and ultimate dissatisfactionhe felt with the process. Ironically, when taking into accounthis comments about the emotionally emasculating effects ofattempting to make music under studio conditions. Godowskydevoted a good deal of time and energy to cutting piano rolls, evidently favoring the process over the gramophone, and continued to do so until late into the 1920’s. By this time, themedium had begun to be superseded by disc recording, despitethe limitations and problems caused by reproducing pianosound on record. His clear preference is borne out by the factthat he made more than twice as many piano rolls as he didgramophone recordings. Not only did he lend his name to

fulsome endorsements of the moresophisticated and technicallyadvanced systems, such as Ampicoand Angelus, but also permittedhimself to take part in promotionalexhibitions designed to demonstratethe fidelity of the reproducing roll,appearing on stage playing along-side his own rolls of the same reper-toire. He was not, of course, alone in doing this - Moiseiwitsch, Rubinstein and Levitzki were notaverse to participating in this type of publicity exercise - but his preparedness to go along with thesecharades does give some indicationof the extent of his belief in the rollprocess as a whole.

It is all the more sad, then, that, aswith the misplaced trust he put in

various business advisors on a number of occasions, he backedthe wrong horse, as it were, in choosing the reproducing roll asthe more faithful means of preserving his art. This is especiallytrue in the case of his own music and his connection with theConway-Angelus Company in Meriden, Connecticut, an association which began in March 1919 and lasted until October 1928, thus overlapping with an “exclusive” arrangement with the American Piano Company, proprietors ofthe Ampico system. The mouthwatering selection Godowskyrecorded for Angelus, in addition to such substantial offeringsas the Beethoven “Pathetique” and “Waldstein” Sonatas, Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques and the Liszt B minorSonata, included his own complete Triakontameron [ThirtyMoods and Scenes in Triple Measure], eight of his Schubertsong transcriptions, five pieces from the Java Suite, along withhis transcription of the Bach C minor Cello Suite and the Fledermaus and Kunstlerleben paraphrases.

He was also convinced of the educational possibilities thereproducing piano had to offer and recorded a sizeable proportion of his Miniatures for four hands in this context.Each roll comprised a version of the whole piece played byGodowsky, followed by the secondo (teacher) part alone andthen the primo (pupil) part alone. The idea was that the pupil

could then play either part, using Godowsky’s complete performance as a template, with the benefit of the master“beside” him, improving, in the words of the sales pitch, “underthe eyes, as it were, of Godowsky himself.” Sadly, this project,like many others, never came to fruition and the rolls, like themajority of those already mentioned, were not issued, althoughit remains a possibility that uncorrected master copies may stillsurvive. If this were to be the case, then recent developments in the recreation of roll performances, such as those of Rachmaninoff, should be applied to the extensive repertoirerecorded by Godowsky for the medium, so that we may have atleast some impression of him in a representative amount of hisown original music, as well as in the larger transcriptions onwhich much of his fame (or notoriety!) rested for so long.(Hardly less notorious in this context is Busoni’s famouslybarbed bon mot that Godowsky could play faster than a pianoroll, but that the roll played with more feeling!).

In addition to the Angelus material, he recorded some ofhis Chopin Etude paraphrases, including the combination study,Badinage, as well as a number of pieces from the Renaissancecollection, for the Hupfeld system. Here again, notwithstandingthe limitations of this system (alongside the Ampico in particular), there is enough significant material of interest toprompt a search for and restoration of these valuable performance documents. This is especially true where, as in thecase of his Angelus roll of the Rachmaninoff Polka de W.R.,dedicated to Godowsky (like the Blumenfeld Left-Hand Etude,of which he also made a roll), there is significant textualembellishment in the cadenza section - the late Gilles Hamelinmanaged to locate a copy of the roll and notate the alterations.

The reproducing piano is, however, an artificial medium,insofar as it is dependent entirely upon the serviceability of theplayer mechanism. In effect, despite recent advances in thefield, the difficulty of determining much more than the mechanical efficiency of an artist from a roll is still not unliketrying to distinguish the subtle chiaroscuro effects of an Impressionist canvas from a monochrome photograph or, atbest, through the flickering light of a home movie projector.Nevertheless, in Godowsky’s case the essential paradoxremains that at times his earlier disc recordings in particular canappear strangely colorless and even perfunctory in comparisonwith his rolls of the same material.

Even so, in his very first recording, made for AmericanColumbia (Victor would have been his preference, but contractual arrangements proved less favorable) on 10 April1913, despite the sonic deficiencies, there is enough in theMendelssohn “Spinning Song” to suggest the urbane refine-ment of Godowsky’s rhythmic accentuations. Admittedly theseare less immediately identifiable than those in Rachmaninoff’sreading, but they are sufficiently defined to give the performance character, as does the suitably embellished ending- he also opts for a more understated final cadence than Rachmaninoff’s deliciously mannered “moment of inertia” asthe connecting rod on the wheel reaches the apex of its path.Also, the meticulous distinction he draws between differenttypes of ornamentation in Liszt’s Gnomenreigen neverthelesssteers clear of schoolroom pedantry and, if the elfin diablerieof, say, Petri’s version, which is also rather quicker, is to someextent lacking, compensation is to be found in the lightness and poise of Godowsky’s performance. Likewise, in theChopin C-sharp minor Waltz, Op. 64 No.2, his tracing of anindependent line by prolonging the last right hand eighth-beatof each measure in the piu mosso sections, continuing the voiceto a conclusion in the upper line of the accompanying chords inthe left hand, would appear to indicate that, whatever his

Leopold Godowsky (right)with Josef Hofmann

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reservations, he was not merely sleep-walking through the sessions, no matter how many times he had used this particulardevice in the past. This idea is also in evidence in his 1928Brunswick remake of the piece, as it is in Rachmaninoff’s 1927version. Whether or not Godowsky was the first to explore thispossibility, several of his successors were to take it on board,including Novaes and Cziffra, both noted for the intuitiveextemporaneity of their differing approaches. Of the earlyColumbias, one of the more satisfying is his account of theChopin A-flat Waltz, Op. 42, which, while not as brisklydespatched as Rachmaninoff’s 1919 Edison account, nor asbreathtakingly fleet-fingered as Hofmann’s 1935 RCA version,nevertheless, has some individuality, not least in the harmonicfilling-out of the secondary theme and the two-handed amplification of the final arpeggio flourish.

Although the limitations of side-length in the earlierrecordings effectively determined the nature of the pieces chosen, most of the selections at this time being confined to“encore” material, the remarkable breadth of Godowsky’s personal repertoire is reflected in the inclusion of comparativerarities such as Henselt’s Wiegenlied and La Gondole, theRubinstein and Moszkowski Serenades, Schutt’s Etudemignonne, Poldini’s Wienerisch, and other delightful “trifles” ofthe same kind - he also made rolls of many of the same pieces.(The pianist Douglas Miller later recalled how, for many of hisprovincial dates, Godowsky would have a repertoire bookletsent to the concert promoters so that they could select a pro-gramme for him to play, a booklet that listed all the major com-positions of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and a great deal elsebesides!). In all of these he appears more relaxed than in themore standard warhorses, such as a cut version of the ChopinA-flat Polonaise and the Paganini-Liszt La Campanella, givingaccounts of enormous delicacy and charm, as well as providinga hint of the refinement and unobtrusive stylishness of his play-ing at the time, even through the dimness of the recorded soundand noisy surfaces.

Godowsky, however, remained less than wholly convincedby the recording process and, although he continued to cutpiano rolls, recorded very little in the years immediately following his first session in April 1913, apart from a controlledburst of activity in the first half of 1916. In May 1920, hebegan an association with the Brunswick-Balke-CollanderCompany that was to last until September 1926, during whichtime no fewer than twenty-three discs of Godowsky were published, eleven of the titles being repeated with the advent ofelectrical recording. Although the sound quality represents animprovement on his first recordings, this series, nevertheless,still raises a number of perplexing issues, not least why such anintensely self-critical artist of such rigorous standards shouldhave passed for issue a performance, such as that of the heavilycut A-flat Ballade from 1922, whose coda emerges as littlemore than a chaotic dash for the line, which places an unexpected, if momentary, fallibility firmly in the publicdomain. Similar reservations remain, though on artistic ratherthan technical grounds, with regard to the 1924 recording of theB-flat minor Scherzo, which is subjected to such savage cuts asto disfigure the piece almost to the point of travesty - althoughthere is little suggestion that Godowsky’s fingers are ever overstretched by the task of fitting what remains of the musicon to the single 12-inch matrix.

For the treasures of his time with Brunswick we must turn,once again, to his performances of shorter pieces, such as Dohnanyi’s F-minor Capriccio from 1922, the 1925 versionof the Chopin Fantaisie-Impromptu, Debussy’s Reflets

dans l’eau (also dating from August 1925), or Sinding’s Fruhlingsrauschen, to gain some impression of the greatness ofGodowsky’s artistry, demonstrating in the case of the Sindinghow material that is intrinsically not especially distinguishedcan be elevated to an altogether higher level in the hands of amaster. Equally, his 1921 recording of the Chopin A-FlatImpromptu provides a good example of Godowsky’s capacityfor unexaggerated eloquence in the unusually broad tempo headopts in the middle section, while the fluency of the outer passages is never allowed to seem merely glib and repetitious.Another particularly impressive reading, despite the now familiar surgery on its vital proportions, is his account of theTarantella from Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli, worthy to stand besideHofmann’s similarly cut November 1916 Columbia version. Itis a performance of astonishing clarity and precision, brimmingwith unexaggerated virtuosity, his articulation of the rapid repetitions, in particular, casting aside any lingering doubts as to the accuracy of contemporary reports of his superhumanfacility. The same might be said with reference to any of the January 1924 takes of La leggierezza, which, while narrow-ly falling short of complete perfection (whatever that mightbe!), is worthy to stand beside Paderewski’s July 1912 perfor-mance as one of the treasures of the early recording process. Godowsky’s double-note technique, in particular - hischaracteristically practical and inventive fingerings for chromatic thirds clearly repay study - can be heard here at itsmost commanding, even in direct comparison with his Ampicoroll performance.

Numerous other examples of this side of Godowsky’s artcould be cited, such as the apt wizardry of his performance ofMacdowell’s Hexentanz or the nonchalance of his buoyantaccount of the Schubert-Tausig Marche militaire, particularlythe September 1926 version that was to be his last recording forthe company. Even in the Mendelssohn Andante and RondoCapriccioso, despite being squeezed on to a single side, there ishardly any sense of indecent haste in the playing, the introduction a model of restrained lyricism. Similarly, hisDecember 1923 version of the Chopin-Liszt Meine Freuden displays the same type of poetic nostalgia that characterizesRosenthal’s various performances, while maintaining anarguably stronger link with the piece’s vocal origins - the purelydecorative aspects of the writing are also of remarkable delicacy. Probably the finest of them all, however, are the twoSchubert songs, Morgengruss and Gute Nacht, in Godowsky’sown free transcriptions, in which he unostentatiously displayshis consummate mastery of the recreative aspects of both transcribing and performing. His effortless command of polyphonic textures and layered dynamics is nothing short ofbreathtaking, while the tonal beauty he draws from an other-wise ordinary sounding instrument never sounded, in Edward Blickstein’s words, “more incorporeal, ethereal, ineffable, andnot of this world.”

Harold Schonberg once described Godowsky’s Columbiaand Brunswick recordings as demonstrating “a calm, pluperfectkind of playing, a little lacking in tension,” and there is, admittedly, in some instances an element of desinvolture aboutthe playing, not in technical terms but in respect of a deeperemotional involvement with the music, although, as has alreadybeen noted, some of the selections do not necessarily demandmore than the superficial charm with which Godowsky imbuesthem. For a combination of physical and interpretative authority, as well as a sense of total commitment in performance, one must turn to his altogether transcendentalreading of the Grieg Ballade, a work he had championed evenbefore his triumphant return to the European stage at the turn of

16

the twentieth century and on which he had received the composer’s advice and enthusiastic endorsement. From thecontrolled voicing of the opening theme to the meticulouslyweighted textures of each successive variation, there is anorganic unity about the performance that confounds the inherently fragmentary nature of the form. Even the completefreedom of his handling of the stretto recitative passages nevercompromises the cohesiveness of the whole. Schonberg sums itup most succinctly as “an example of pellucid, sensitive, perfectly integrated piano playing.” In short, this is a performance that by its commanding integrity transfigures analready accomplished work to such an extent that it assumes theair of a great one.

Recorded in May 1929, the Grieg Ballade represents thehigh point of his last affiliation with a recording company, English Columbia, that had begun the previous year with agroup of twelve of the Chopin Nocturnes, each one issued witha spoken introduction by the critic, Ernest Newman. One canpoint to various performances by Godowsky’s contemporariesthat in one way or another reveal more vividly the complexitiesof the composer’s psyche and how these complexities arereflected in his creative output. Cortot, for example, in the C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1 achieves an independence of lineand voice that Godowsky chooses to underplay, while in the F-sharp, Op. 15 No. 2, the playing is improvisatory in style andrhapsodic in tone, whereas Godowsky is more restrained, moreself-contained - Cortot’s great contemporary, Edouard Risler,left a recording of the piece that combines a similar emotionalreserve with pianism of high sophistication. Likewise, in the F major Nocturne, Op. 15 No.1, Godowsky’s approach does notseek out the mystery Pachmann finds in the music, nor does hedisplay the same extraordinary metrical elasticity. Equally,Paderewski’s performance of the piece is justly famous for itsexquisite tonal effects as well as for the comparative restraint ofthe con fuoco section - curiously, his protégé, Witold Malcuzynski, later went to the opposite extreme in his recording, imparting a fiery passion to the episode of astonishing power - whereas Godowsky’s control imparts achaste purity to the contours of the piece that, on its own terms,is hardly less compelling. Interestingly, his performance of theD-flat Nocturne, Op. 27 No.2, is rather less Classical in itsreluctance to surrender to the sensuous potential of the tonalarabesques than, say, Rosenthal in his 1936 Victor version, or inthe mesmerizing clarity of Hofmann’s 1935 RCA account. It isa shame that Godowsky did not record the whole cycle, since,given his ability to calibrate fluid polyphonic textures, hisapproach to the E-flat, Op. 55 No. 2, would have been of considerable interest, especially alongside the performances ofFriedman or Cortot. Throughout this set of recordings, however, Godowsky realizes his own particular poetic vision,without the gestural extremes or eccentricities to which othersresorted, yet at the same time eerily effective in its rarefied austerity.

Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata had been part ofGodowsky’s repertoire since the very earliest days - he hadplayed it at the age of 14 for his audition at the BerlinHochschule - and, given his scarcely diminished suspicion andgeneral apprehensiveness of the recording process, one mightexpect his account under the circumstances to sound perfunctory, if not positively routine. True, the pregnant opening motif is less portentous than in, say, Schnabel’s reading, nor does what Schnabel refers to as the “warmth, pulsating life and passionate emotion” of the Allegro receive anespecially vigorous treatment - Godowsky reacted to many ofSchnabel’s more studied observations about performance with agood deal of wry humour! Nevertheless, there is an “elevated”,

yet never overemphatic, expressive quality in the playing and a genuine poignancy in his response to “L’absence.” InSchumann’s Carnaval and the Chopin B-flat minor Sonata comparison with Rachmaninoff, as well as Cortot, is, perhaps,inevitable. Godowsky’s rendering of Carnaval does not take asits point de depart the insistent reiterations of the motto themein all its permutations, nor the polarized characterizations in theapostrophized depictions of the composer’s own multi-facetedpsyche. Yet the performance is not lacking in vigor, despite itsgreater concentration on the pianistic proportions of the workrather than subtextual psychological considerations. Likewise,the Chopin Sonata, in which Godowsky, like Hofmann,observes the first movement repeat, is arguably less imposinglymagisterial than Rachmaninoff, less programmatically suggestive of the model of Anton Rubinstein - Rubinstein hadshown great interest in Godowsky as a prodigy - less obviouslyconcerned with the architectonic unity of the whole work, likeCortot, than the structural cohesion of the individual movements. Nevertheless, there are numerous imaginativetouches, not least in the bass amplifications of the “Marchefunebre” itself, as well as in the suggestions of melodic contours in the whirling figuration of the last movement - in theTrio of the march he also rearranges the accompanying figure atone point, perhaps to avoid the sensation of consecutiveoctaves!

Of all Godowsky’s commercial recordings, however, it ishis last, ironically yet fittingly, which encapsulates the essentialtruth of the documentary evidence of his playing, from knowledgeable critics to admiring colleagues. The privately-made recording of “Gardens of Buitenzorg” from hisJava Suite, which dates from 1935, is stunningly beautiful,despite the appalling sound quality, and shows that, while hismedical condition may have drastically depleted his physicalstrength, his feeling for tone coloration and chromatic counterpoint remained unimpaired. His account of Chopin’s Emajor Scherzo, however, embodies not only his awesome technical command, but evidences the temperament whichtakes up a gauntlet thrown down, the dramatic flair to projectthe inner life of the work beyond the mechanics of the loud-speaker and, finally, the lack of inhibition to realize the com-poser’s emotional aspirations without the obsessive concern forpurely technical considerations.

Among Godowsky’s recordings there are, it is true, a goodmany that reflect the lack of congeniality he felt for the atmosphere of the recording studio. Equally, the repertoireGodowsky recorded was, in the main, comprised of miniaturesand there was no barnstorming display piece with which to nailhis colors to the mast, as with Rosenthal’s Carnaval de Vienne,Barere’s Blumenfeld Etude, Rachmaninoff ’s Liebesfreud transcription or Lhevinne’s Schulz-Evler Blue Danube . . . Evenhis transcription of The Star Spangled Banner is not ostentatiously presented, certainly in comparison withHorowitz’s Stars and Stripes. There are fireworks among hisrecordings, though, for those prepared to listen, subtle ones, asGregor Benko once observed, and more spectacular than can beheard in the recital halls of today. The world in whichGodowsky lived can never be revisited, but through his recorded legacy we are afforded a glimpse of the “golden age”in which he achieved a richly deserved eminence. The quotation from Confucius which prefaces the Fischer edition ofhis Bach transcriptions perhaps most eloquently sums upGodowsky’s achievements and his deserved place of honor inthe annals of pianism: “I am not concerned at not being known;I seek to be worthy to be known.”

17

LEOPOLD GODOWSKY DISCOGRAPHY

This is a listing of all the known titles recorded by Godowsky for the gramophone, including unissued material of works that werenot otherwise released by each company. Matrix numbers refer to the “takes” that were released - Godowsky did, however, recordmany alternative versions of each title at various times, but these were suppressed for artistic or technical reasons. Reissue detailsrefer to CD format unless otherwise indicated.

CCOOMMPPOOSSEERR//WWOORRKK DDAATTEE CCOOMMPPAANNYY RREEIISSSSUUEE MMAATTRRIIXX

AAllbbeenniizzTango in D, Op. 165 No. 2 24/12/20 Brunswick* APR 7011 4725AAllbbeenniizz ((--GGooddoowwsskkyy??))Tango in D, Op. 165 No. 2 5/10/22 Brunswick*Triana (Iberia No. 6) 10/9/26 Brunswick*BBeeeetthhoovveennSonata in E Flat “Les Adieux,” Op. 81a 31/5/29 Columbia L 2354/5 APR 7010; WAX 4985-2,

Philips 456 805; WAX 4986-1,IPL 105 (LP) WAX 4987-1,

WAX 4988-2BBiisshhoopp--GGooddoowwsskkyyHome, sweet home 24/5/21 Brunswick* APR 7011 5667BBoohhmm--GGooddoowwsskkyyStill wie die Nacht 28/5/20 Brunswick*CChhaammiinnaaddeeLa Lisonjera, Op. 50 31/5/21 Brunswick 10053; 15001 5721; 5722§

5/10/25 Brunswick 15112La Lisonjera, Op. 50 (abr.) 3/9/26 Brunswick 50101 IPA 113 (LP) XE20028Pas des Echarpes, Op. 37 3/9/26 Brunswick 50101 IPA 113 (LP) XE20028CChhooppiinnBallade in A flat, Op. 47 (abr.) 3/10/22 Brunswick 50042 X8786Berceuse, Op. 57 10/4/13 Columbia A 5597 36700-1

10/4/13 Columbia A 5597 36700-210/4/13 Columbia A 5858 (US);

Columbia L 1171 (UK) Opal 830 (LP) 36700-318/1/24 Brunswick* APR 7013; Veritas VM 103 (LP) X12316

Ecossaises, Op. 72 Nos. 3-5 25/1/16 Columbia* 48550Etude in G flat, Op. 10 No. 5 19/5/22 Brunswick 15026 8078

10/9/26 Brunswick 15123 Opal 830 (LP); Philips 456 805 E20080Etude in E flat, Op. 10 No. 11 6/10/22 Brunswick*Etude in A flat, Op. 25 No. 1 6/10/22 Brunswick*

6/2/24 Brunswick* APR 7011 X124696/2/24 Brunswick* APR 7013; Veritas VM 103 (LP) X1247121/5/24 Brunswick*

Etude in F minor, Op. 25 No. 2 21/5/24 Brunswick*21/1/16 Columbia A6013 Opal 830 (LP) 48547-2

Etude in F. Op. 25 No. 3 6/2/24 Brunswick* APR 7011 X124696/2/24 Brunswick* APR 7013; Veritas VM 103 (LP) X12471

Etude in G flat, Op. 25 No. 9 19/5/22 Brunswick 15026 807810/9/26 Brunswick 15123 Opal 830 (LP); Philips 456 805 E20080

Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op. 66 24/5/21 Brunswick 30017, 50008 X567024/5/21 Brunswick* APR 7011 X567118/8/25 Brunswick 50070 Opal 830 (LP) XE16165s

Impromptu in A flat, Op. 29 3/6/21 Brunswick 30016, 50009 Opal 830 (LP) X57483/9/26 Brunswick 50094 XE20037

Nocturne in B flat minor, Op. 9 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2165 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3807-4Nocturne in E flat, Op. 9 No.2 10/4/13 Columbia A5485 Opal 830 (LP) 36701-2

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CCOOMMPPOOSSEERR//WWOORRKK DDAATTEE CCOOMMPPAANNYY RREEIISSSSUUEE MMAATTRRIIXX

10/4/13 Columbia A4800 36701-423/6/28 Columbia L2164 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3808-6

Nocturne in F, Op. 15 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2169 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3811-4Nocturne in F sharp, Op. 15 No. 2 23/6/28 Columbia L2169 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3812-4Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2170 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX 3813-4Nocturne in D flat, Op. 27 No. 2 7/10/22 Brunswick 50042 Muza XL 157/60 (LP) X8859

23-26/6/28 Columbia L2171 APR 7010 WAX3830-3Philips 456 805 & WAX3831-4

Nocturne in B, Op. 32 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2167 APR7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3814-6Nocturne in G minor, Op. 37 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2168 APR7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3815-6Nocturne in G, Op. 37 No. 2 20-23/6/28 Columbia L2166 APR7010; Philips 456 805 &WAX3810-6Nocturne in F sharp minor, Op. 48 No. 2 22/6/28 Columbia L2170 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 or WAX3827-5Nocturne in F minor, Op. 55 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2167 APR 7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3829-2Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1 23/6/28 Columbia L2165 APR7010; Philips 456 805 WAX3828-3Polonaise in C sharp minor, Op. 26 No. 1 (abr.) 19/1/24 Brunswick* APR7013 X12338

19/1/24 Brunswick* Veritas VM 103 (LP) X12339Polonaise in A, Op. 40 No. 1 16/5/22 Brunswick 50015 Opal 830 (LP) X8053Polonaise in A flat, Op. 53 (abr.) 10/4/13 Columbia L1150; A5550 36697

3/10/22 Brunswick 50024 X87872/10/25 Brunswick*11/9/26 Brunswick 50078 XE20100

Prelude in D flat, Op. 28 No. 15 10/4/13 Columbia D 17722; L1095 36695Prelude in B flat, Op. 28 No. 21 10/4/13 Columbia D 17713; L1088;

A5484 36698-4Prelude in F, Op. 28 No. 23 10/4/13 Columbia D 17713; L1088;

A5485 36698-4Scherzo in B flat minor, Op. 31 (abr.) 18/1/24 Brunswick* IPA117 (LP) X12311Scherzo in E, Op. 54 17/6/30 Columbia* APR 7011 WAX5624-?

Philips 456 805; & WAX 5625-1Veritas VM 103 (LP)

Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35 25/4/30 Columbia LX 124/126 APR 7010 WAX5549-2,Philips 456 805; 5550-1, 5551-2IPA105 (LP) 5552-2, 5553-3

5554-2Valse in E flat, Op. 18 19/5/22 Brunswick 50015 Opal 830(LP) X8081Valse in A flat, Op. 34 No. 1 18/1/24 Brunswick* Veritas VM 103 (LP) X12301

18/1/24 Brunswick* APR7011 X12302Valse in A flat, Op. 42 7/2/16 Columbia L 1069; A 5791 Opal 830 (LP) 48589

18/1/24 Brunswick* APR7011 X12329Valse in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2 10/4/13 Columbia D 17722; L1095 APR 7011 36699

24/12/20 Brunswick 10031; 15018 47273/9/26 Brunswick 15124 Opal 830 (LP) E20034

Valse in G flat, Op. 70 No. 1 4/3/14 Columbia A5597 36891Valse in D flat, Op. 70 No. 3 28/7/20 Brunswick*Valse in E minor, Op. posth. 26/5/16 Columbia L 1171; A5858 48808

CChhooppiinn--LLiisszzttChant polonais No. 1, “Madchens Wunsch” 28/7/20 Brunswick* APR7011 4051

7/10/22 Brunswick 15042 8866Chant polonais No. 5, “Meine Freuden” 7/10/22 Brunswick 15042 Opal 830 8865

12/23 Brunswick* APR7011; Veritas VM103(LP) X11860DDeebbuussssyyClair de Lune (Suite Bergamasque 12/8/25 Brunswick 50069 IPA113(LP) E16103Golliwog’s Cakewalk (Children’s Corner) 12/8/25 Brunswick 15105 APR7011 E16099

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CCOOMMPPOOSSEERR//WWOORRKK DDAATTEE CCOOMMPPAANNYY RREEIISSSSUUEE MMAATTRRIIXX

Minstrels (Preludes, Bk. 1) 12/8/25 Brunswick 15105 APR7011 E16102Reflets dans l’eau (Images, Bk.1) 12/8/25 Brunswick 50069 E16107DDoohhnnaannyyiiConcert Etude in F minor “Capriccio”, Op. 28 No. 6 3/10/22 Brunswick 15049 APR7011 8789GGooddoowwsskkyyAlt Wien (Triakontameron No. 11) 3/9/26 Brunswick*Gardens of Buitenzorg (Java Suite) c.1935 Private recording* APR7011; Veritas VM103(LP)Humoresque (Miniatures) 2/6/20 Brunswick* APR7011 3877Hunter’s Call and Military March (Miniatures) 7/4/21 Brunswick* APR7011 5240GGrraannaaddoossSpanish Dance, “Playera”, Op. 37 No. 5 5/2/24 Brunswick 15081 Muza XL, 157/160(LP) 12463Spanish Dance, “Orientale”, Op. 37 No. 2 26/1/24 Brunswick*GGrriieeggBallade in G minor, Op. 24 27/5/29 Columbia LX 9/10; APR7010; Pearl 9933; WAX4963-2

67746/7D; LOX 16/7 Philips 456 805; 4964-3; 4965-3IPL 105(LP) 4966-1

HHeennsseellttWiegenlied in G flat, Op. 45 25/1/16 Columbia A5896 APR7011 48549-1

9/1/24 Brunswick* APR7011 12247Etude in F Sharp, “Si oiseau jetais”, Op. 2 No. 6 7/2/16 Columbia L 1069; A5791

(7042-M) 48592La Gondola, Op. 13 No. 2 7/2/16 Columbia L 1069; A5791

(7042-M) 48592KKrreeiisslleerr--GGooddoowwsskkyyRondino on a theme by Beethoven 3/6/21 Brunswick*LLaanneeThe Crapshooters (American Suite) 25/8/25 Brunswick 15108 APR7011LLeesscchheettiizzkkyyArabesque in A-Flat, Op. 45 No. 1 21/1/16 Columbia A6013 48547-2LLiiaaddoovvThe Musical Snuff-Box, Op. 32 26/1/24 Brunswick 15081 12394LLiisszzttKonzertetude No. 2, “Gnomenreigen” 4/3/14 Columbia L1150; A5550 APR7011 36890-1

1923? Brunswick* APR7011 01103?18/1/24 Brunswick* APR7013 12323

Grandes Etudes de Paganini No. 3: “La Campanella” 10/4/13 Columbia D17712; A5484;L1087 36694-1

Etude de Concert No. 2 in F minor, “La leggierezza” 9/1/24 Brunswick* APR7011 X122449/1/24 Brunswick* APR7013 X122459/1/24 Brunswick* Veritas VM 103(LP) X12246

Liebestraum No. 3 in A flat 6/6/21 Brunswick 30019; 50024 X567925/3/24 Brunswick* Veritas VM103(LP) X1272717/8/25 Brunswick 50070 APR7011 XE16168

Etude de Concert No. 3 in D flat, “Un sospiro” 7/2/16 Columbia L1150; A5800 48591Tarantella (Venezia e Napoli) (abr.) 18/5/22 Brunswick 50016 X8070MMaaccddoowweellllHexentanz, Op. 17 No. 2 21/12/20 Brunswick 10027; 15017 4706

21/12/20 Brunswick 10022 471025/3/24 Brunswick* APR7011 127293/9/26 Brunswick 15125; 15134 E20030 & 20031§

MMeennddeellssssoohhnnAndante & Rondo Capriccioso in E, Op. 14 4/9/26 Brunswick 50131; 50016 APR7011 XE20045Lied ohne Worte No. 25 in G, Op. 62 No. 1 10/4/13 Columbia D 17713; L1088 APR7011 36693-1Lied ohne Worte No. 30 in A, Op. 62 No. 6 “Spring Song” 10/2/22 Brunswick 15001 Muza XL 157/160 (LP) 7282

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CCOOMMPPOOSSEERR//WWOORRKK DDAATTEE CCOOMMPPAANNYY RREEIISSSSUUEE MMAATTRRIIXX

5/10/25 Brunswick 15112Lied ohne Worte No. 34 in C, Op. 67 No. 4“Spinning Song” 10/4/13 Columbia D 17713; L 1088 APR7011 36693-1MMeennddeellssssoohhnn--LLiisszzttAuf Flugeln des Gesanges 16/5/22 Brunswick 50016 X8051MMoosszzkkoowwsskkiiSerenade in D, Op. 15 No. 1 26/5/16 Columbia L1171; A5858 48808En automne, Op. 36 No. 4 21/1/16 Columbia* 48548PPaaddeerreewwsskkiiMinuet in G, Op. 14 No. 1 7/10/22 Brunswick*PPoollddiinniiWienerisch in F, Op. 42 No 3. 7/2/16 Columbia A6013 48590RRaaffffLa Fileuse, Op. 157 No. 2 6/6/21 Brunswick*RRaacchhmmaanniinnooffffPrelude in C sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2 17/5/22 Brunswick 15026 Muza XL 157/160 (LP) 8057

5/10/25 Brunswick 15123 E20014RRuubbiinnsstteeiinnMelody in F, Op. 3 No. 1 5/6/16 Columbia* APR7011 48810-1

2/6/21 Brunswick 10050; 15018 57383/9/26 Brunswick 15124; 15137 IPA113 (LP) E20032; 20033§

Reve angelique (Kamenniy-ostrov), Op. 10 No.22 4/6/21 Brunswick 30025; 50009 Opal 830(LP) X575525/3/24 Brunswick* APR7011 X127364/9/26 Brunswick 50094 XE20043

Romance in E flat, Op. 44 No. 1 26/5/20 Brunswick* APR7011 3857Serenade in D minor, Op. 93 No. 4 7/2/16 Columbia A6013 Opal830 (LP) 48590SScchhuubbeerrttMoment musical (in F minor, Op. 94 No. 3?) 21/1/16 Columbia* 48548SScchhuubbeerrtt--GGooddoowwsskkyyDas Wandern 25/4/30 Columbia*Die Forelle 25/4/30 Columbia*Gute Nacht 11/9/26 Brunswick 50133 Opal 830(LP); Philips 456 805 XE20095Heidenroslein 24/4/30 Columbia*Morgengruss 11/9/26 Brunswick 50133 Opal 830(LP); Philips 456 805 XE20092

11/9/26 Brunswick* APR7011 XE20093Wohin? 24/4/30 Columbia*SScchhuubbeerrtt--LLiisszzttStandchen von Shakespeare: “Horch, Horch, die Lerch” 10/4/13 Columbia D17712; L1087;

A5484 Opal 830(LP) 36696-1SScchhuubbeerrtt--TTaauussiiggMarche militaire (abr.) 21/12/20 Brunswick 30004; 50008 X4708

14/5/24 Brunswick* APR7011 X1310311/9/26 Brunswick 50078 Opal 830 XE20101

SScchhuummaannnnCarnaval, Op. 9 28-29/5/29 Columbia LX 32-34; APR7010 WAX4967-3;

67815-17; LOX 38-40; Philips 456 805 4968-2J7819-2 IPL 105(LP) 4969-2; 4970-2;

4975-2; 4976-2Romance (in F sharp, Op. 28 No. 2?) 26/5/16 Columbia* 48809SScchhuuttttA la bien-aimee, Op. 59 No. 2 2/6/20 Brunswick* APR7011 3879

7/10/22 Brunswick 15049 8855Etude mignonne, Op. 16 No. 1 24/12/20 Brunswick* APR7011 X4725

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CCOOMMPPOOSSEERR//WWOORRKK DDAATTEE CCOOMMPPAANNYY RREEIISSSSUUEE MMAATTRRIIXX

SSiinnddiinnggFruhlingsrauschen, Op. 32 No. 3 28/7/20 Brunswick 10022;15017 4048

5/2/24 Brunswick* APR7011 124593/9/26 Brunswick 15125; 15134 IPA 113(LP) E20026; E20027§

SSmmiitthh--GGooddoowwsskkyyThe Star-Spangled Banner 7/12/20 Brunswick* APR7011; Veritas VM 103(LP) 4653OO.. SSttrraauuss--GGooddoowwsskkyyThe Last Waltz 24/5/21 Brunswick*TTcchhaaiikkoovvsskkyyBarcarolle (The Seasons-June) 7/9/26 Brunswick 50101 IPA 113(LP) XE20060Romance in F minor, Op. 5 11/9/26 Brunswick*VVeerrddii--LLiisszzttRigoletto-Paraphrase (abr.) 5/6/16 Columbia A5896 48812

16/1/24 Brunswick* APR7013 X1229616/1/24 Brunswick* Veritas VM 103(LP) X122974/9/26 Brunswick 50131; 50116 APR7011; Philips 456 805 XE20048

WWaaggnneerr--BBrraassssiinnFeuerzauber 6/6/21 Brunswick*ZZeecckkwweerrIn a Boat 17/8/25 Brunswick 15108; 15172 APR7011

Notes* = unpublished§ = both matrices used in production

GODOWSKY

LEVY LETTERS

Acclaimed piano and harpsichord virtuoso and long-timeIPQ contributor, Igor Kipnis, mines his family’s extensive

archives and uncovers a revealing correspondence between hismaternal grandparents and Leopold Godowsky

In 1904 , the course catalogue of the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago announced:

The engagement of Mr. Heniot Levy, the noted pianist andcomposer of Berlin, as an instructor in the piano department.Mr. Levy’s musical training was acquired at the Royal HighSchool [Koniglische Hochschule] of Music in Berlin underProfs. Oscar Raif and Heinrich Barth [who also taught ArturRubinstein] in pianoforte and under Prof. Freiherr von Herzogenberg as well as Prof. Bargiel in composition. LaterMr. Levy took a special course in composition at the royal“Meisterschule” under the distinguished composer, Dr. MaxBruch. For meritorious work he was twice awarded the FelixMendelssohn prize, and his Sonata for piano and violin tookfirst prize at a competitive contest in Warsaw, Poland.

Mr. Levy concertized extensively throughout Germanywith pronounced success, attaining a prominent position in themusical world of Berlin as a pianist, composer, and teacher.That Mr. Levy is held in high esteem by leading artists of theday is evidenced by the following letter, received by the president of this institution from the distinguished pianist,Leopold Godowsky:

Berlin, March 1, 1904My dear Mr. Hattstaedt,

Having just returned from Austria, I hasten to comply withyour request in suggesting to you a leading pianist and teacherfor the American Conservatory. Of such as would be capable toaccept the position and possess the ability to fill it with honor tothemselves, to your institution and to me, I know of none moresuitable than Mr. Heniot Levy. Mr. Levy is a pianist of unusualattainments and an exceedingly gifted composer and teacher.He enjoys an excellent reputation in Berlin and no less a manthan Prof. Joseph Joachim gladly conducted his compositions inBerlin. He possesses a very large repertoire and would be anotable acquisition to the pianistic element of Chicago.

Trusting that you may succeed in bringing Mr. Levy toyour city and wishing you every success, believe me,

Very sincerely yours,

Leopold Godowsky

My maternal grandfather, Heniot Levy, (b. Warsaw, Poland,19 July 1879 - d. 16 June 1945), had first come to the UnitedStates in 1890 with his parents, Gustave and Maria, butreturned to study in Berlin. He made his debut there with theBerlin Philharmonic in 1899, subsequently touring Germanyand then, for a time living in Norway, he performed throughout Scandinavia; his very successful London debut, at the WigmoreHall, was in 1922.

His marriage to Ida Taterka1 of Breslau occurred in Berlinin 1897, and the birth of his son, Hans, in 1900, not long afterwhich he moved with his family to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for ashort period of time, performing the duties of organist at theEpiscopal Cathedral in that city. Mildred, my mother, was born there in 1904 before the Levys, following the Godowsky

22

recommendation, moved to Chicago. By 1915, my grandfatherhad a well-established reputation as a pianist recitalist, composer and teacher, eventually becoming head of the pianodepartment and co-director of the American Conservatory in1930. Among his orchestral appearances are those with theChicago2 and Minneapolis Symphonies, as well as chamber performances with the Kneisel Quartet.

Although he never recorded any 78s, in the mid-1920s hemade ten piano rolls for the American branch of Welte-Mignon.One of my favorite illustrations is an advertisement for thatcompany that appeared in Etude magazine during this period,showing my grandfather seated in an armchair, hearing one ofhis rolls being played by a reproducing piano.

His reputation in Chicago was on the same level of musicalprominence as that of Rudolf Ganz (who was the head of therival piano department of Chicago Musical College, now part ofRoosevelt University and from 1940 its Director), and the Levyhome was often a gathering place for visiting international performers3 and the city’s musical establishment, even including critics. Such gatherings were lovingly catered to bymy grandmother, whose social sense was second to none.Among these invitees, certainly, was Leopold Godowsky, whohad become a family friend, as may be seen in the seven extantletters bequeathed to me by my mother. Their contents largelyhave less to do with musical than family matters - that plus histravels. The majority were written to my grandmother, Ida, butthere is also one to my uncle, Hans, who was working in preparation for a 1925 piano recital in Chicago; Godowsky’spractice suggestions for the few days preceding that concert arerevealing. Equally entertaining are Godowsky’s 1929 remarksto Hans about his visit to Majorca and reference to “that dreadful woman, George Sand.”

My mother’s brother, Hans Levy Heniot, had studied withhis father and, probably to avoid the conflict of competition(possibly for semitic reasons as well), took Heniot as his ownlast name early on. He had made his debut as a pianist in Berlinin 1924, his London one occurring in 1931. As a composer, hisViolin Sonata in G Minor, Op. 1, was published by Breitkopfand Hartel in 1924, and in 1928 he won top prize, $1000, in acompetition sponsored by the Paderewski Fund for Americancomposers for his orchestral piece, A Mountain Legend. HansHeniot studied conducting at the Curtis Institute with FritzReiner, and during the next two decades conducted orchestrasin Vienna, Berlin, Bratislava, Prague, Moscow, Havana andBuenos Aires.

Starting in 1940, he was for five seasons the conductor ofthe reconstituted Utah State Symphony Orchestra, prior to itsbecoming the Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel. Following his stint as a bandmaster in the army during WorldWar II, he conducted in New York, Denver, Seattle, Chicago’sGrant Park and in Evanston (where, until shortly before hisdeath in 1960, he was the director of the Evanston CivicOrchestra). Following the death of my grandfather, my uncletook over his piano class at the American Conservatory in 1948.

The Godowsky-Levy letters are not many, but they doreveal a warm personal relationship with the Levy family4,especially to the mater familias and a son whose talent wasalready burgeoning. They also expose a very human side to thepianist, as well as a remarkable command of English. Indeed,they show a handwriting whose penmanship presents no prob-lems of legibility, even surprisingly so in those months that followed his severe, incapacitating stroke of 17 June 1930,while in the midst of an exhausting London recording session.

Hotel AnsoniaBroadway, Seventy-Third

and Seventy-Fourth StreetsNew York

June 23, 1925My dear Hans,

Your ears must have been ringing from morning to night -we spoke so often of you. I can well imagine what a sacrifice itwas for you to have your mother away from you for so manydays, but what is one man’s loss is another’s gain. We enjoyedyour mother’s company as much as you missed her’s. Can Isay more? Your mother is a good and charming woman,deserving all the love and devotion you lavish upon her. Inyour case, one deserves the other.

I wish I could be present at your recital on July first. I mayvisit your beautiful city in the middle of July. I know you mustbe working intensely on your recital program. I would adviseyou to study each day less and not play at all one or two daysbefore the event. Wishing you the greatest success possible, Iam. With heartiest greetings,

Most faithfully yours, Leopold Godowsky

Hotel AnsoniaBroadway, Seventy-Third

and Seventy-Fourth StreetsNew York

July 3, 1925

My dear Ida:

Your letter received a real welcome. We were delighted tohear from you and glad you are all well and happy. I cannotthank enough for your two wonderful fly swatters, which I amgoing to use with temperament and a firm touch. Frieda5 isgetting stronger gradually, her neuritis being still painful, but itseems to me less unendurable. Frieda is reluctant in admittingit - she has to give three knocks on wood every time the subjectis mentioned. She still has bad nights, but somewhat less sothan before. Our girl left us today, we have to hunt for anotherwild beast6. My health is in about the same state of mediocrityas it had been since my last visit to Chicago. Abdominal dis-comfort, short breath, fast pulse and palpitations of the heart areamong the things that make my life interesting. I intend tocome to your city in about a fortnight, to consult my “leibarzt,”7

Dr. Gruskin and see my friends, among whom you and yourfamily occupy a leading place. I hope your husband and Hanshave regained their equilibrium since your return. Give mylove to them and keep a good share of it for yourself.

Your friend Leopold.

Ida and Heniot Levy (early 1940’s)Photo Igor Kipnis Collection

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[postscript on top of letterhead:}

Did Hans play on the 1st of July? If so, how did it go?Please write me fully. I was from Sunday to Thursday in Meriden [Connecticut] and Boston. I recorded fourteen piecesand played twenty-five times.8 Hard work!

[postcard, Bad Gastein, Austria. Hotel Kaiserdorf]July 12 - 1926

Dear Ida!

Many thanks for your dear sweet letter. I am here withPeter and Mariechen L. You know how I love being with them.I feel tired after my Carslbad cure. The weather here is justawful[,] nothing but rain and very cold. I never hear from Vanita or Dagmar9. I think they don’t care much - Affectionate-ly,

Your Leopold GodowskyLove to Heniot[postscript, written upside down in available space]: Write

me soon again

Hotel RoyalNice

April 12th 1929My dear Hans:

I hope that you and your parents received my postcardsfrom Mallorca. I sent you one from the monastery ofValldemosa, where Chopin and that dreadful woman, GeorgeSand, lived a number of weeks in 1839. The monastery is mostbeautifully situated. It was very interesting to me. I went therea few times. The island of Mallorca is one of the most beautifulspots in the world. Palma, which is the capital of the BalearicIsles, is a delightfully picturesque town of 90,000 souls. Thepeople of the island are very honest, clean and hospitable. Thescenic magnificence surpassed most other famous sights.

Although I had no piano during the almost four weeks ofour stay at Palma, I have succeeded in finishing a RococoSuite,10 which I have composed for the left hand alone. TheSuite consists of eight numbers, three of which I have written atPalma. The eight pieces are: Allemande, Courante, Gavottewith Musette, Sarabande, Bourree with Musette, Sicilienne,Menuet and Gigue.

I consider the entire suite as being one of my best efforts,whatever that may mean. I have finished in all twenty compositions for the left hand alone; three I have started. Therewill be in all thirty numbers. I know that you will like some ofthem! How are your creative efforts progressing? I am reallyproud that you won the Paderewski prize.

I have been quite ill, but I feel now [sic] much better.There was a time when I believed that my days were counted.Mrs. G and Daggy11 had the grippe at the same time, so you canimagine how jolly we were. We expect to remain on the Riv-iera about ten days longer. We will return to Paris either fromhere, or - we may surprise ourselves and our friends by makingan excursion of about six days to - well, you will get a postcardfrom this mysterious place. We all send our love to you andyour dear parents - and Mr. and Mrs. Kipnis.

Your devoted old friendL Godowsky

Sanatorium GroedelBad Nauheim, [Germany]

October 13th 1930

My dear, good Ida:

I have not written toyou earlier12 because writing is for me a greateffort. I am better than at“Mon Repos”, but still farfrom well. All my doctorsassure me that I will recover completely, and Iassume that I have tobelieve them, although myimprovement is almostimperceptible.

Frieda and Dagmar aretaking also the Nauheimcure. We all expect to staytill the 31st of this month,when the Sanatorium closesfor the Winter. We expectimpatiently Leo13, whoarrives on the Columbus, inBremen, on Thursday next,and will at once come here. He just signed a contract with Eastman Kodak Company. His position he assumes already in November, so he must return ina few weeks. Frieda and I want to sail with him. Why don’tyou wait and sail with us at the same time? Please decide andwrite us about it? It would be so much fun.

We all send you best love.DevotedlyLeopold

Sanatorium GroedelBad Nauheim, [Germany]

October 13, 1930

Dear friends:

Before your departure for Amerika [sic], I wish to say “bonvoyage” and good luck to you both, and congratulate you mostheartily once more upon the advent of such a beautiful son14. Ionly hope and wish that the darling boy will be like his grandfather and his father in character and talent. If it were agirl, I could not wish her anything better than to follow in thefootsteps of your beloved and clever mother and charming self.It is still difficult for me to write, and although I have been illfour month [sic], I am now far from well.

I hope that I will be able to see you this winter in America.With love,Your devotedGodowsky

Hans Levy HeniotPhoto Igor Kipnis Collection

24

Hotel “Der Furstenhof”Berlin W.9

am Potsdamer PlatzMarch 14th 1931

My dear friend Ida:

Allow me to thank you for your sweet letter and cable.You never forget my birthday and you never miss any occasionto show me or Frieda your devotion.

We stayed with Mrs. Landeker much longer than we everanticipated. The poor woman feels so lonely that we hadn’t theheart to leave her, though the whole atmosphere at her house isgloomy to the extreme and saddens our already sad enough disposition. We had to promise her to remain with her till thelast dinner she will give this season, on the occasion of the lastBruno Walter concert at the Philharmonie. The dinner will takeplace on the 23rd, and on the 24th Frieda and I will go for oneweek to Vienna and then straight to Paris. Frieda and Dagmarwill stay in Paris, while I go to America at the end of April, toremain there two or three months. I then intend to return toParis for the Summer, or part thereof. Paris will have a mostwonderful colonial exposition. It will be a universal colonialexhibition, more interesting than a general exhibition. It willhave our special interest, having travelled all over the world andtherefore being more apt to enjoy the peculiarities of the nativesand their arts.

I will go for a thorough examination to the Mayos, atRochester, Minn. On the occasion I will come to Chicago andstay there for some time. I am looking forward to seeing youand your family. I am sorry to have to leave Berlin before thearrival of Mildred, Mr. Kipnis, and their baby.

We go to concerts which we believe would interest us, butmost of the time we are sorely disappointed. Occasionally wego to a talkie’ seldom to a legitimate theatre, as Mrs. Landekerdoes not care to go out and resents when we go without her.She does not understand English hospitality, where the guestsare left alone and allowed to act as they feel.

I am gradually, though at a snail’s pace or slower, gettingbetter. I have a long and tedious road to travel to reach the stateof health.

We all wish you, Heniot, and Hans, as well as the Kipnises,perfect health and happiness.

Your “old” and devoted friend,

Leopold

Footnotes1. Breslau-born Ida Taterka, who died in 1944, studied

violin as a child and at one point was taken to Berlin to auditionfor Joseph Joachim. The family story has it that the renownedviolinist responded, “Better, young lady, you should marry.”

2. The archives of the Chicago Symphony indicate thatHeniot Levy performed Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto on 10and 11 March 1911, with Frederick Stock conducting theTheodore Thomas Orchestra.

3. It was at one of the Levy soirees in 1924 that Ida intro-duced her daughter, Mildred, to a guest who was to become myfather. Alexander Kipnis at that time was a principal bass-bari-tone with Chicago’s Civic Opera (between 1923-32) and an eli-gible bachelor of thirty-three. Early in 1925, Ida’s sister, Regi-na, was taken to the new Chicago production of Debussy’s Pel-leas et Melisande with Mary Garden as Melisande and myfather as the ancient King Arkel, complete with long beard.“Well, he certainly has a beautiful voice,” she remarked, “butisn’t he a little old for Mildred?”

4. Godowsky’s arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach’sunaccompanied Violin Partita in B Minor, “very freely tran-scribed and adapted for pianoforte,” was composed during a FarEast trip at the end of 1922 and the early months of 1923. Thededication in some editions was to Heniot Levy, in others toSergei Rachmaninoff. His 15 October 1926, transcription ofSchubert’s Love’s Message (Liebesbotschaft) was dedicated toHans Heniot.

5. Frieda Saxe Godowsky, who died in 1933, marriedLeopold Godowsky in 1891.

6. Presumably a household servant.7. Physician, internist.8. In 1925 Godowsky signed a contract with Artrio-

Angelus, whose studios were in Meriden, Connecticut, torecord a series of piano rolls, notable of his own compositionsand transcriptions; it is not known whether any of the educa-tionally-intended series of 46 four-hand Miniatures (42 ofwhich were completed) were actually released [Nicholas, Jere-my: Godowsky - The Pianists’ Pianist. Northumberland, GreatBritain: APR, 1989, p. 211].

9. Vanita (1892-1961) was the eldest daughter of LeopoldGodowsky and the wife of David Saperton, pianist and ateacher at the Curtis Institute. The younger daughter, Dagmar(1898-1976), reminisced entertainingly about her father, herown colorful life as a Hollywood silent screen vamp, hernotable affairs (Rubinstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Igor Stravin-sky among others), and socialite activities in her autobiography,First Person Plural - The Lives of Dagmar Godowsky [NewYork: The Viking Press, 1958].

10. The Suite for Left Hand Alone was published in 1930by G. Schirmer and dedicated to Isidor Philipp.

11. Dagmar.12. written four months after his June 17, 1930 stroke.

Godowsky had previously been sent to recuperate at the Swisssanatorium, “Mon Repos”, in Mont Pelerin.

13. Godowsky’s older son, Leo (1900-1983), studied vio-lin with, among others, Franz Kneisel in New York, and at onetime played in the first violin section of the San Francisco Sym-phony. He was co-inventor along with Leopold Mannes of theKodachrome process. His son, Leopold III, is a composer andpianist, as well as the nephew of George Gershwin.

14. Written to Mildred Kipnis in Berlin, following theSept. 27, 1930 birth of the couple’s son, Igor.

Celebrated the world over for his unrivalledability to effortlessly disentangle music of

hair-raising polyphonic complexity, Canadian piano wizard, Marc-Andre Hamelin, recentlyconquered that summit of pianistic derring-

do, the Chopin-Godowsky Studies, and thankfully lived to tell the tale, in conversation with Donald Manildi

CONQUERING EVERESTDM: Can you recall when you first encountered the

published scores to the Chopin-Godowsky Studies? What wasyour reaction?

MAH: I was actually a very young kid - this would havebeen around 1969, when I was eight years old. My father hadlong been fascinated by hearing about this music, and he had

25

ordered the Lienau reprint ofall five volumes. I remember sitting with him, just turningthe pages, and beingabsolutely dumbfounded anddelightfully surprised by whatwe saw. Even at that age Iwas already familiar with theoriginal Chopin Etudes, so Idid have something to basemy wonderment on.

DM: How long did it takebefore you began delving intothe Studies at the piano?

MAH: I don’t think I daredto attempt them before Ireached my late teens. I’mnot sure I would have been allowed to do them! Iprobably felt it was moreimportant to work on morebasic repertoire first, partly

because of my teachers. But once I started to learn them, theinitial fascination never, never went away.

DM: These Studies have acquired a near-legendary repu-tation for their difficulty, yet they certainly could not be calledflashy display pieces. What is the exact nature of their chal-lenges, both technical and musical?

MAH: I think that on the technical level - technique meaning, of course, not just mechanics but everything it takesto realize your art - above everything else these pieces are greatmental challenges. They require the performer to have as nim-ble a musical brain as possible. That entails, among otherthings, a complete colouristic understanding of the instrumentas well as absolute independence of the fingers. They alsodemand great agility and a total geographical knowledge of thekeyboard. From the musical standpoint it should be clear toanyone looking at the scores that Godowsky had only the lofti-est musical aims in mind. I see no reason why these studiesshould not have the same musical value as their models - theChopin originals. In fact I think it’s the pianist’s duty to striveto recreate the spirit of the original Etudes as much as possible,and in the vast majority of cases that goal is attainable.

DM: Can you comment on Godowsky’s obsessive interestin the left hand, since twenty-two of the Studies are written forthe left hand alone?

MAH: I think that’s probably a reflection of the fact thatpiano literature in general, and certainly the original ChopinEtude, are very much right-hand oriented. I sense thatGodowsky felt a certain pedagogical duty in educating the lefthand, so he gave that hand a very prominent role in the Studies- and not just in those for left hand alone, I might add. In manyof the two-handed studies, the respective roles of the two handsare inverted. I should point out that these are not simplymechanical or academic inversions. Godowsky was much moreinterested in creating viable musical experience, just asChopin’s originals are. He had a very precise, very refinedknowledge of harmony and part-writing, where everythingmelds into a harmonious whole.

DM: Godowsky has marked his scores in meticulousdetail, especially with regard to fingerings. Do you find his fingerings a worthwhile model, or do you often depart from hissuggestions?

MAH: Basically I find my own fingerings first, and if Iencounter a problem where the passage doesn’t feel right I’llthen look at his. I do think that since Godowsky devoted somuch attention to fingerings, we owe it to him to at least consider his ideas. Very often I discovered that my fingeringsdid coincide with his - sometimes because there was no otherchoice! One should remember, however, that Godowsky’s fingerings were made by someone with a small hand, and theydo not always fit a large hand which may offer more possibilities. Still, his fingerings are often innovative and evenrevolutionary.

DM: During the years you’ve been working on the Studies, have you found particular ones that were especiallystubborn to conquer?

MAH: Sure - especially the ones I learned last! Several ofthe left-hand ones, like Nos. 30 and 40, are very awkwardindeed. In No. 46, one of the very last that I learned, the question of articulation becomes horribly complex, since onehand carries several different voices, all of which have to bearticulated differently.

DM: You mention in your booklet notes the frequent misconception that Godowsky was supposedly trying to“improve” on the original Chopin Etudes. What is yourresponse to this sort of misguided criticism?

MAH: I’ve found that these are some of the same peoplewho would never attack Rachmaninoff, for instance, for his setof Variations, Op. 22, on Chopin’s C minor Prelude. To me,there is no real difference between the Rachmaninoff Variationsand Godowsky’s Studies, because each of the studies is actuallya variation on the original, altering one or more of its parameters. I also see no difference between what he did andBeethoven’s 33 Variations on Diabelli’s Waltz. Then there’s thecase of Brahms, who transcribed Chopin’s Op. 25 No. 2 intodouble notes. Was he ever criticized for that? I don’t think so.But Brahms is a great composer and so is Rachmaninoff, whilethe critics still treat Godowsky as a minor figure, which in asense I don’t think is right.

DM: On your recital programmes you’ve never offeredmore than six or seven of the Studies at a time, and you suggestto listeners to the CDs that it is not really advisable to try tohear too many at once. Why is that?

MAH: Because they’re very rich in texture and theyrequire quite active listening, I think, if one is to fully appreciate their beauties. As far as my own recital performances go, I’d rather play a few of them well then manyof them not so well. I also don’t want to give the impression ofa marathon, and prefer to put the studies in the context of otherareas of the repertoire - I think they are served better in thatway. This is not to denigrate those players who have givencomplete recitals of the Studies - if it works for certain peoplethat’s fine; it just doesn’t’ happen to be my way.

DM: Its’ known that beyond the grand total of fifty-fourpublished Studies, Godowsky also wrote or at least planned anumber of others, including a combination of all three A minorChopin Etudes into one piece. What do you think actually happened with these intriguing but never-seen additional Studies?

MAH: I personally have no idea, and the bottom line isthat nobody really knows for sure. We do know that severalmore were announced, since we find mention of them on theback covers of the early editions. Godowsky may have had hisown reasons - certainly in the period between 1914 [when thelast Study appeared] and his death in 1938, he could have published more if he wished.

Marc-Andre HamelinPhoto Simon Perry/Hyperion

26

DM: Perhaps he felt that after completing fifty-fourpieces, he had gone as far as he was able with this particularkind of project?

MAH: That’s probably true. Remember also thatGodowsky was the victim of much criticism for these works,and that may have discouraged him.

DM: Could we talk about some of the relatively fewpianists who preceded you as advocates for the Studies? Forinstance, David Saperton, who was Godowsky’s son-in-law, andJorge Bolet?

MAH: Both have done really admirable things with theStudies. In the case of Bolet, I might wish for more drive, moreinvolvement, although his piano tone is always gorgeous - thatwas really one of his hallmarks. As for Saperton, his achieve-ment both pianistically and musically is very impressive butsometimes I sense a certain anger or aggression - even anxiety -in his playing. I hasten to add, though, that my own take onthese Studies is not the only one by any means, and I certainlywelcome other interpretations.

DM: Looking beyond the fifty-four Studies, how would youassess Godowsky’s position among composers for the piano?With more recordings and more frequent performances of hismusic, can we now say that Godowsky’s time has come?

MAH: When you consider that the 20th century was sofull of towering figures - Scriabin, Bartok, Prokofiev, Messiaen,and so forth - Godowsky’s production does somewhat pale incomparison. But if we take his works for what they are, theycan be extremely fulfilling. One might wish that Godowskyhad not espoused the salon genre quite as much as he did - itwould have been nice to have more works like the Sonata in EMinor come out of his pen. Even though the Sonata is not acompletely successful work in my opinion, it at least points towhat he might have done with the form. But certainly the betterrecordings have done much to further out appreciation ofGodowsky, and I hope that the long-standing project of the publisher Carl Fischer to reprint most of his works finallycomes to fruition. This would mean, for instance, that works asdiverse as the Passacaglia and the Miniatures for four handswould become much more accessible to pianists.

Godowsky Studies on Chopin’s Etudes.

Marc-Andre Hamelin (pf).

Hyperion Full price CDA67411/2

(two disc: 153 minutes: DDD).

I have to be careful not to develop the habit of greetingevery Marc-Andre Hamelin releasewith the same excited adjectives - although Hamelinhardly makes it easy for reviewers toremain calm. The virtuosity is breath-taking, of course, but that is not thepoint: it is that Hamelin reaches waybeyond the difficulties erected by thenotes themselves to attend to theshaping of the music itself. The joltof excitement I felt with the first barsof his recording of the Alkan Grande

Sonate (on Hyperion CDA66794) was because the music, atlast, was articulate; the speed itself was almost irrelevant,though it was also astonishing. So it proves with Hamelin’srecording of Godowsky’s 53 Studies on Chopin’s Etudes: ofcourse it is exciting - only a fool would deny the thrill of suchcommanding prestidigitation - but the excitement increasesonce you have listened past the hair-raising difficultiesGodowsky throws in front of his pianist and concentrate on what the music is doing. The true virtuositycomes in the minimizing of any sense of effort, in projectingindividual melodic lines in a polyphonic texture of startlingrichness and complexity.

An extensive quote from Godowsky cited in the substantialbooklet - an introductory essay by Jeremy Nicholas is followedby a detailed commentary from Hamelin himself - reveals howhis work with the Chopin Etudes began. Godowsky had waxedso lyrical about the World’s Fair in Chicago that his brother-in-law and financee decided to visit it - but on the way there thecouple was killed in a railway disaster. Godowsky, who hadbeen practicing Chopin Op. 25, No. 6, at the time, sat down atthe piano and began to experiment, just to take his mind off theterrible news. Having devised a new fingering, he transposedthe study to the left hand and found it fitted perfectly. Furtherexperiments with left-hand transpositions (22 of these 53 studies are for left-hand alone) led to differing versions, combinations, alternative combinations, in an astonishingly richexploration of the further musicological endeavors I respectenormously and whose efforts over the years deserve deep gratitude for their enrichment of the world we live in. ButSpada qua pianist is someone whose choice of repertoire Iadmire more than the way he plays it - his performances arereliable rather than insightful, the technique being enough tocope with the hurdles but not to transcend them. As a result, therhythms in these Bach transcriptions plod and the sense of lineis sacrificed to the small-town concerns of getting the notesright; the drama of individual keyboard moments is lost, as isthe dramaturgy, the wider ebb and flow, of each piece as awhole. It’s not inadequate or careless playing, but it’s unimaginative.

If Spada hasn’t done his composite composer the best offavors, he in turn has been ill served by his recording engineers:the piano tone is shallow and brittle, with no sense of aural perspective - nor does it sound as if he is playing the bestinstrument in the world. That’s not the fault of arts, the Germanlabel which has released these two CDs: the recordings weremade in Rome in 1988 and initially published on the Frequenzlabel, which Arts have taken over in part.

We can clear up here a spot of potential confusion in thenumbering of the chorale preludes, occasioned by the fact thatBusoni’s transcription were published before BWV numbers(from Wolfgang Schmieder’s Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, 1950)were applied to his music. Spada’s packaging lists the firstchorale prelude transcribed by Busoni, Komm, Gott, Schopfer,heiliger Geist, as BWV631; in fact, it’s BWV667 (BWV631 isan early and shorter version of the same piece). And though thetwo standard biographies of Busoni in English (E.J. Dent’s Ferruccio Busoni, OUP, 1933, and Antony Beaumont’s Busonithe Composer, Faber, 1985) list ten chorale preludes, you’ll seeonly nine listed above. That’s because Busoni treated two versions of Durch Adams Fall, BWV637 and 705, but num-bered them 7a and 7b; they are performed here without a break.And to cap it all, BWV705 is now held to be of doubtfulauthenticity.

A curate’s egg, then - it’s good to have all Busoni’s Bachtranscriptions in one place, but they deserved better than this.

Martin Anderson

CCDD RREEVVIIEEWW

27

“The social importance of the piano,” said Thalberg, in hisremarks to the musical jury of the London Exhibition of 1851,“is, beyond all question, far greater than that of any other instrument of music. One of the most marked changes in thehabits of society, as civilization advances, is with respect to thecharacter of its amusements. Formerly nearly all such amusements were away from home and in public’ now, with themore educated portion of society, the greatest part is at homeand within the family circle, music on the piano constituting thegreatest portion of it. In the most fashionable circles of citiesprivate concerts increase year by year, and in them the piano isthe principal feature. Many a man engaged in commercial andother active pursuits finds the chief charm of his drawing roomin the intellectual enjoyment afforded by the piano. In manyparts of Europe this instrument is the greatest solace of the studious and the solitary. Even steam and sailing vessels forpassengers on long voyages are now obliged, by the fixedhabits of society, to be furnished with pianofortes, thus transfer-ring to the ocean itself something of the character of homeenjoyments. By the use of the piano many who never visit the

opera or the concerts become thoroughly acquainted with thechoicest dramatic and orchestral compositions. This influenceof the piano is not confined to them, but extends to all classes;and while considerable towns have often no orchestra, families possess the best possible substitute, making them familiar withthe finest composition. The study of such compositions, andthe application necessary for their proper execution, may be andought to be made the means of greatly improving the generaleducation, habits, and tastes of piano students, and thus exertingan elevating influence in addition to that refined and elegantpleasure which it directly dispenses.”

This just tribute to the piano may be set against the tortureinflicted by soulless thrumming upon it by girls whose parentshave selected it as what they shall “take,” in obedience to thatdictum of fashion that no female child must reach the age ofmatrimony without possessing an “accomplishment” wherewithto exhibit to the casual visitor. Accomplished executants arefew; those who play “a little,” but have expression and touch,are fewer; while the thrummers are a host. The usual course is

unwilling practice at boarding school or at home until marriage;then housekeeping closes the piano lid. Judged by any artisticstandard, or by the hard rule of worldly sense, the waste in allthis is enormous; yet pleasure and culture are relative, and outof “Bonnie Doon,” “Money Musk, “the “Virginia Reel,” andother of “mother’s tunes,” people who can not distinguish atuned from an untuned instrument may perhaps derive a satisfaction, unlike that of the ambitious manna who is the business support of the piano-maker, which makes the investment profitable.

The four largest cities of the United States have about 125piano-makers, and the aggregate number of pianos annuallyproduced is about 30,000; their price to the public ranges from$150 to $1500 each, aggregating, perhaps, ten or twelve millions of dollars. In 1852 the 180 English makers were producing 1500 grands, 1500 squares, and 20,000 uprights; butthe English prices are lower than the American, the best grands,costing $750, the squares $175 to $250, the ordinary uprights$225 to $350. These prices are less than one-half of those offirst-class American instruments; but the American piano isheavier and more thorough in construction, better able to resistclimatic changes, and is the best in the world.

What becomes of all the pianos? Strangely enough, themakers all appear to thrive: failures among them are rare, and it is not uncommon for them in the dullest of times to report themselves unable to keep up with their orders. Everyconcert hall and steam-ship must have a piano; every hotel atleast one; every public school must have several; the youngladies’ “institute” of the day jingles with them, sometimes usingas many as thirty; and the piano has come to be so establishedan article of furniture in private parlors that the lack of itattracts notice, and often elicits apology as well. The melodiouslife of the instrument is, perhaps, five to twenty years, according to quality and usage. Its sounding life may be twicethat time, the piano of today greatly surpassing in tenacity itspredecessor of twenty years ago. From the first downward step,when it becomes “second-hand,” it begins the secondary existence of going out on hire, the number constantly thus “out”in New York City alone being three or four thousand. Thusused, played tenderly by those whom hard poverty restricts tothis imperfect gratification of their musical desires, or cruellythumped by others whose earthy souls have no music in them,no vivid imagination is needed to see the unhappy wanderinginstrument - a victim to players, owners, and cartmen - bemoaning the memory of its earlier and more artistic days.Old pianos can not disappear in crevices, as pins and needlesdo; their natural destination is the lumber-room and garret,where dust and cobwebs and memories gather upon them, anddreamy children steal to them and softly play imaginarymelodies. Possibly the time may come when the rage for theantique, now expending itself upon pottery, will bring out theold pianos and give them market value, their unlikeness to theinstruments then in use being sufficient to give them novelty -for novelty is not newness but unfamiliarity.

The germ of the piano, as of all other stringed instruments,was the first use of a stretched string to produce a sonorousvibration, and all that essentially distinguishes one from anotherthe members of the family of stringed instruments is the methodof setting the string in vibration. One legend relates that the

THE PIANO AND ITS ANTECEDENTS- Julius Wilcox -

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,Harper and Brothers, New York Volume 58, Number 348, May 1879

The piano on the frontier - officers’ quarters on the upper Missouri.

Dulcimer.

Clalliclwrd-

Clavicitheriwn.

Squire of Lowe Degre" - a romannt of the fifteenth century - weare told that

"There was' myrth and melody,With harp, getron, and saultry,With rote, ribible, and clokarde,With pypes, organs, and bumbarde,With other minstrels them amonge,With sytolphe and with sentry songe,With fydle, recorde, and dowcemere,With trompette, and with clarion clere,With dulcet pypes of many cordes."

Next came the class of keyboard instruments whichpreceded the piano. The elavicitherium, or keyed eithara,appearing about the year 1300, was a box with a cover. It hadcatgut strings, andkeys which simplylifted the plectra forstriking the strings.The clavichord, alsocalled monochord andclarichord, had brassstrings, which werestruck by a brasswedge called atangent; this wedgepartly lifted thestring, thus formingpractically a secondbridge so long as thekey was held down.Staccato passageswere well rendered byit; and by furtherdepressing the keyafter the blow hadbeen struck thetangent could be madeto further lift thestring, thus tighteningit and raising itspitch, so as to giv,egreater prominence tothe melody. Mozartcarried a clavichord aspart of his baggage,and Bach - whose"well-tempered clavichord" is a familiar title - preferred it tothe piano, which he did not live to see developed. One biogra­pher says that "he found it the most convenient for the expres­sion of his most refined thoughts."

Next came - immediately preceding the piano - thevirginal, the spinet, and the harpsichord. They had brasssaings, but the plectra were quills fastened in pieces of woodcalled jacks, this latter name being still retained in the piano"action." The movement of the quill was a nibbing of thestring; it rose up past the string, freeing it, and there remaineduntil taking the finger from the key allowed it to drop. Thespinet differed little from the virginal. The harpsichord was of____larger size, and sometimes had two keyboards. The namelvirginal is associated by some with hymns to the Virgin, lfy'-;others it is supposed to have been given in compliment to­Queen Elizabeth. At least the instrument was very popular inEngland. Henry VIII delighted in playing it. His daughters

Eg)'fJtiall Lyre.

. , .....dllOllj I"OXH$ OP llr.yl'1'I .....'1 IlAJ:n (ltf)~ILLIIU).

l.ttd 3. 'PItrn\ble Harpe ror ..mll~ QM. t, Orcllrdr..l lbrp. 4. Yrl)m palatiD' at Tbcl.lcs, oa ~b 01 RAmnc:1 111..<l;.~md by Jamd Bn)OC.

n,lANCUVlII; W"R"S.

J. t~rt~:~~~~,t~Ut~[W:lJ~~tcT~~.\'Pc:~~~~I({~~ml'~)r.~~l~'r~;~l,.[~:~i:t;1::;rJ":-:~~~'

Various Jon1ls ofEgyptill haJps (Rosellilli).

god Mercury, walking along the Nile after its subsidence,discovered the musical string by hitting his foot against theshell of a dead tortoise across which several filaments ofcartilage had dried and stretched in the sun. Another legendrefers the invention to the bow of Apollo, and this seems moreprobable, for whoever first drew the bow could not have failedto notice the twang of the string. The ancients had a variety ofsimple stringed instruments. Mural paintings in a Thebansepulcher, supposed to be that of Rameses Ill, show elaborateharps, which differ in shape from those of today chiefly inlacking the front pillar; and harps have been found whosecatgut strings were still capable of producing sound after threethousand years of darkness and silence.

The early lyre is supposed to have differed from the harp inhaving its saings carried over a bridge - a mode of constructionstill followed. These instruments were played either with thefingers "a-pick-in' on de string," or with the plectrum; this wassometimes a small piece of bone, held in the fingers, and usedto snap the string, and sometimes a short stick like a diminutivedrumstick, with which the strings were struck. The cithara wasa small instrument shaped like a large P, with ten strings acrossthe oval part, tuned by pegs at the left. The psaltelium differedlittle from this except in its shape, which was either square ortriangular. Inmanuscripts dat­ing from theninth to theeleventh cen­turies David isalways figured asplaying on thesquare psalteri­um, but laterthan the twelfthcentury as play­ing onthe harp. Thepsaltery, verypopular duringthe Middle Ages, was a box having the strings stretched acrossit, and as it contained the principle of the sounding board, itwas a decided advance. The dulcimer was similar, butl~ger, both instruments being played with the plectra. Theseancient inStruments are still perpetuated in the little toy for chil­dren, sometimes made with a keyboard in imitation of thepiano, in which strips of glass or sonorous metal are struck withlittle hammers, producing a very melodious note. In "The

28

Harpsichord.

to twenty-six;· he never spent more than five shillings a quarterto provide strings, although he could imagine that those whowould be extravagant could spend as much as would keep sev­eral horses, with riders. He told thus how to preserve the lute,and discoursed about changes of fashions: "And that you mayknow how to shelter your lute in the worst of Illinois weathers(which is moist), you shall do well, ever when you Lay it by inthe daytime, to put It into a Bed that is constantly used, betweenthe Rug and Blanket; but never between the Sheets, becausethey may be moist with Sweat, etc. This is the most absoluteand best place to keep it always, by which doing you will findmany Great Conveniences ... Therefore, a Bed will securefrom all These Inconveniences, and keep your Glew as Hard asGlass and all safe and sure; only to be excepted, that no Personbe so inconsiderate as to Tumble down upon the Bed whilst theLute is there, for I have known several Good Lutes spoiled withsuch a Trick.

"I can not understandhow Arts and Sciencesshould be subject unto anysuch Plantastical, Giddy,or Inconsiderate ToyishConceits as ever to be saidto be in Fashion or out ofFashion. I remember therewas a Fashion not manyyears since for Women intheir Apparel to be so Pentup by the Straitness and "1I<OlN"_

Stiffness of their Gown- v· . IShoulder-Sleeves that they lrgma.could not so much as Scratch their Heads for the NecessaryRemove of a Biting Louse, nor Elevate their arms scarcely tofeed Handsomely, nor Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table, but theirwhole Body must needs Bend toward the Dish. This mustneeds be concluded by Reason a most Unreasonable andInconvenient Fashion."

The leading instrument in the last century was theharpsichord. Its compass was extended to five octaves. Itsshape was almost exactly that of the grand piano. Manyingenious makers devoted themselves to it, adding sets of wires,sets of quills, duplicate keyboards, complicated devices forimitating orchestral instruments. It reached the utmostdevelopment possible, while missing the discovery of a betterimplement than the crow quill and jack. Frederick the Greathad one made for him in London at a cost of two hundredguineas; its bridges, pedals, and frame were silver, its front wastortoise-shell, and its case was inlaid. A harpsichord by HansRuckers - claimed to have been Handel's, although the claim iscontested - is preserved in London. It is six feet eight incheslong, three feet high, and three wide, with two manuals of aboutfive octaves each; the case in deal, black and japanned; thesounding-board is omamented, and the lid bears inscriptions inLatin on the under-side. An old virginal, remarkable not onlyfor its unparalleled gorgeousness, but for its shape, wasmentioned in 1805 in the Gentleman's Magazine as having justbeen disposed of at public sale. Its shape indicates that it wasplaced on a table when used, or that it could have been held inthe lap. The description of it says: "The case is of cedar,covered with crimson Genoa velvet, upon which are threelocks, finely engraved; the inside of the case is lined withstrong yellow Tabby silk; the front is covered entirely withgold, having a border around the inside two and a half inchesbroad. It is five feet long, sixteen inches wide, and seven inch-

Italwn Spiner, omameted with preciolis stones, made by Annibale Dei Rosso, 1577.

Mary and Elizabeth, as well as Mary of Scotland, were playersof it, and items for repairing virginals and giving instruction onthem appeared frequently in the memoranda of royal expenses.A book alleged to have been Elizabeth's virginal book, and aninstrument alleged to have-been her virginal, are still preserved.A poem descriptive of the public entry of Queen Anne, wife ofJames VI, into Edinburgh, May 19, 1590, mentions that "violsand virginalls were their." Spenser speaks of his beloved as"playing alone careless on her heavenlie virginalls;" andShakespeare, in a sonnet, mentions "those jacks that nimbleleap to kiss the tender inward of thy hand," and of "thosedancing chips o'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait."

In appearance the virginal resembled a very small piano;sometimes it was made without legs. and a few small specimensresemble a large music box. Both the virginal and the spinetwere often richly adorned with gold, paintings, and jewels. Astory is told that Salvator Rosa, for a wager, made his oldharpsichord, not worth a seudo, worth a thousand by painting alandscape with figures on its lid. The virginal said to havebelonged to Mary of Scotland, still preserved, is of oak, inlaidwith cedar, and ornamented with gold and paintings. Thevirginal continued in use until the eighteenth century, and one

f the latest notices of it is found in the London Post of July 20,1701, that "this week a most curious pair of virginals, reckonedthe finest in England, were shipped off for the Grand Seigneur'sseraglio." So common did the instrument become that oldPepys, gossiping about the great fire in London in 1666, says:"River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good

goods swimming in thewater; and only I observedthat hardly one lighter orboat in three that had thegoods of a house in it butthat there were a pair of vir­ginals in it," the word "pair"having here no more mean­ing than "a pair of scissors."

The progress of keyedinstruments was resisted bysome whose love for han­dling the string survived.Among them was ThomasMace, "one of the clerks ofTrinity College in the Uni­versity of Cambridge," who,in a thin folio calledMusick's Monument, Lon­don, 1676, wmmly defendedthe lute and the viol. Heexplained that the reasonwhy the lute was once hardto play was that it had toofew strings - ten to fourteen- whereas it had then sixteen

29

1'1,\NO Oi" "!lOUT 11iT.

Piano ojabo/lt J777.

for a play-bill of The Beggars' Opera at the Covent GardenTheatre, May 16, announced that "at the end of Act I MissBrickler will sing a favorite song from Judith, accompanied byMr. Dibdin on a new instrument called the piano-forte." ,"Theuse of this kind of instrument," said Thalberg, "led to its' 0peculiar capabilities being thoroughly studied and appreciated, oJ -

and the composers repaid their obligation to the instrument by ­writing for it many of the finest productions of music, and bypracticing the execution of these productions to such an extentas to be able to bring them before the public with the greatestpossible eclat." Mozart, Haydn, Handel, and Beethoven wroteespecially for it; and yet, although the note of thevirginal-spinet-harpsichord was called by Dr. Burney "a scratchwith a sound at the end of it," the early piano was not muchbetter. The one on which Gluck composed his Armida, whichwas probably as good as any of the great composers of the lastcentury ever saw, was made in 1772. It was exhibited as asuggestive curiosity in the London Exposition of 1862, and wasthus described: "It was four feet and a half in length and twofeet in width, with a small square sounding board at the end; thewires were little more than threads, and the hammers consistedof a few piles of leather over the head of a horizontal jackworking on a bridge."

In his early lifean important part ofJohn Jacob Astor'sbusiness was theimportation of Lon­don pianos to NewYork. In 1800,Thomas Jefferson,in writing to hisdaughter Martha,mentioned that aPhiladelphian hadinvented "one ofthe prettiestimprovements inthe forte-pianos I have ever seen;" and he bought one for hisMonticello house. It was an upright, and Mr. Jefferson said that"he contrives to give his strings the same length as in the grandforte-piano, and fixes his three unisons to the same screw,which screw is in the direction of the strings, and thereforenever yields; it scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then for themost part the three unisons are tuned at once."

The special defects of the first pianos were the imperfect"action" and the feebleness and tinny quality of the tone. Theformer has been remedied by gradually increasing the size andweight, as well as the finish, of the moving parts. The slenderlittle wires were made thicker, and finally doubled and trebled,and the lowest ones wrapped with a layer of wire to getincreased volume of sound. Thickening the wires requireddrawing them more tightly in order to get the necessary pitch;then the wooden framework, with the utmost trussing whichcould be given to it, became too weak to bear the strain ofincreased tension. To remedy this trouble the "full iron frame"was devised, which, combined with wood, now sustains theaggregate pull of from twelve to twenty tons, and the"over-strung bass" permitted making the whole instrumentlarger and heavier. If the iron frame did not originate here - for Ipriority in respect to it is disputed - America has neverthele~'done her full share in developing the instrument.

It is not possible, within the limits of this article, to give afull description of the many processes in piano-making;

es deep, and is so lightly and delicately formed that the weightdoes not exceed twenty-four pounds. There are fifty keys, thir­ty of ebony tipped with gold, and the remaining twenty areinlaid with silver, ivory, and many kinds of rare woods, eachkey consisting of about 250 pieces. On one end are the royalarms, richly emblazoned, and on the other is a symbolic andhighly finished painting of a crowned dove with a sceptre in itsclaw, the painting being done upon a gold ground with carmine,lake, and ultramarine."

The essential features of the piano are only three: thepercussion action, the iron frame, and the overstrung bass.Many minor improvements, such as double and treble stringing,

have been added, bywhich the power andquality of tone, aswell as durability,have been wonderful­ly increased; but allthese were dependentupon the first, andwhen the hammeraction was oncedevised, the pianobecame an accom­plished fact. Simpleas that discovery

Hande/'sjavorile Harpsichord. seems, mankind wait-ed nearly two thou­

sand years for it, and the last centuries of this delay illustratehow strangely invention often works near and all around a verysimple improvement without reaching it. The original pianowas the dulcimer, which was played with the plectra; but as thewhole hand could wield only one plectrum, the keyboard wasdevised to utilize the fingers and move the plectra faster. Thuscame the clavichord, with brass "tangents" striking the stringsas already described; then the virginal or spinet, expanding intothe harpsichord, which went away from the correct idea, andused the crow quill to half strike, half rub the string; then theharpsichord-makers, with what seems inexplicable blindness,went on improving the mechanism during more than a centurywithout catching the idea of the hammer. It is not the steelstring which made the piano, for steel, brass and catgut, sepa­rately and together, had already been used in the harpsichord.

There have been three prominent claimants of the honor ofinventing the hammer - a Frenchman, a German, and an Italian.Cristofoli, the latter, is now generally admitted to have been theinventor, at Paclna, in 1710. But if Italy invented the piano, shedid nothing to develop it. Dr. Burney, in 1770, sixty yearsafterward, testified that the keyboard instruments of Italy weremuch inferior to those of Northern Europe. Said he: "Theyhave generally little octave spinets to accompany singing inprivate houses, sometimes in a triangular form, but morefrequently in the shape of an old virginal, of which the keys areso noisy and the tone so feeble that more wood is heard thanwire. I found three English harpsichords in the three principalcities of Italy, which are regarded by the Italians as so manyphenomena."

The name first given the new instrument was the hammer­harpsichord; next, its power of giving both a loud and a softnote procured it the name of forte-piano - i.e., loud-soft; thisnext changed to piano-forte. In 1762 Mozart'played upon thepiano, at the age of six, and his letters in 1777 record his greatdelight in the pianos of Stein, a maker of that day. In 1767 thepiano seems to have been introduced to the public in England,

30

31

whoever is curious to study the mechanism must visit a factory,or else examine the action when withdrawn from the case.Essentially the instrument consists of a steel wire stretchedbetween two pegs above a sounding board; a long wooden levercalled a key; another called a hammer, which is thrown upagainst the wire by a third lever actuated directly by the key,and called a jack; and a fourth lever, called a damper, whosefelt-covered head rests on the wire, except when the key ispressed. But although simple in the number of its workingparts, the piano is complex in the number of pieces which compose those parts. Tap the string with a knife blade or a bitof wood, and it will be evident that neither of those will do, andthat some peculiar implement is needed. The hammer represents more than a century’s experimenting. Its head is ofwood, covered with felt varying from about one-sixteenth toone inch in thickness, the thickest part being on the end. Tomake hammer heads, a long strip of wood is taken, as thick asthe head is to be, and as wide as the head is to be long; the edgeof this is laid in the middle of a long strip of felt, which isshaved to the proper thickness; then a powerful press forces theedges of the felt strip against the wood, and glues them fast;then the finished strip is sawn across into hammer heads. Asthe hammers diminish in size and in the thickness of coveringfrom the left to the right of the keyboard, of course one stripmakes only duplicates of one hammer head. Dampers are madein a similar way; and, all through the American rule of manufacturing is followed, to wit, to make large quantities ofeach particular part as exactly alike as possible, and then complete the work of putting the parts together.

Originally the joint of the hammer was a mere strip ofleather; but this would not answer, for the key must work notonly noiselessly, but always the same, as rapidly as the fingercan move without missing a stroke, and must respond with delicacy to both the force and the manner of the finger stroke.So each hammer has its own joint of wire, with a set screw topinch the joint to the proper tightness; every joint in hammerand damper, every pin on which the keys work, and nearlyevery place where one thing rubs another, is “bushed,” or covered with felting or leather; then the working parts are all“oiled” with that wonderful substance, plumbago, which isextraordinarily smooth, but dry, and never clogs.

The sounding board is thin, clear spruce, seasoned to theextreme of dryness. The piano must endure the American climate, which unceasingly fluctuates in moisture and temperature, the latter sometimes changing five to thirtydegrees within twenty-four hours; it must also endure the furnace and the stove; not only must it neither warp nor crack,but it must not “give,” or it is worthless. The steel wire has tostretch a little in order to sound. Tie a long piece of string fast,pull on the other end, and snap it with the fingernail; thus youwill see how a string vibrates, and that every time it passes to one side of a straight line it elongates a trifle, but is immediately pulled back by its own elasticity. If the piano wirewere rigid, only a dull thud could be produced by striking it, butas it stretches a little when it vibrates, it also gradually “runsdown” in pitch by this stretching, whether used or not. Thelower strings, being strained loosest, stand longest; the middleones, being most used - that is stretched the most by beingmade to vibrate - yield their pitch the soonest. To stand in tune,therefore, means that the slipping of the tuning pegs, thestretching of the wires, and the yielding of the framework, allcombined - whether the air, which alternately slackens andtightens the strings a little as it grows warm or cold, be one wayor another - shall not let any one of the hundred and sixty wires

make even five fewer vibrations per second than it ought. Ofcourse this result, during even a few months’ time, can beattained only approximately, but the statement shows what anexacting task of nicety and strength piano-making is. Hence allwood must be thoroughly seasoned, first for several years in theopen air, and finally by artificial heat. Under the soundingboard is the “bottom.” A solid mass of timber, and around thewhole is the case. All this wood may be said to be not onlysolid, but solidified, for gluing, well done, surpasses the naturaladhesion of the grain in solidity and tenacity. Every piece ofwood is sawed with a view to strength in the place where it is togo, and the case is “built up” of successive layers or veneers,the word “veneer,” in the piano-makers’ vocabulary, includingany wood not thicker than about three-sixteenths of an inch.The subject of warping has been thoroughly studied: whywood warps, how and for how long each kind warps, and howone warp may be made to neutralize another warp; consequent-ly the several layers - with the direction of the grain so disposedthat although each layer may warp, the result of all the warpingshall be no warp at all - are hot-glued together under heavypressure. No piece of wood is put in its place at random, butthe kinds are selected and disposed, and their grain laid in theprecise direction which experience has proved to be the best.

The product of a large factory employing, say, five hundredmen, and every advantage of steam power and machinery, maybe about fifty or sixty instruments a week. A single one couldbe made alone in about four months, which is about the time ofthe regular course. The polishing alone occupies nearly thattime, and in a large factory five hundred or mores cases are constantly under that process. The first coats of varnish, laid onthe sand-papered wood, are taken off again with scrapers andsand-paper, leaving only what has sunk into the wood; thencome many successive coats of varnish, at considerable intervals; and lastly, polishing by the hand.

For materials used the whole earth is ransacked, as will beunderstood from the following English list, although some ofthe materials differ from those employed in this country:

Woods Where used

Oak, from Riga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Framing, various parts.

Deal, from Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wood-bracing, etc.

Fir, from Switzerland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sounding board.

Pine, from America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parts of framing.

Mahogany, from Honduras . . . . . . . . . Cases and action.

Beech, from England. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wrest-plank, etc.

Birch, from Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Belly-rail in framing.

Beef-wood, from Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . Tongues in beam.

Cedar, from America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hammer shanks.

Lime, from England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keys.

Pear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Damper heads.

Sycamore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hoppers and veneers.

Spanish mahogany, from Cuba . . . . . . Decorative.

Rose-wood, from Rio . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decorative.

Satin-wood, from East Indies . . . . . . . Decorative.

White holly, from England . . . . . . . . . Decorative.

Zebra wood, from Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . Decorative.

Other fancy woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decorative.

32

Woolen Fabrics Where usedBaize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cushions, dampers,

etc.

Cloths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Action, etc.

Felt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hammer covering.

Leather Where usedBuffalo and saddle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hammers.

Basil, calf, doeskin, seal,

sheep, morocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Action.

Sole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rings for pedal wires.

Metals Where usedIron, steel, brass, gun-metal . . . . . . . . Bracing, screws,

springs, etc.

Steel wire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strings.

Steel spun wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wrapped strings.

Covered copper wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lowest strings.

Various Where usedIvory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . White keys.

Plumbago. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lubrication.

Glue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wood-work throughout.

Beeswax, emery, sand-paper,

French polish, oil, spirits, etc. . . . . . . . Cleaning and polishing.

In the sale of pianos there are fierce competition, largeexpenses, and a great deal of humbug. Awards are no test,although they may attract customers; and it would be a daringact to attempt deciding which one of half a dozen makers didreceive “96 out of a possible 100” at the Centennial. On thefaith of testimony, all had it, all have received the first prizes,and all have the endorsement of the most eminent musicians.The truth is that although there are preferences and room forpreferences, the pianos of the half dozen best makers are ofsuch uniform and substantial excellence that whoever buys one,with or without seeing it, is certain to make no mistake.Beyond this circle of established names and quality are muchmisunderstanding, disappointment, and positive deception.Several firms are obliged to be constantly putting down unprincipled persons who appropriate their names, generallywith slightly changed spelling. The cheap dealer avers that nopiano costs over $200 to make, and that it is folly to pay a largeprice for a name; but the “name” is only another word forproved quality. One enterprising man advertises from a smallvillage remote from centres of population that he will send asuperb “extra grand square,” which he describes in the most lavish manner, the “regular catalogue price $900,” for only$260. It is perfectly safe to say that he has no factory, and thathis piano would really be dear at the price, and cost originallyabout one-half what he asks for it. How do the cheap pianosoriginate? There are about fifty different trades in the piano. Itis one business to make action, another to make cases, anotherto make keys, and so on. The cheap piano - its parts gatheredup from the small shops of persons who have small capital, noreputation to sustain, and are under constant pressure to lowerthe price of their work a notch more - is put together by somebody who calls himself a manufacturer, and stencils on the

front board whatever name the dealer orders. Sometimes, asabove stated, the name used is that of some well-known maker,whose reputation has been bought and is scrupulously maintained by honest workmanship. The quality must correspond to the method. It is easy to make a piano that costs$500; and it is easy to make another, at a casual glance just likethe first, for a quarter of that. Nor are the differences alwaysperceptible at first by the average buyer; for while there isnobody who can not instantly see and appreciate differences inprice, many can not judge quality. The cheap piano - roundlydeclared to be as good an instrument as can be made any where- unquestionably has legs, cover, keys, strings, hammers, etc.,and it will “go.” What more can any have? Quality. Still, tothe average buyer, any thing which has legs and a case is apiano.

If the cheap piano would only remain as good as at first, itmight answer quite well the needs of its purchaser, who canjudge nothing but the price. Unhappily, however, it soon breaksthrough the disguise of varnish and veneer, and shows itself amiserable rattle-box, to the grief of the owner.

A good piano is carefully built of the best materials, andformed into a solid and harmonious whole, the problem of durability being the exact and complex one already shown. Ofcourse an instrument made up of parts constructed withoutregard to anything but cheapness, and disposed of by personswho have no interest in it after it is once sold, will soon yield tostrain and climate, becoming loose and weak in action, bad andweak in tone, and utterly incapable of remaining in tune. Thedifference is wonderful between the six-octave, octagon-legpiano of 1848 and its successor of 1878; and yet some of thoselittle old pianos, feeble and tinkling as they were, have shownan honorable durability, for they were faithfully made, according to the state of the art at the time. They are reallyworth more today than the imitation piano is in its best estate,although it boasts all round corners and extra mouldings. Probably good pianos cost more than they should, but bad onesare dear at any price, and the music-lover who has little moneywould do better to watch his opportunity for a good instrumentat second-hand than to buy disappointment together with someshameless grand.

One of the most important parts of the piano is the pedal.In the grand and upright pianos the “soft” pedal takes off onewire of the trichord; in squares it practically though badly thickens the hammer covering; in the latter form it is nearlyworthless. The forte pedal is always the effective thing. Thepiano is really a harp with dampers which stop the string assoon as the key is released; the pedal simply raises all thedampers from the strings, allowing the struck ones to continuesounding, their tone being increased by the sympathetic vibrations of the rest. If, with the dampers raised, the frame bestruck, even with the hand, the murmurs of the wires show howsensitive and sonorous the whole mechanism is. Now the pedalis not a “loud” pedal at all. If not used, the instrument is smothered and feeble, ineffective under the most skillful handling; if used wrongly, it produces a mere jumble of sound;if used properly, it converts the short sound of the touch into aprolonged one, furnishing background and accompaniment tomelody, and making the piano another instrument. By judicioususe of it comes the “singing” characteristic so much lauded bymanufacturers.

All sound, musical or not, is a mathematical matter of somany pulsations or waves of air per second. Beyond a certainpoint these waves become inaudible by their rapidity or theirslowness, and perhaps it is not too fanciful to consider “the

33

music of the spheres” a deep bass too slow for our ears to catch.Sonorous vibrations are estimated to be from 16 to 38,000 persecond; the modern seven-octave piano extends from about 27to 4200 per second. Upon the mathematic rule of vibrations isconstructed the theoretical scale, the following being the “vibration fractions” of a single octave:

C D E F G A B C

1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1

The meaning of this is that D makes nine vibrations whileC makes eight; E makes five to four of C; and so on, the octavealways having twice the speed of the eighth note below. TakingC at 240, the vibrations per second will be thus:

C D E F G A B C

240 270 300 320 360 400 450 480

The fraction of the minor third is 6/5, and its vibrationnumber 288; the peculiar characteristic of the minor key - acharacteristic so peculiar that even the most unmusical of people instantly recognize it, although barely able to distinguishone tune from another - thus mainly depends upon a differenceof only twelve vibrations per second.

The scale, both keyboard and vocal, is theoretically imperfect. In order to play perfectly in tune in both major andminor modes of the seven “signatures,” twenty-nine instead oftwelve keys in the octave are required, and some authorities put

the number as high as seventy-two. G sharp is not quite thesame as A flat; but all keyboard instruments, except a few with“split black keys, make them so. The violin, however, and thehuman voice can sound them differently. Starting with any key,if the successive ones were tuned exactly to the theoreticalscale, the end of the octave would be widely astray; hence eachoctave is tuned perfect, and the discordance so distributed overthe twelve notes that it is not especially observable anywhere.Unhappily, also, the so-called “concert” pitch has been gradually rising; the tuning-fork A - the fifth A from the bottomin a seven-octave piano - has risen from 405 vibrations per second in Paris, in 1700, to about 450. The effect of thischange upon the human throat is deplorably injurious.

In popularizing music the piano has had the chief share,notwithstanding its large cost and some defects. It has nopower of sustained full tone, its note being always a diminuendo; its intervals are less exact than those of the violin,and it has no place in orchestras. Yet, next to the pipe organ, nosingle instrument equals it in rendering orchestral music or inits range of adaptability. Probably more than two hundred thou-sand compositions for the piano have been published in thiscountry, and it may be practicable hereafter to make the instrument more widely attainable by decreasing its cost,although improvement of its scope and quality seems to havelittle left to do. But no thoroughly new musical instrument hasbeen invented in the last five thousand years; probably noneexists to be invented. Come what may, the piano will permanently keep its leading place as the instrument of thehousehold.

Dear Robin,

I was recently talking to a client of ours about collecting, etc. and he mentioned that he had a rather large collection ofwatch fobs. These were quite popular when many folks used pocket watches, and were used as an advertising medium.

I asked whether he might have any fobs in his collection advertising pianos or player pianos, and he was kind enough to photograph some for me . . . it was an interesting juxtaposition between our two hobbies!

Fondest regards,

Jay Albert and Brian Meeder

Watch Fobs Collection of Mr. John Winkel of Santa Barbara

34

The Duo-Art reproducing piano’s dynamic responsedepends to a large extent on performance characteristics (oridiosyncrasies, if you will) of its expression regulators. Theless-than-ideal capacity of these venerable components to maintain set levels of pneumatic tension under conditions ofchanging demands was lovingly accommodated by Aeolianmusic roll editors, who simply adjusted the expression codinguntil the music came out right. In practical terms, this meantincreasing theme and/or accompaniment power as needed tomaintain a desired loudness level when larger numbers of noteswere struck, and lowering power levels as needed when fewernotes were played. A Duo-Art piano’s dynamic response further depends on interaction of theme and accompanimentregulators with the expression box spill, residual leakage, pedaloperation, and many other system factors. To assure uniformi-ty, Aeolian produced test rolls (several different editions ofwhich are extant) in which dynamic response was quantified interms of note counts, pedal operation, and power levels applied.When all factory instructions are carefully followed, the testroll serves as an indispensable tool for achieving musically satisfying results from a Duo-Art piano. If accordion pneumatics are not adjusted to factory specifications, however,test roll results may become misleading and possibly fail toyield an accurate appraisal of a Duo-Art’s playing condition.Reasons for this will become clear as this article’s contents areread and understood.

All expression components must function perfectly andwork together as a whole if the highest artistic potential of theDuo-Art is to be realized. This article deals specifically withthe accordion pneumatics, and how their adjustment (or misadjustment) affects dynamic response. Hopefully the information presented here will help to clarify topics that tendby nature to be somewhat obscure. Careful study confirms thata sound technical basis exists for always keeping accordiontravel exactly as specified in service publications.

Aeolian’s explicitly stated and often repeated numbers foraccordion travel remained unchanged in service publicationsthroughout the Duo-Art’s production lifetime. In spite of this,advice touting “improved” accordion adjustment for allegedperformance optimization (usually by forcing test roll resultsduring chord tests) continues to be propagated within today’sDuo-Art community. Factory instructions (in contrast to morerecent publications) offer no suggestion that accordion travelmight at some point have been customized to accommodateindividual piano characteristics, or that accordion adjustmentswere fair game for “polishing” performance or coaxing test roll

results into compliance. Such fanciful extrapolations are, infact, on very shaky ground from a technical point of view. (Evidence suggests that theme and accompaniment regulatorsprings were the items more likely to have been factory-select-ed for matching the characteristics of individual pianos,accounting at least in part for today’s plethora of subtly differ-ent regulator springs.)

Regarding the accordion pneumatics, all editions of theDuo-Art service manual clearly state the following:

1. The four respective sections collapse 1/16”, 1/8”, 1/4” and 1/2”, and

2. Factory settings should not be changed.

In his 1929 Duo-Art treatise published in The Tuner’s Journal, Wilberton Gould reiterates the ubiquitous caveat aboutleaving the factory settings undisturbed, and then goes on todeclare that accordion pneumatics “...should be adjusted onlyby a set of accurate gauge blocks that are made for that purpose.” The times and circumstances of that treatise stronglysuggest that Mr. Gould was describing the method of adjustment preferred and used by Aeolian.

The factory’s use of precision gauge blocks for adjustingaccordion pneumatics would have made sense in many ways.Gauge block adjustments in general tend to be accurate andconsistent. Such a method would always result in identicaltravel for each pneumatic section at all three adjusting screwlocations, an important consideration in eliminating wobblesand unsteady motion during operation. The adjusting procedurewould have been quick and easy to learn, and skill requirementswould have been minimal. Factors such as these would beespecially significant in a production situation.

The accordion pneumatics for both theme and accompaniment regulation are constructed identically. Thesame operating principles apply to both. Each has four collapsible sections of unequal size, corresponding to the 1, 2,4, and 8 power levels of the tracks that activate them. Taken asa unit (ignoring connecting linkages for now), each accordionpneumatic is designed to produce linear motion (i.e., motion ina straight line), the extent of which can be varied by collapsingits respective sections in various combinations. This linearmotion is additive, which means that total travel is the sum ofthe combined travel of the individual collapsed sections. Thevalues of 1, 2, 4, and 8 assigned to each set of dynamic coding

Duo-Art Accordion PneumaticsFunctional Aspects and Adjustment Criteria

By David L. SaulFrom May/June 1993 AMICA Bulletin

Selected by Tech Editor Jeffrey Morgan

0.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.06250.0625

STEP SIZEDISPLACEMENTo

0.06250.125

0.18750.25

0.31250.375

0.43750.5

0.56250.6250.6875

0.750.81250.875

0.9375

TOTAL DISPLACEMENT: 0.9375Factory value: 0.9375

DEGREEo123456789101112131415

DUO-ART ACCORDIONTRAVEL

Accordion settings can be altered to force a change indynamic response at a particular power level, but this tends tocause problems at other power levels and distort the overallshape of the buildup curve. Power levels adversely impactedoften turn out to be those not explicitly checked by the test roll.How out-of-spec adjustments can lead to insidious irregularitiescan be appreciated by considering the following: When youelect to change the travel of anyone of an accordion pneumat­ics four sections, you are changing not just one power level, buteight of them. Each of an accordions sections reaches acollapsed state in exactly half of the total of 16 possiblecombinations, and remains open in the other half. These, aswell as the correct travel adjustments, are documented onpage 6 of the 1925 Duo-Art service manual in the "PressureChart Showing Graduation Adjustments for Correct Settings".There is a similar chart on page 16 of the 1927 Duo-Artservice manual.

Graphic plots are useful for revealing exactly what happensover the full range of travel when an accordions adjustments arechanged. The first plot presented here was done with thefactory recommended settings. This is followed by examples inwhich selected pneumatic sections were set to values deviatingfrom factory recommendations. Settings were selected as mightresult from attempts to bring a test roll's chord tests intocompliance. To make these plots, an accordion pneumaticstravel behavior was modeled in Microsoft Excel, which is ableto produce a new plot automatically each time an adjustment ischanged. When this application is running on a computer,results for all sixteen positions are instantly displayed whenevera data entry (representing an adjustment change) is revised inthe "ADJUSTED TO" column. The numbers in the columnlabeled "TOTAL TRAVEL" indicate linear displacement ateach of the loudness gradations. These become ordinate valuesin the corresponding plots. The STEP SIZE column showsincremental changes between adjacent levels or gradations.

Readers may notice that certain decimal fractions shownwith these plots display a greater number of significant placesthan practical conditions might suggest. .This is a result ofconverting proper fractions (as given in Aeolian serviceliterature) to decimal form without rounding off, and is notintended as a measure of accuracy or adjustment precision.

Figure 1 plots the behavior of a normal accordionpneumatic, with travel of all four sections set to factoryspecified values. Note that the resulting plot is smooth and lin­ear. Each incremental step is the same size as all the others.This is the wayan accordion pneumatic should work.

(See Figure 1)

0.5

0.25

0.125

0.0625

ADJUSTED TO:

All distances arein inches.

2

4

8

NOTE:

SECTION

Figure 1Nonnal Duo-Art

All Duo-Art test roll editions contain chord tests to checkdynamic buildup for both theme and accompaniment. Thechord tests utilize "play" followed by "no-play" (or play verysoftly) sequences of chords as quantitative checks of dynamicbuildup at power levels 0, 1, 2, and 4. This places them in thedynamic scale's lower region, where interactions between notecounts and power levels are most critical. Level 3, however, isnot explicitly checked, possibly because it is reached bycollapsing 1 and 2 together, and each of those is checkedseparately. (The logic of implicity checking level 3 in thismanner, as will be shown, is jeopardized if the intendedpowers-of-two travel relationship is not preserved.)

Note counts and pedalingvary somewhat for chord testsfound in various test rolleditions, but they all workbasically the same way. Furthertest roll sequences strike chordsthat repeat at several ascendingpower levels, but these canaccomplish little beyondconfirming that each successivechord sounds louder than the one

" ."before.~

tracks are recognizable as powers of two, with each numberdouble the one before. They can be written as 20 =1, 21 =2,22 =4, and 23 =8, respectively. Note that accordion motionoccurs in increments directly proportional to powers of two.These increments are measured in multiples of a sixteenth of an

• inch. With each section traveling exactly double the one~ before, properly adjusted accordion pneumatics move in direct

proportion to the powers-of-two weighting (i.e., 1-2-4-8) oftheir respective dynamic tracks. The Duo-Art implementationcomprises basic elements of a binary-coded digital system, upto the mechanical interface with the respective themeand accompaniment regulators (which are, of course,analog devices).

Accordion pneumatics perform the critical function oftranslating the music rolls coded theme and accompanimentlevels into mechanical motion, which, in turn positions theknife valve heels of the respective regulators. Sixteen discretepositions (including the zero position) can be reached by eachof the accordions, with total travel extending to 15/16". (Notethat in-between positions are passed through "on the fly", andexamples can be found in music roll coding in whichin-between positions are accessed for subtle expressionspurposes; the sixteen positions, however, provide repeatablereference levels at closely spaced intervals.) Duo-Art serviceliterature variously refers to the sixteen positions as loudnessdegrees, loudness gradations or dynamic gradations, and theseare enumerated from °through 15. They are also less formallyreferred to as power levels or loudness steps.

Motion applied by each accordion pneumatic to itsassociated knife valve heel undergoes non-linear mechanicaltransformation in the connecting linkage. Beyond that point,further system non-linearity influences pneumatic tension andthe loudness of struck notes. Clearly, however, under con-

~rolled test conditions, loudness should build up evenly, asopposed to having abruptly large jumps between some steps,and little or no change (or change in the wrong direction)between others.

35

Now let's create a hypothetical situation. Assume that thetest roll is running a play, no-play chord test at power lever 2(this could be either accompaniment or theme), and both sets ofchords, play and no-play, are playing distinctly. To counter this,we reduce the travel of the power 2 (second) accordion sectionby 1132". That's one full turn of each adjusting screw. Figure 2shows the result. Although the test roll result now suggests thatchords are behaving as desired at power 2, the overall responsecurve has taken on a serpentine shape. (Any resemblance to thecritter that sank its fangs into our music rolls is purelycoincidental!) Serpent or no, notice that power level 4 remainsunaffected by the adjustment performed thus far.

(See Figure 2)

Moving ahead to the next chord test at power level 4, it's aslikely as not that we'll again hear both sets of chords playingdistinctly when the second should be a no-play. To appease thetest roll at this point, we trim the accordions power 4 section by16%, or 0.040", thereby reducing that section's travel from0.250" to 0.210". This takes about one-and-a-quarter turns ofeach power 4 adjusting screw. Once again, the test roll issuccessfully faked out. Two of the four accordion sections arenow mis-adjusted, and figure 3 shows the overall result.

(See Figure 3)

There's an obvious hump in the curve, and one step hasbecome excessively large. The level change from 7 to 8 ismore than four times as large as the step from 5 to 6. Dynamicbuildup has acquired some serious irregularities, although testroll results appear again to have improved. Why? Simplybecause the test roll doesn't check for conditions caused bycheating! It's much like fiddling with a bathroom scale's zeroadjustment when you're weighing yourself. You can trim off oradd pounds as you like, but you can believe the indicated resultat your own risk!

SECTION ADJUSTED TO:

TOTAL DISPLACEMENT: 0.9055Factory value: 0.9375

~

r---

Figure 2Section Two Shortened

0.06250.03050.06250.09450.06250.03050.06250.09450.06250.03050.06250.09450.06250.03050.0625

STEP SIZEDISPLACEMENTo

0.06250.093

0.15550.25

0.31250.3430.4055

0.50.56250.593

0.65550.75

0.81250.843

0.9055

Notice that loudness degree'4 is lower than 3, and 12 islower than 11. In the middlepart of the loudness range, alarge jump upward occursbetween 7 and 8. If this particu­lar adjustment had been done tofake out a chord test at power 4,it would leave power 3 (which,as mentioned earlier, is notexplicitly checked by the test

roll) in a too-high condition likely to wreak selective havocwith musical performances. Sadly, that condition would remainforever undetected by the test roll, as would also the disturbingleap in power from 7 to 8, and the 11 to 12 intensity drop.

Another side effect of tampering with accordion adjustmentis changing the total extent of travel, which is nominally 15/16"with all sections collapsed. This is a factor in determiningachievable dynamic range. Caution: don't try decreasing travelin one pneumatic section to offset increasing in another, or viceversa. This only worsens the response curve's irregularities.

Changes from factory recommended settings also tend todisrupt the relationship of theme to accompaniment (i.e., themealways one degree above accompaniment). Withaccompaniment following one sinuous buildup curve and themeanother, the two will be prevented from maintaining aconsistent relationship over the full dynamic range.

From a listener's point of view, effects of tampering withaccordion adjustments are usually more subtle than dramatic,but they are very pernicious nevertheless. The Duo-Art'sdynamic levels are many in number and closely spaced, andmusical dynamics undergo continual and often complexchanges. As a result, uneven buildup may not be directlynoticed as such during play. The human ear is more likely torespond to uneven dynamic buildup by interpreting musicalperformances as mechanical sounding, poorly edited orperformed, or otherwise lacking in artistic quality. Dynamicanomalies often affect certain rolls more than others, and it'sanyone's guess how many artists and music roll editors havebeen erroneously blamed for problems caused by "customized"accordion adjustments.

DEGREEo123456789101112131415

Loudness Degree

DUO-ART ACCORDIONTRAVEL

10.90.8

"2 0.7:= 0.6..g 0.5

.i 0.4c 0.3

0.20.1

oo N -.:t co CD ~ ~ :!

0.5

0.25

0.093

0.0625

All distances arein inches.

2

4

8

NOTE:

Further mis-adjustment can SECTION ADJUSTED TO: DEGREE DISPLACEMENT STEP SIZE

actually cause changes in the 0 0DUO-ART ACCORDION 1 0.0625 0.0625

wrong direction, with power TRAVEL 2 0.093 0.0305decreasing on advancing steps. 1 0.0625 3 0.1555 0.0625

Figure 4 shows the result of 0.9 4 0.21 0.0545

0.8 5 0.2725 0.0625shortening the power 4 2 0.093

0.7 6 0.303 0.0305

pneumatic sections travel by ~ 0.67 0.3655 0.06258 0.5 0.1345

30%, with the other three 4 0.21 i 0.5 9 0.5625 0.0625

normal. I ~:~10 0.593 0.030511 0.6555 0.0625 lr(Figure 4) 8 0.5 0.2 12 0.71 0.0545

0.1 13 0.7725 0.062514 0.803 0.0305

Figure 3 I 0 15 0.8655 0.06250 N ... to co~ ~ ~Sections Two and Four Shortened

NOTE: All distances are Loudness Degree TOTAL DISPLACEMENT: 0.8655in inches. FaClOry value: 0.9375.

36

What should one do, then, if one's Duo-Art stubbornly failschord tests when its accordion pneumatics are set to factoryrecommended travel? First of all, make sure the tempo is setaccurately, and follow the test roll instructions carefully. Avisual check of accordion operation may be helpful. Get underthe piano with a good light, and watch the accordions inoperation to make sure they do exactly what they are supposedto do. Having an assistant at the controls to repeat desiredsections of the test roll can be very helpful at this point. Doeseach pneumatic section respond independently of the others?Do one or more sections respond slowly, possibly indicatingleakage or valve problems? Do both accordions consistentlyreturn to their respective zero positions when released fromvarious states of collapse? Does the spill valve actuating leverimpede accordion travel to a noticeable extent? Does themanual control linkage interfere during normal Duo-Art

~operatio~? Are both accordions able to complete their fulltravel ummpeded? A useful technique for further checking is tostop the roll with blank paper on the tracker bar and pull offtracker bar tubes at the accordion valve box. (Be sure to labelthese in advance if you remove more than one tube at a time!)You can step an accordion through its full count by removingand replacing tubes in various combinations. Be objective. Ifsomething is wrong at this level, the piano is never going toplay well until the problem is fixed.

If the piano action is well regulated, Duo-Art componentsare problem free, and theme and accompaniment zero levelscan be set to maintain their state of adjustment without unduedifficulty, one available avenue would be to try a small changeof theme and/or regulator spring tension. The service manualallows this, within prudent limits, and it can make a difference.Tightening up a regulator spring just a bit and subsequentlyresetting the zero level causes the knife valve to seek a newzero position, from which the buildup characteristics may bemore favorable. Remember, too, that chord test instructionsindicate that certain sequences should "not play or barely play".Overzealous individuals sometimes ignore the second part ofthat instruction. Read the instructions carefully. Hearing somenotes play very softly does not necessarily signify test failure!Hearing all of them play at mezzo forte, of course, is another~atter. Soft and loud are subjective, but why not? Music itself

':-,.../:is subjective, as are Duo-Art loudness degrees. Try to use'reasonable and prudent judgment.

One or both expression regulator springs may needreplacement because of stretching beyond elastic limits at some

Perfect accordion pneumatics will, of course, never make aDuo-Art outshine it's peers as long as other parts remain inneed of attention. But the accordions are critically important,and results made possible by putting them in good workingorder and keeping them in proper adjustment will be animportant step toward a better Duo-Art.

For the sake of completeness, readers should be aware thataccordion travel can be reduced or increased without loss oflinearity if the powers-of-two relationship is strictly maintained,i.e., each section's travel after the smallest must be exactlydouble its predecessor. For example, settings of .05", .1", .2",and .4" would yield a linear build up curve, but total travelwould be only .750". This would perhaps be less harmful to aDuo-Art's response than certain other pitfall-ridden schemesthat have found their way into practice, but dynamic rangewould be curtailed. Greater than standard travel should beavoided because of the possibility of exceeding the normaloperating range of the knife valve and its connecting linkage.Abiding by documented factory settings remains the best andsafest course to follow, and is the recommended course ofaction.

Figure 4Section Four Shortened by 30%0.0625

0.06250.0625·0.01250.06250.06250.06250.13750.06250.06250.0625-0.01250.06250.06250.0625

STEP SIZEDISPLACEMENTo

0.06250.125

0.18750.1750.2375

0.30.3625

0.50.56250.625

0.68750.675

0.73750.8

0.8625

time in the past, change or lossof elasticity for any reason, oreven degradation caused by elec­troplating during restoration.(Some plating processes tend toruin springs.) If one of thesprings is made of thicker wireor is stronger than the other,make sure the stronger one isinstalled on the theme side.Regulator springs can be a seri­

ous problem for Duo-Arts. If replacements are needed, the bestprocedure in this day and age seems to be to try to find a pair oforiginals that work well in your piano. If that isn'tpractical, you may be able to borrow a good pair and havea spring shop duplicate them for you.

In grand Duo-Arts, re-positioning the linkage thattransfers motion from each accordion pneumatic to itsrespective knife valve arm can change the mechanical transfercharacteristic to the knife valve heel, and this may help inobtaining a better dynamic buildup. This technique has beenmentioned by Chester Kuharski in at least one technicalitiesarticle, and by this writer at the 1972 AMICA Convention inLos Angeles.

Other factors, such as residual leakage (a proper amount ofwhich is expected in a normally operating Duo-Art), conditionof components, correct pump speed, possible binding of manualcontrol linkage, tension on the accordion pneumatic returnsprings, and many, many more such items can influence resultsobtained. Check all of these things to the best of your ability.But to insure top results, set all accordion adjustments correctly,if they aren't already, and once they are right, leave them alone,as the Service manual instructs.

TOTAL DISPLACEMENT: 0.8625Factory value: 0.9375

DEGREEo123456789101112131415

N "'" CD co ~ ~ :!Loudness Degree

DUO-ART ACCORDIONTRAVEL

0.9

0.8

0.7

lO.6~ 0.5lij 0.4

~ 0.30.20.1

oo

0.5

0.125

0.175

0.0625

ADJUSTEO TO:

All distances arein inches.

2

4

8

NOTE:

SECTION

37

38

The piano emerged from the vanswaddled in blankets like an oldinvalid, and teetered up the walk on a small battered dolly. I hadexpected the movers to bring a steelramp to bridge the steps in front ofour house. Instead, they bent overand heaved at the upright with alltheir might, while I waited in horrorfor their backs to explode. The pianowobbled, then rose, and in a few minutes was rolling across the floorinto its pre-ordained niche in the dining room.

“She’s a heavy one,” gasped theolder of the pair. “Eight or nine hundred pounds easy.” I tipped them20 bucks, the minimum my middle-class guilt would allow.

After they left, my wife and Isurveyed our new acquisition, whichI had bought at an auction on thehunch that our six-year-old daughtermight like piano lessons. It was old but well preserved, and its imposing bulk was softened by hand-carved leafy ornaments. Itsdark, reddish-brown exteriormatched the high baseboards of our1908 house perfectly. It made theroom feel instantly more like home,in particular the kind of cozy Victorian home idealized in thenovels of Charles Dickens.

That’s when I began to realize that we hadn’t just boughtan instrument, but a dream machine. Without yet making asound, our piano had already begun to work on our imaginations, reviving some deep inherited faith that a piano inthe parlour means harmony in the household.

I’ve been thinking about pianos a lot since that day lastwinter, especially about the piano’s ability to play on our minds.Its elaborate innards, made from 10,000 parts or more, aredesigned to promote the illusion that hammers bouncing offmetal strings can sing as smoothly as a voice or violin. Butsome of the instrument’s most potent illusions are not primarilymusical. In its 300-year career, the piano has also helped usdisplay our need to be seen as powerful, respectable, or sexy.

The pianoforte was invented in 1700 by a Florentinenamed Bartolomeo Cristofori, who realized that hammered

strings in a reinforced case could,unlike the plucking mechanism of a harpsichord, be played louder or softer with more or less force (hencethe name, which means soft-loud).His achievement and its effects arebeing marked by a spate of books andmuseum exhibitions, including a lavish year-long display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and an illuminating 461-page doorstop called Pianoroles: Three Hundred Years of LifeWith the Piano.

As the book makes clear, Cristofori’s contemporaries didn’tquite know what to do with the piano.It took a later generation to recognizethe instrument’s character, and itscapacity to express a robust romanticspirit.

“The piano began its true careeras the instrument of men and womenwho lived in the age of Napoleonicimperialism,” writes novelist Antho-ny Burgess, who was also a keenpianist. “If the harpsichord is theAlexander Pope of music, the piano

is its Lord Byron.”

Like a Bryonic hero, the pianostormed through the European

continent during the 19th century, bolstering the new cult ofindividualism and helping to expand the social world of themiddle class. A pianist, Franz Liszt, invented the solo concertrecital, and touring virtuosi like him were the precursors oftoday’s pop stars. Before Liszt, high-class instrumentalists hadmostly been lackeys attached to royal courts. By the middle ofthe century, the exploits of freelance star pianists were beingdescribed like heroic, often sexual conquests.

“[Liszt] is an amiable fiend who treats his mistress - thepiano - now tenderly, now tyrannically, devours her with kisses,lacerates her with lustful bites,” wrote one commentator, whocould almost have been writing about rockabilly star Jerry LeeLewis. Liszt’s macho dominance was enhanced by the fragilityof the pianos of his time, which often broke under the pianist’sassault. Makers rushed to toughen and enlarge the instruments,ultimately by installing iron frames that could withstand heavierstrings and greater tension. As it grew stronger, the piano followed imperial armies into colonial territories, where trees

Ode to the pianoThree hundred years after its invention, the piano remains a dream machine of pleasure,

power and domestic harmony. Just the thing for the start of a little girl’s music education.

By Robert Everett-Green, Music Critic

Reprinted with permission from “The Globe and Mail” • July 22, 2000, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaSent in by Ray Parkinson

Marvis at the keyboard of her family’s upright piano,made by the Bell Organ and Piano Co. of

Guelph, Ont., in 1901

39

were often felled and elephantskilled to provide wood andivory for more pianos.

The piano reached Canadain the 1780s, when only thewealthiest could afford theshipping. Those costs, and tariffs at the American border,helped create a robust Canadian industry. One of theleading makers was the BellOrgan and Piano Co., whichmade our upright piano at itsGuelph, Ontario, factory in1901. The industry was thenapproaching its zenith - adecade later, 30,000 pianos ayear were made in Canada.

Those instruments followedthe new national railwayacross the country, their salesfuelled by touring virtuosi (thepiano industry virtually invent-ed the celebrity endorsement)and slogans such as A Piano inEvery Parlour and Music in theHome. Like a radio in the1920s or a TV in the 1950s, apiano in Victorian Canada wasalso a sign that you had madeit.

Once in the parlour, thepiano was the domain ofyoung middle-class women,who were expected to entertainthe household and attract suitors with their playing, justlike the fictional heroines ofJane Austen and WilliamThackery. “No young ladywas spared the lessons necessary to acquiring a basicskill in the rendition of danceand parlor pieces,” accordingto the Encyclopedia of Musicin Canada.

We don’t have those expec-tations of Mavis, our six-year-old. I also wouldn’twish for her the life of a professional musician, whichwas my life before I beganwriting articles like this one.Our interest in her music education has more to do with

her own pleasure in singing, and the notion that the disciplineand imagination involved in making music may serve her wellin other things. We settled on the piano because it seems so all-encompassing, and in a way, so unavoidable.

Many other parents have made the same decision. Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music will administer about80,000 piano examinations this year, twice as many as in allother instruments, including voice. And while Canadian pianofactories like Bell or the Fictional Wyatt Company in TimothyFindley’s novel The Piano Man’s Daughter have all disappeared, the piano has survived predictions that it would

yield to its synthetic cousins. According to Michael Remenyi, aleading Toronto instrument retailer, piano sales have held theirown against electronic keyboards, even though a new mid-range upright costs $5,000 to $8,000, and a grand up to$20,000. People still want the touch, the tone, and the fantasyvalue of a real piano.

“It’s such a beautiful sound,” said Erika de Vasconcelos, aToronto novelist whose daughter takes lessons at the samepiano studio as Mavis. “It’s a sound that fills you up instantly.It’s also very satisfying for kids, because it sounds great rightaway. With a violin, it’s much harder.”

Like us, de Vasconcelos has bonded with her piano as anobject. The old piano makers often began as furniture makers -a sequence followed in the 1980s by the Italian company Fazioli, which recently made a grand for Canadian soloistAngela Hewitt - but unlike a table or chair, a piano is furniturewith soul.

“Even if [my daughter] stopped playing, I wouldn’t get ridof it,” said de Vasconcelos. “It’s like part of the family.”

That’s why there’s something peculiarly sad about a pianothat has run its course. I felt that at the auction viewing, as Itested keyboards and peered into the guts of some 20 or 30instruments. Many were savage old relics, dead to all musicalpurposes, like corpses already shut in their coffins.

A piano technician came to our house last week, and con-firmed the relative good health of our instrument. A newSteinway would sound smoother and richer, but aside from theexpense factor, I like owning an old piano. I enjoy knowingthat Canadian artisans put it together, at a time when the pianowas an all-round mediator of pleasure, power and culturalambition. Like the pianos in several recent films - Titanic orThe Piano - our old instrument has become a nostalgic link witha vanished order, even while it opens a portal into a widerworld.

Key Facts

• Tension exerted by the strings of an average piano, intonnes: 20

• Thrust required to lift a jet off the ground, in tonnes: 20

• Range of the oldest known piano, a Cristofori made for the Medicis: 4 1/2 octaves

• Range of a modern Steinway “D” concert grand: 7 1/3 octaves

• Canadians employed in the manufacture of pianos in1925: 5,000

• Percentage of new pianos sold in Canada that are imported: 100

• Pianos built annually by Italian manufacturer Fazioli, which does everything by hand: 60

• Number built annually by Yamaha, which uses robots: 130,000

• Number of player pianos produced in the U.S. in 1925:169,000

• Number of conventional pianos produced in the U.S. in that year: 137,000

• Market debut of the first electric piano, made by Bechstein: 1930

* Various sources

Illustrations from Pianoby David Crombie, GPI Books

(1995)

40

Gaylord CarterTheater Organist, Master Composer for Silent Classics

By Myrna OliverTIMES STAFF WRITER

From Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2000 Sent in by Bill Blair

Gaylord Carter, whogave sound to silentmovies as his fingersdanced over the multiplekeyboards of massive theater pipe organs imitating everything froma gong to a glockenspiel,has died. He was 95.

Carter, one of thecountry’s best-known theater organists for eight decades, died Nov. 20 in his RichardNeutra-designed home ona San Pedro bluff overlooking the ocean. Hehad suffered a stroke in 1993 and also had Parkinson’s disease.

Performing from the age of 10 until about five years ago,Carter played in churches, in cavernous movie palaces, onradio, on television, and again in the theaters as silents enjoyeda resurgence. He left, as he put it, “a little legacy” in the 1980swhen Paramount asked him to score a dozen silent film clas-sics for home video.

Carter, who played across the United States, Europe andAustralia, was named organist of the year by the AmericanTheatre Organ Society and inducted into its Hall of Fame in1975.

In recent years, the white-haired musical sprite delightedthe thousands of Los Angeles area movie and architecture buffswho trekked downtown annually for the Los Angeles Conservancy’s “Last Seats on Broadway” series screening ofsilent film favorites.

The late Times columnist Jack Smith, observing Carter atthe Orpheum’s organ during the series’ onset in 1987, wrote:“Like the organ itself, Carter is a national treasure and ought tobe designated a historical monument.”

In 1994, when Carter’s playinghad been curtailed somewhat by stroke, the Con-servancy hired another organistbut made Carter its guest ofhonor for a showing of “BenHur,” a film and score he knewby heart. When it opened in1926, the film lasted six straightmonths at the Million DollarTheater on Broadway, andCarter was at the console everysingle night.

“I was bowled over by it . . . aphenomenal score,” he told TheTimes in 1994. “The music forthe gallery slave scene istremendous.”

Carter composed much of the music he played toaccompany films, and drew heavily onclassical pieces. Filmreels were distributed, he said, with thematic cue sheets for theorganist or pianist, indicating whether the picture was acomedy or drama or cowboy picture, and including a few barsof suggested music for major scenes.

“The first time through, I’d have to wing it,” he said. “Butif there was a bugle call or a steamboat whistle, at least I’dknow it was coming.”

Bringing the musical pipes of Southern California to lyrical life, Carter accompanied the 1927 “The Student Prince”among others at the Orpheum and the 1925 “The Phantom ofthe Opera” at the First Congregational Church in Long Beachand the Avalon Theater on Santa Catalina Island. He playedForest Lawn’s Wurlitzer for the Burbank Symphony Orchestraand played other fabled organs in San Pedro’s Warner GrandTheater, the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, the San Gabriel CivicAuditorium, the Seeley G. Mudd Theater in Claremont and theCrystal Cathedral in Orange Grove.

PEOPLE

Gaylord Carter, in mid 1990’s photo, played for L.A. Conservancy’s “Last Seats on Broadway” screenings.

41

MASTER OF

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Carter also taught younger people to play, warning theyhad little chance of making a living as theater organists. During the silent era, about 7,000 of the gigantic organs werebuilt, he often lamented, but only about 100 survive and manyof those are relegated to restaurants and pizza parlors.

The keyboard was Carter’s life-long playground, and heused it as a whole special effects studio for silent films - thunderous music for battles, ominous chords for villains, tricksounds for punch lines.

“At its best, the music if felt but not noticed,” he once toldThe Times. “When it’s right, you should lose yourself in thepicture.”

Born in Weisbaden, Germany, August 3, 1905, Carterimmigrated to Wichita, Kansas, where his father became achurch organist and his mother taught piano.

“I got my training by absorption when I was a child,” heonce told The Times, adding that he did take six months ofpiano lessons and six months of organ lessons.

At age 10, young Carter was playing the organ in Wichita’s Congregational Church, and at 14, he played forchildren’s matinees in a theater there.

In 1922, when Carter was 16, the family moved to LosAngeles. Then a student at Lincoln High School in LincolnHeights, the teenager got into theater accompaniment for silentfilms for lack of a dime.

Unable to afford a ticket to see a movie at his neighborhood theater, he asked if he could play the music forit. He was hired and watched many movies as he played.

Later, at the Seville Theater in Inglewood, Carter wasaccompanying “The Kid,” a comedy starring Harold Lloyd,when the star himself came in to see how the film was doing.Lloyd was so impressed with Carter’s playing that he madehim his personal organist and recommended him for a positionat the prestigious Million Dollar Theater at Third Street andBroadway.

Hired in 1926 for $110 a week, the 21-year-old Carterdropped out of pre-law studies at UCLA to play the organ fulltime. Asked by a UCLA counselor if his reasons for leavingwere financial, Carter said: “Yes, I’m making too muchmoney.” He put a brother and sister through college, but hehimself never graduated.

Lloyd often kibitzed with Carter about the music for hiscomedies, telling him, “Gaylord, when they’re laughing, playsoftly. It’s when they’re not laughing that I need you.”

When Carter swung into “Time on My Hands” duringLloyd’s classic scene dangling from a skyscraper clock in“Safety Last,” Lloyd drolly told the organist: “Gaylord, I’ll dothe jokes.”

As sound pictures developed during the late 1920s, Carterkept his steady job at the Million Dollar and later at the Paramount playing for intermissions and for audience sing-a-longs.

But by 1935, he moved into radio, with his own “Preludeto Midnight” program on Los Angeles’ KHJ and accompanying several network shows. Most memorably, forseven years he played “The Perfect Song” to introduce the popular show “Amos ‘n’Andy.”

During World War II, Carter was a Naval motion pictureofficer in the Aleutians, joking that he was “the Louis B.Mayer of Alaska.”

Returning to Los Angeles, he played for radio’s “TheWhistler,” “Suspense” and a show called “Bride and Groom”and later for television’s “Pinky Lee Show” and others. Healso had his own local show, “Everybody Sing with Gaylord”on KCOP Channel 13.

In the late 1950s, Carter formed a production company,“Flicker Fingers,” that helped prod the revival movement ofsilent films, which put him back in the old theaters he loved.

Services for the lifelong bachelor were December 12,2000 at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241Cedar Avenue, Long Beach, California.

Gaylord Carter continuedTheater Organist, Master Composer for Silent Classics

42

Our December Christmas meeting was held again atRichard Reutlinger’s home in San Francisco on December 9,2000. Our get together lasted from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m.Richard’s Victorian home has been featured in several magazines for outstanding Victorian furnishings and he hasreceived many awards for Victorian Home Restoration.

The first hour members relaxed and had eggnog and lightsnacks. About 30 members showed up tonight for our year-endmeeting. There was constant Christmas music from the playerpiano in the living room which was very enjoyable for everyone. Most of these rolls were made in the 1920’s. Therewas no formal meeting tonight, everyone just relaxed and hada good time together.

About 8:30 p.m. downstairs where Richard has about eightplayer piano of all kinds, we saw and old silent movie about“The Great Train Robbery” made in 1911. While the moviewas being shown, a player piano with lots of sound effects provided great special effects. They don’t show movies likethis anymore. Great to see this again. After the movie, manypeople stayed and listened to other player pianos in this bigroom.

Dinner was served about 9:00 p.m. and was very good asusual, with Richard’s home cooking. During this time

members talked to each other or went on a tour of Richard’sVictorian home. Richard spent most of his time talking andcooking. By 11:00 p.m. most members started to leave.Another great Christmas Party for the Founding Chapter ofAMICA in San Francisco, California.

FOUNDING CHAPTERReporter: Thomas J. McWay III

President: Bing Gibbs - 408-253-1866

NewsFrom

The Chapters

43

44

SIERRA-NEVADA CHAPTERReporters: Doug and Vickie Mahr

President: John Motto-Ros (209) 763-9252

The annual holiday gathering of the Sierra-Nevada Chaptertook place on December 10, 2000, at the Orangevale, Californiahome of Doug and Vickie Mahr.

Seventeen chapter members came dressed in their holidaybest (Rudolph ties, Santa hats, musical ties, and red and greeneverything). Each brought a gift for the annual gift exchange,and each was encouraged to bring their favorite Christmas roll,tell why it was their favorite, and then play the roll on theappropriate Ampico, Duo-Art, Wurlitzer, 88-note or Seeburgpiano, or Victor I gramophone.

Even the holiday AMICA meeting had a business meetingto elect the local chapter officers for the next two years and planthe program of work.

45

George Cunningham, Doug Mahr, Tom and Virginia Hawthorn listening to the 20 3/4” Regina.

Tom Hawthorn and John Motto-Ros talking about Tom’s Christmas musical piano tie.

Nadine Motto-Ros, Sonja Lemon, and Sharyn Cunningham are preparing for the arrival of the hors d’oeuvres.

John Motto-Ros and guest, Dave Moreno, talking “SantaClaus.”

Fred Deal pushes on the sound effects pedals of the Wurlitzer Gphotoplayer while Sonja Lemon sees if they work.

President, John Motto-Ros;Vice president, SonjaLemon; Secretary/Treasurer-Doug and Vickie Mahr;Reporter-Nadine Motto-Ros.

A major focus of the Sierra-Nevada Chapter for the year2001 is to expand exposure to automatic instruments and AMICA by placinginstruments in high trafficvenues such as local museums. Chapter memberswill play the instruments and

provide personalized information on the weekends.

The gift exchange was entertaining and lively, but not asaggressive as in previous years. Even though each member had an opportunity to “take” another’s gift, it rarely happenedon this day.

The finale of the day’s activity was a catered dinnerfeaturing ham, garlic potatoes, carrots, salad, breads, filobread, spinach dish and desserts.

It has been a most successful and gratifying year forthe Sierra-Nevada AMICA Chapter and its members. Thechallenges and opportunities for 2001 will be met with enthusiasm and persistence.

A beautiful piano quilt made byMarilyn Moodie of Belmont,California, adorns the Mahr collection.

“Take a number for the gift exchange, George.”

46

August Meeting

Well, I had one of those “senior moments” when we leftfor the meeting, (I seem to have them a lot lately!) and I forgotone little detail . . . my camera. I need to thank Bill Whitney,who came to my rescue and the pictures you see here are allfrom him.

Los Angeles has been having a heat wave for weeks now,and temperatures in the Valleys have been over 100 along withsome unusual (for us) humidity. With that in mind, our meet-ing on August 12 and 13 was a welcome respite from all that.

We had a weekend meeting, starting at the home of JayAlbert and Brian Meeder on Saturday. This was a great wayto start off the weekend. Jay and Brian have two excellentreproducing pianos and a collection of rolls for both pianosthat is amazing. Whether you prefer Ampico or Duo-Art, themusic was there to enjoy. Both pianos were in good voice, andwhat an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

Along with the music, they had set out a couple of photo-graph albums which were just fascinating. One was datedfrom the time Southern California received its’ charter. This

was a real historical doc-ument for our chapter,and got a lot of attention.The other was from theSouthern California Con-vention in Pasadena. Alot of familiar faces,some still around, somegone to other areas orpassed along.

From there we went tofind lunch along the wayto the Westcott’s home inLompoc. Those of uswho had been therebefore were eager to see

the place again. Jim and Caroyl have the nicest view I haveseen anywhere. The house perches on a hill, and stretched outbelow is the Lompoc area, including some flower fields withthe mountains in the background. beautiful. Every window ofthe house gives true meaning to the term “picture window”.

Jim and Caroyl have some marvelous instruments, includ-ing a Dutch Street Organ, a Bruder, a De Cap, and the VeronicaDutch Organ. All of them were playing beautifully, and wemade a very appreciative audience in the music room.

For those who preferred to stay outside, the Pell Organmounted on a golf cart decked out to be a miniature fire truckplayed. This is the organ Jim brings to our organ rallies, andit’s a good one!!!

We had a short business meeting, and who could haveguessed this would be so entertaining!

At the end of the meeting, Jim entertained us with the taleof his adventure at the Train Museum in Sacramento. He wasset up and playing his Pell organ when a young man from thebicycle shop came over and told him he had to move or turn

down the noise. (Jim was sure this kid probably drives aroundwith rap music rattling the every window on every block for ahalf-mile radius, but that’s another story.) Jim assured him thathe was where he was assigned and wasn’t moving until “theman in charge” moved him.

The next visitor was a Security Guard, who told Jim hehad to move . . . Again, Jim told him he was there at the direc-tion of “the man in charge”.

A little later, the State Police drove up and asked Jim if itwere true that he refused to move????? Jim assured him thatno, he was just waiting for “the man in charge” to tell him tomove. As they talked, someone mentioned that about six feetaway was Federal property and “if” he were assigned to bethere no one could do anything about it.

Well, this wasn’t “the man in charge,” but Jim figured itwas the next best thing, and he really wasn’t into the idea of aride in a State Police car, so he moved to the Federal property,and pointed the organ right toward the bicycle shop and playedthe rest of the time that way. We never did find out exactlywho “the man in charge” was!

That pretty well closed our business meeting - how do youfollow a story like that? So back to the instruments.

When it got close to six, we all drove to a nearby park fora catered BBQ dinner. There was food galore, and it was deli-cious. Everyone ate until they couldn’t eat any more, and thenback to the Westcott’s for a concert on their newest acquisition- an Allen electronic home organ.

What an instrument! This organ doesn’t take up a wholelot of room as many organs do, but it plays like a small theaterorgan. Jim had a whole range of music to play for us, andeveryone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The organ reallyfills the room when it plays, and we felt we could spend awhole day out thereenjoying it. It’s apleasing, upliftingsound.

The next morningwe got up bright andearly and went to thehome of Doug andAudrey Mussell in

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTERReporter: Shirley Nix

President: James Westcott

The AMICAns eating - we do that so well!

Brian Meeder and Jay Albert relaxingat dinner after their open house.

Douglas and AudreyMussell

47

Santa Maria. Doug and Audrey have a great music room filledwith all sorts of instruments. They have a reproducing piano, aMills Violano, a Seeburg K, a Wurlitzer D, a Western ElectricSelectric, and others. Enough to make a lot of music, andenough to keep up happy.

Doug and Audrey are wonderful hosts, Audrey kept thefood flowing. She is such a lot of fun to talk to that many of usstayed outside on the patio where we could enjoy the musicand Audrey at the same time.

From the Mussell’s home, most of us drove over toSolvang to visit the antique center and wander the town.Solvang is a tourist area, with lots of antique stores. One ofparticular interest is the store owned by Ron and Julie Palladino. This one specializes in clocks and music boxes,along with other fine antiques. It’s always a treat just to wan-der through the aisles soaking up the atmosphere.

Richard Rigg, a long-time member of the Southern Cali-fornia Chapter, is now working for Ron and lives in nearbyBuellton. We were fortunate to find him in the store, so we gotto have a good visit. The Southern California Chapter missesDick, but we are all glad to find him so happy in his new sur-roundings.

After our visit to Solvang, we had to wend our merry wayhome to the extreme heat. The whole weekend had seen justnice weather, with a little breeze, and perfect temperatures.Boy, does our president know how to plan a meeting orwhat???

Our next meeting will be October 27 at the Riversidehome of Reese and Terry Banister. A little prior to that, ourannual band organ rally in Fullerton for the Arborfest will beOctober 13-14. Both these events promise to be very enter-taining. This will probably be our last organ rally of the year.The December meeting is not really set yet, but will probablybe a repeat of last year, with dinner at the Sagebrush Cantinaand the meeting at the Nix home nearby.

October Meeting

October 22nd found the Southern California Chapter head-ing for Riverside for a meeting at the wonderful Victorianhome of Reese and Terry Banister. It was a beautiful, breezyday with the sun shining, and the weather was warm andbalmy. A lovely Southern California Day.

Reese and Terry have restored the home, and it is wonder-ful, with carpet, wallpaper, moldings, and all the extras done toperfection to make a home that is a treat to see. There weresemi-tours run through the house, and we were free to wanderon our own.

The Banisters are well known, extremely fine piano restor-ers, and they put on a program in the music room demonstrat-ing the different types of reproducing piano systems. This wasan interesting and enjoyable program. They started off withthe Artrio-Angelus, played on a 1924 Hallet Davis, 5’8”. Nextwas a 1920 A.B. Chase upright, playing an added Recordo

“C”, followed by a late Ampico A with Artecho added to a1920 Knabe 6’4”. For the Duo-Art system, a 1928 Steinway,AR 7’ displayed its power and style. Last, but certainly notleast, a 1924 Baldwin 6’3” played Welte-Mignon Licenseerolls.

The Westcott’s newest toy - the Allen electronichome organ

Bill Blair and Jean Hurley admiring the view from theWestcott’s patio.

The camera shy guy is Jim Newman, in the center is Allan Lifsonand their friend Corey.

Our hosts Terry and Reese Banister with our President, Jim Westcott in the middle.

48

First and foremost, all the pianos were performing at theirpeak, being properly regulated, restored and voiced. The play-er mechanisms had been correctly restored and regulated to thepianos. It was a treat to hear all these pianos in peak conditionin one room.

The music was, I’m sure, chosen to highlight each differ-ent system. It was well chosen and very pleasant to hear. Thisprogram took a lot of time to put together, and was extremelywell done.

The Banisters have our thanks for their hospitality and thequality of the program. People came long distances to thismeeting and the good turnout showed the respect and apprecia-tion for this type of workshop.

A special thanks, too, to Jim Westcott, our esteemed presi-dent who has been lining up some super programs for ourmeetings this past year.

When the program was over, Ron Sanchez sat down at theAeolian Orchestrelle and played a wide assortment of music.

It’s always nice to have such a good turnout, and to seesome faces who haven’t been around much lately. Our chapterhas been hit with a rash of various operations and illnesseslately, with Lloyd Osmundson and Frank Nix having newhips installed. (Caroyl Westcott is next - she’s having hersdone in January.) At this rate, we may have to rename ourchapter to “The Bionic Automatic Music Collectors Club” or“Bam” for short.

Our Vice-president, Jackie Porter, had some serioussurgery, but seems to be on the mend - she’s hard to keepdown!

Everyone was saddened by the sudden death of MillieRigg, mother of Richard Rigg. Millie has been a fixture for along time at the meetings, although since she and Richardmoved north to Buellton, we haven’t seen so much of her.

When Frank and I joined AMICA, Millie was the one whotook us in hand at our first meeting, taking us around and mak-ing sure we met people before she left us. That’s the way shewas - a super lady.

We are starting to look toward dues collection, and thiswas brought up at the meeting. We’d like to see all the duespaid before the end of the year. If you are going to dream,dream big, right?

We had another organ rally in Fullerton at the Arborfestthis year. They really enjoy having us, and have great feed-back from the public. It’s a lot of fun for us, too, with anappreciative audience each year.

This year, Frank had just had his hip done, so we couldn’treally participate, but we did manage to get out and walkaround. It’s the first time we have had time to actually sit andlisten to the instruments, and we enjoyed that. Thanks toeveryone who brought their instruments. I didn’t get any pic-tures this year, and I apologize for that, but I’ll make up for itnext year.

The city of Orange has asked us to do a small rally againin February. That will be fun, although a lot of us will be inAustralia, and that’s just too far to commute.

Sonja Bartsch, Roy Beltz, and Mary and Ben Lilien.

Mary and Weldon Clegg and Diane Reidy.

The Music Room.Ruth and Steve Walker, and our youngest AMICA

aficionado-Jennifer.

49

The rallies havebrought us some newmembers, and a lot ofinterest. We always tryto encourage interestedparties to join. Let’sfact it, we really neednew members if theorganization is to flour-ish.

Our next meeting willbe our Christmas meet-ing at the home ofFrank and ShirleyNix, with dinner at theCantina Restaurant.We will, as always,invite MBSI to join us,and it’s always a lot offun.

December Meeting

We keep reading about all the bad weather back east, butwe don’t allow that out here. Our December/Christmas meet-ing on December 16th found a pleasant, sunny day for our fes-tivities, as usual.

We had dinner at the Sagebrush Cantina early, with ourhost Bob McCord and his crew again feeding us like royalty,and entertaining us with a Verbeeck Monkey Organ. In fact, Ithink a lot of members thought they could work off the caloriesfrom the dinner by cranking the organ - sure!

It was a lot of fun, and the organ furnished us with musicto din by, plus Bob brought some other fun items in for ouramusement and appreciation.

After dinner we all proceeded over to the Nix house. Wehad decorated for the holidays, of course, and I had my Christ-mas Village out, which got a lot of attention. It’s another oneof those things that started small and just grows and grows.Frank says we are going to lose the whole living room to it intime. This from one collector to another?????

In the house our guests were treated to the sounds of theWeber Unika, which was new since last year. It was sent overfrom Germany, and is a favorite of ours. It is a beautiful addi-tion to the living room, and the music is wonderful withoutbeing overbearing.

If the guests got bored with that there was always theSteinway Duo-Art Grand. Lowell Boehland took charge of

playing that, and did agood job of selectingnice music. Therewere also variousassorted bird cages,really nice musicboxes, and dessert andcoffee to enjoy.

From the house, we

journeyed out to theMusic House for therest of the evening, andit takes that long to fin-ish out the meeting.What a pleasant groupto spend the time with- we are all so lucky inour friends who havethe same interests andenjoy sharing theirtime with us.

Out in the MusicHouse, our newestacquisition, an Imhof-Mukle Tribute, com-plete with eruptingvolcano, was waitingto entertain the group.It was in good voice,and got played a lot. Ithas the Europeansound, and MikeArgain had done hisusual magic job of restoring it. When we bought it, there was aLOT of work to do, both on the cabinet and the organ itself.

There are a few other things in the Music House as well,including the ever-popular Duwyn Café Organ, the Carl FreiDutch Street Organ, a wide range of violanos (There is a storyto that, but oh, well it’s too long for this article.), a WurlitzerBX, a Cremona Midget, the Mortier 80-key Dance Organ, theRamey Banjo-Orchestra, a wonderful very large organ musicbox, and a few other things thrown in for good measure. All inall, there seemed to be something for everyone.

Our meeting found Bill Blair, our nominating chair, readywith his slate of prospective officers, which was unanimouslyaccepted and voted in. Actually, there were no surprises, sinceall the officers agreed to stay one more year.

Frank Nix announced that there will be a monkey organrally in Orange Circle on February 17 and 18. This has been afun area in which to have rallies in the past. Anyone out therewho has a monkey organ and wants to join us, let us know.The merchants really appreciate our coming down.

Our Treasurer assured us that we are solvent - paying allthe bills and holding our own.

The wonderful Victorian fireplace in the house.

New members Fred andDeanna Roth enjoyingthe dancing reindeer.

The Imhof-Mukle - the newest member of the Nix family.

The Weber Unika decorated for the holidays.

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After the meeting came the gift exchange, and there was amarvelous assortment of gifts. It seems like every year theselection is better than the year before. We had reindeer dancing with noses which lighted up (red, of course), reindeersinging about Grandma getting run over by a reindeer, birds incages which lit up when they sang, and gorgeous china pianos.The range was wide, and it is always great fun to see all theclever presents.

We are not having a meeting in February, since the Con-vention is that month, and many of us will be off to Australiaand New Zealand. The monkey organ rally will have to do forthis time.

Those of us who are going to Australia were talking aboutthe upcoming trip. It is getting exciting. We decided it will bea wonderful trip, and none of us can believe how fast it camearound.

We have had some members ill lately - Our V.P. JackiePorter had cancer surgery (she is doing well), Pat Cohen hadsurgery for an abscess, and Bob Lloyd tried to help a friendput a patio roof on but found the fastest way down - painfully!He broke his leg (They had to replace a lot of the bone withmetal.) and shattered his elbow, which is now held togetherwith all kinds of wires and things. Caroyl Westcott is havinga hip replaced in January. Good thing we’re a resilient bunch.It’s also a good thing they have all these metal parts to replacethe ones we wear out or break up.

Other than the illnesses and accidents, it has been a goodyear for our chapter, and look forward to 2001 with the hope ofa busy and healthy time for all of us. See you “Down Under”.

Bill and Barbara Whitney deep in discussion with Roy Beltz,who was celebrating his birthday - 29 again Roy?

Frank Nix shows Allan Lifson the Carl Frei.

Jay Albert and Brian Meeder waiting for dinner

Herb Mercer, Weldon Clegg, and Jim Westcottcheck out the Verbeeck Organ.

Here’s a group of AMICAns listening to the Weber Styria.Good to see Ben and Mary Lilien.

Bill Blair and his gift - alight-up singing birdcage.

Kathy Lawrence and Diane Reidyenjoying the moment.

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Our annual Holiday Gathering began on Saturday, Decem-ber 3rd as the snow stopped long enough for over 40 membersof our chapter to travel to Northwest Ohio. The afternoonbegan at Robin Pratt’s shop, where we met to enjoy refresh-ments and play rolls while we waited for everyone to arrive.The highlight of the afternoon was a special concert featuringRobin on a newly restored 1880s Estey Victoria Harmoniumowned by Shawn Fox. He was accompanied on the Bagatelles,Opus 47 by Antonin Dvorak by The Aeolian Strings - two vio-linists, (Alice Weiss and Janice Brewer) and a cellist (TheresaPerez) - a fine performance.

After the music, we headed south to the home of BeverlyBrabb and Jeff Brabb in Norwalk. We sampled appetizers inthe century home’s dining room before departing for dinner atthe historic Homestead Inn. The Inn is a large Victorian housebuilt in 1883 and decorated with memorabilia from the area,including some Edison items from nearby Milan, Ohio, wherehis former home still stands. Many of us enjoyed the local spe-cialty of Lake Erie Perch in one of the second floor’s manyperiod dining rooms.

Then it was back to the Brabb’s in Norwalk for moremusic. A former favorite at holiday meetings came back for anencore, soprano Carol Icsman. She performed several selec-tions as well as a welcome addition to our evening, DonaldEarle, who sang some of his family’s favorite Christmas songs.As always, we had a holiday gift exchange, but instead of giv-ing piano rolls, this year the gifts could be anything musical.That led to some entertaining as well as practical giving. TheWeber Duo-Art and the Premier Welte Grand were in fine form,playing many selections throughout the evening. And Bev’s pigcollection greeted us from every room in the house!

Several doors down from the Brabb’s is Berry’s Restaurant,where we met for breakfast on Sunday morning. It is the lastremaining part of the St. Charles Hotel, built in 1867 after theCivil War. The stained glass windows inside were created in1887 for the Gardiner Music Hall which stood nearby.

Many AMICA members may have instruments built by theA.B. Chase Company, and across the street from the Brabb’s isthe home of Leander Dowd, the company’s treasurer and comp-troller, who built it for his family in 1882. It has wonderfulcherry woodwork throughout, and was one of the first houses inNorwalk to have indoor plumbing. It also had a third floor ball-room for entertaining and was owned by the family until 1965.Unfortunately, the third owner of the house put the original

Clark Counterman tests the original ivory keys of the Harmonium.

MIDWEST CHAPTERReporter: Christy Counterman

President: Judy Chisnell

A.B. Chase organ up for auction, but the current owners hope tobring one back to the home in the near future.

Lake Erie was not far away from our next visit, the home ofMark Reddaway in Huron. His street ends at a small park witha gazebo, where we could catch a fine view (albeit cold!) of thelake. A new member of AMICA and our chapter, he was host-ing his first gathering and everyone enjoyed his newly restoredAeolian Duo-Art. He also has quite a collection of art andmemorabilia from all over the world.

We discussed our upcoming meetings and have tentativelyscheduled a trip to Columbus, Ohio in March hosted by ShawnFox, and a trip north of the border to Ken Vinen’s in Stratford,Ontario, Canada in May.

Our chapter members would like to thank all of our hostsfor the holiday weekend for an enjoyable, informative andentertaining time.

A costume party is portrayed on this fan advertising the Schulz Player Piano owned by Bill Ackman.

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Sylvia Chappell looks over the action of her soon-to-be-completed piano.

Do you have all of the necessary parts to rebuild the Carola inner-piano on this chart?

Charlene Torer, Donna Counterman, Liz Barnhart and DonnaEstry discuss plans for their upcoming trip to Australia.

Robin and “The Aeolian Strings”

Dinner at the Homestead Inn - the Torers, Merchants,Carol, Robin and the Wulfehuhls.

Signs welcoming us to the Brabb’s warn of Bev’s pig collection inside.

Bev Brabb plays Mrs. Santa, distributing

the gifts.

Judy and Rollie Chisnell make their gift choices.

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Charlene and Norb Torer check out the “Swinging Santa.”

Stuart Grigg opens hispresent s Robin Pratt looks on.

Judy Chisnell conducts the meeting at Berry’sRestaurant - the originalhotel clock is in the background, Bennet Leedy is in front.

Judy Chisnell, Shawn Fox, Robin Pratt

and Mike Stephens in downtown Norwalk.

Jim Fleissner and Mike Stephens test-ing Brabb’s Welte.

Baritone soloist Don Earle sang selectionsfrom three centuries.

The view of Lake Erie from

Mark Reddaway’s home.

Host Mark Reddaway poses with part of our group: the Torers, Jim Fleissner, Judy Beaver, Shawn Fox,

Donna Counterman, Ken Vinen and Rol Chisnell

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There is a fireplace in every room.The 1882 house was built by the comptrollerof the A. B. Chase Piano Company,

Leander Dowd.

The gas light entry lamp of ruby beveledglass was converted to electricity.

One of the leaded glasswindows in the house.

Judy Wulfekuhl checks outthe butler’s sink hidden

under the stairs.

The elegant cherry wood stairway.

Donna Estry and MikeStephens are reflected ina mirror once displayed

at the A.B. Chase exhibitat the 1893 Chicago

World’s Fair.

June Fox and son Shawnin the parlor.

The November meeting of the Boston Area was once againat the home of Bill and Beverly Koenigsberg in Concord. Theinvitation to our meeting listed a new slate of officers and a ballot, which asked members to mail it to our secretary if notattending the meeting. Our president is Ken Volk; Vice President Dorothy Bromage; Secretary Ginger Christiansen;and Treasurer Karl Ellison. These officers were duly electedwithout any “Florida” problems.

We drifted around the house with conversations around twosnack tables, the living room Steinway Duo-Art, and the cellarcollection that featured a 1929 Mason & Hamlin 6’11” AmpicoB. That piano is now not only playing beautifully and loudly,but has case and piano insides restored to factory condition.The case is now a darker mahogany than the honey maple finishit once had. We heard that our Karl Ellison performed a Historylecture and Demonstration at the Piano Museum in Hopkinton,Massachusetts in October.

Ken Volk opened our business meeting with the possibleplayer piano restoration or replacement for the Charles RiverMuseum. The one they now have is in poor condition, and areplacement could be worked on and restored elsewhere before installation in the museum. Local “Want Advertiser”publication has about two pumper players listed per week, andone could be worked on and left in process in Dorothy’s barn.Our chapter would donate the labor and the museum would paya nominal sum for the piano. We would secure a commitmentfrom the museum before proceeding, and the target is finish inlate 2001. We will do only player restorations, not pianorestoration. The existing player has a plexi front for all to seeall internal works. It is electrified, as auto re-roll is a must.

Jack Breen is working on a listing of 3200 Rollography ofViolano Rolls. There is a gap between numbers 1000 and 1800.We expect to obtain three old catalogs in January 2001. Jackhas received his Violano case and hopes to have it working byChristmas. There are typically five songs per roll. From #1700on, the rolls are listed as “Hand-played.”

Karl Ellison brought a 1K core memory cube from an oldcomputer. It now seems very labor intensive to link all thosecores with windings to achieve 1K memory. Karl told us aboutCharlie Jackson’s Piano Museum in Hopkinton, Massachusetts,with rare pianos. We could visit there in 2001. There are 35pianos in the collection, and 20 in the workshop. Karl broughttwo rolls for us to hear, one old and one new: Morning, Noon& Night from La Gioconda Opera, and a Pete Wendling non-Duo-Art “Whoos Izzy Izzy?” There is a bit of “Palestina”included in it.

Our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for February 4 inLexington. There is a Wurlitzer 153 Band Organ and a 35-mmmovie theater there. We plan a warm weather meeting in Salemat two different places.

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BOSTON AREA CHAPTERReporter: Don BrownPresident: Ken Volk

Karl Ellisonchats abouthis concert inHopkinton

Althea Patt, Ed Patt, Ginger Christiansen, Lois Brown and Pat Lavacchia

Bill Koenigsberg explains a detail on his ‘29 Mason and Hamlin

Jack Breen checks an Ampico drawer

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February 4, 2001

* The meeting was hosted by Beni and Matt Jaro in Lexington, MA. 26 people attended.

* The minutes were read and accepted.

* The treasurer’s report was read. The only expense was for copies and postage. We now have balance of $1036.19

* Old Business: The search is still on for a replacement piano for the Charles River Museum of Technology. Karl Ellison wrote to the museum curator re: their written guarantee to pay $500 for a piano restored by our club. No word has been heard as of this date. Several pianos have been found but were either too costly or too far away. All agreed that refinishing a piano would be no problem at all.

* New Business: Karl Ellison received plenty of AMICAbrochures to increase our chapter’s membership.

* Phil Konop and Ed & Jean Everett volunteered to host a future meeting.

* Sandy Libman suffered another stroke in January and isat the Woodbriar in Wilmington, MA. A get well cardwas passed around for everyone to sign.

* Matt Jaro spoke about his collection, which began with records from all eras, an extensive film collection (he has a full movie theater on the third floor of his home), and his mechanical musical instruments. He showed his beautiful band organ, which was painted by Don Rand from ME.

Karl Ellison, Chris Christiansen, Bill Koenigsberg, and Jack Breen and the ‘29 Mason and Hamlin

A digital performance!

* Show & Tell: Allan Jayne brought two Mr. Christmas musical boxes. Both had automated characters that moved with the music. Ken Goldman brought ananimated musical watch crafted by Henry Capt.

* Next meeting - April 29 at Charlie the Tuner’s (Charlie Jackson) in Hopkinton, MA.

Respectfully submitted by Ginger Christiansen, secretary,Boston Chapter - AMICA

HEART OF AMERICA CHAPTERReporter: Joyce Brite

President: Ron Bopp - 918-786-4988

Heart of America chapter held its annual Christmas meeting in Grandview, Missouri hosted by Mike and SandySchoeppner. Despite the chilly December weather, membersenjoyed a warm gathering.

The weekend commenced with a planning meeting for the2002 AMICA convention in Springdale, followed by openhouses at the homes of Galen and Linda Bird and the Schoeppners.

The group then met at a local church for a fine dinnercatered by a local restaurant. The dinner was punctuated withassorted cheers and jeers from certain partisan members whowatched the Big 12 Football Championship game on televisionas they enjoyed their meal. (And you thought we were onlyinterested in mechanical music!)

The live halftime show performance was by Santa and hisreindeer. Santa had released his hoofed animals from their harnesses that evening and they showed their glee by singingand dancing for us.

The next morning, chaptermembers met at the Schoeppners’ house for break-fast followed by the businessmeeting. Upcoming meetingswere discussed and officers forthe next term were approved.The morning concluded with aboisterous gift exchangebetween members.

Many thanks to theSchoeppners for doing anexcellent job of hosting the meeting. We really appreciated it Mike and Sandy!

Kay Bode with her street organ.

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Tom McAuley says,“I’m gonna stayright here and waitfor Santa to comedown the chimney!”

Santa checks his bag for reindeer presents

Gerald Koehler, Gary Craig, Ron Bopp, Mike Schoeppner, and Mary Jo Bopp with Mike’s old fire truck.

(Hey Ron, you’re supposed to have both hands on the steering wheel!)

Ron Connor, Cynthia Craig and Carol Griffith

Reindeer Kay Bode, Dee Tyler, Robbie Tubbs, Linda Bird and Katie Hellstein with Santa Sandy Schoeppner

Ron Bopp’s colorful new Jaeger & Brommer organwith a clear lucite case. Too bad the photo’s not in color!

New member Jim Fletcher checks Ron Bopp’s spelling.(Psst, it’s spelled A-M-I...)

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August Meeting

Bob Stumer was our host for our August get together. Themeeting took place in Garden City Park, New York. My cam-era malfunctioned that day so here are some pictures taken afew months afterward. Bob earns his livelihood as a graphicartist. Bob does not rely on the computer, rather he does mostof his work by magic marker, and the results are stunning.

Bob’s “prizedpossession” is thisWurlitzer 103 BandOrgan. Bob did all the restoration work himself, both insideand out. Marty(Buzz) Rosa selectsthe next roll to beplayed. Surprisingly,rolls for this machineare more availablethan one might think.In case availability of

rolls was a problem, Bob can create and cut his own masterrolls. Bob sends the master roll out to Mike Grant in Indiana.Mike sends Bob back the finished product. Bob’s process formaking rolls is very teachable. Buzz Rosa played us his firstband organ roll which Bob helped him create and the resultswere great for a “first timer”.

Bob Stumer, pictured here, is at work making his rolls. He“lets me in”on how hedoes it. To the right is a spool ofpaper, whichhe feedsthrough theh o r i z o n t a lstraight edgeguides. Bobtransfers his

LADY LIBERTY CHAPTERReporter: Bill Maguire

President: Bill Maguire - 516-261-6799

information from sheet music to the roll. In his left hand, Bobholds a sliding vertical straightedge that has markings on it andserves as a reference for the scaling of the Wurlitzer’s trackerbar. Equally spaced vertical lines on the paper are a guide fortiming. He cuts the perforations on the ends with a hand punchand connects the two punched holes using an “exacto” knife. Ihave one question for Bob. If you attempted punching a holeand you wind up with a “hanging chad” or worse yet, a “pregnant chad”, should that note count? Forgive me Bob,given the current events at the time of this writing, I couldn’tresist adding that.

December Meeting

We appreciate Gail and Dee Clark for opening their homein Watchung, New Jersey to us for our December 10th party.On display in the music room were these two matching Wurlitzer 165 band organs. The collection also includes aViolano Virtuoso, a Link Nickelodeon, a Western Electric Nickelodeon, a calliope and a Haines Ampico.

The award for most unusual item in this collection wouldhave to go to The Monkey Band and mechanical clown. Thesefigures have very life-like movements as they perform theirmany songs. Paul Manganaro (behind the calliope) is not, infact, a member of The Monkey Band but he does help DeeClark in therestoration andmaintenance ofthis large andi m p r e s s i v e collection.

Our hostsGail and Deegive Dale Roweencouragementas he repairs the

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Street organ. Dale finds that the main bellow is binding on thecase and that the spill valve spring has fallen off. The Clarksare babysitting the organ for friends of theirs.

Gail Clark’s grandfather worked at the Lauter Piano Factory in nearby Newark. Gail showed us 50 pictures taken atthe Lauter factory between 1910-1930. These pictures prettymuch covered every step in the manufacturing of Lauter playeruprights (very interesting stuff). Walter Kehoe and friendsadmiring one of the Lauter Factory pictures while most of therest of us “gawk” at other pictures near the kitchen table.

The Steinway Duo-Art XR plays all of our favorite holidaysongs.

NORTHERN LIGHTS CHAPTERReporter: Dorothy Olds

President: Dave Kemmer

Saturday, August 19th, 2000, saw some chapter membersarriving at Oronoco, Minnesota, for the Annual Gold RushDays Celebration. The weather was ideal - partly cloudy with agood breeze blowing. Oronoco Gold Rush Days began in thesummer of 1973. Local antique dealers, Earl and May LouBerg, decided to have a “flea market” on a vacant lot that theyowned across Minnesota Avenue from their antique shop. Thatsummer there were 35 exhibitors and hardly anyone in the Mid-west knew what a “flea market’ was. From that modest begin-ning the event has grown to become the nation’s largest antiqueshow and flea market. Nowadays the event fills the entire townof Oronoco AND the entire 50-acre site of the Olmsted CountyFairgrounds in Rochester. There are nearly 2,000 exhibitors inOronoco and over 2,000 more at the Fairgrounds with the mid-way and every available arena and building filled to capacity.People and exhibitors come from all 50 states.

Almost since the beginning, the event is always held on the3rd weekend of August with exhibitors setting up on Thursdayand Friday and open to the public from sunrise-to-sunset onSaturday and Sunday. The 3rd weekend of August was chosenfor a rather interesting reason: The founders contacted theUnited States Weather Bureau to find out which weekend of thesummer had, statistically, the best weather and after the Bureaudid some research, they determined it to be the 3rd weekend inAugust.

It truly takes two-to-three days to see all of the exhibits.

Others of us didn’t arrive until Sunday morning, parkingour cars in the reserved space in our host’s magnificent yard,under the shade trees. (You see, others attending the celebrationhad to pay for premium parking.) But, we were at Dave Kem-mer’s. He lives in an 1875 Schoolhouse. Since we were thereearly, we walked a few blocks to where the vendors were set up.One would need to spend a full day meandering and observingall of the displays and still not see everything. Plus a few milesdown the road was an extension of the same, in Rochester.

Returning to Dave’s home, echoes of organ music resound-ed throughout the school building. Dave was playing his AllenTheater organ. Other musical vibrations were heard from someof his other pianos which include A.B. Chase grand pianos, the9 foot concert grand has a Pianocorder Vorsetzer set up to playfrom a cassette or computer. Among the other interesting musicrelated items were a Rosewood Steinway Synque (sink) and barcombination. “Wonderful.” A Rosewood Square grand hasbeen converted to a wonderful serving piece. These two uniquepieces were once thriving musical instruments, but somewherealong the way they lost the keys, strings, etc., and Dave decidedthat conversion was the answer to preservation of the cases.

Of course, we all “suffered” through a great potluck lunchwith a couple of homemade pies, which Bill Baird made fromscratch. A brief meeting followed with proposals for sites andentertainment for future meetings. The meeting adjourned andthose coming from a distance departed for the long journeyhome.

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The Chapter’s fall meeting was held Sunday, October 8that the home of Fran and Maury Willyard in Silverdale, Wash-ington. We were greeted with the song “Teddy Bears Picnic”piped outside near five carved bear figures enjoying a marsh-mallow roast. The Willyards have a comprehensive collectionof player and reproducing pianos including Ampico, Duo-Art,Welte-Licensee, Recordo, and Tel-Electric, music boxes andclocks, and Lincoln automobiles. The mart included an unusu-ally large array of player rolls and other treasures. The chapternow includes 62 individual members. We welcomed new mem-bers Chris and Nathan Bello of Oregon. Nathan wowed us atthe Sacramento Convention and at this meeting, by entertainingmembers with classical, popular, and ragtime selections, includ-ing some of his own compositions.

Although still only 14 years old, Nathan has shown interestin player and reproducing pianos for several years and is learn-ing to restore them on his own. He is an accomplished pianistand is being taught (performance and piano technician skills) byhis father. The techniques revealed by reproducing rolls are ofhis particular interests and he is able to re-perform from view-ing the playing of reproducing pianos.

Maury Willyard presented a demonstration of player stackvalve rebuilding and all the fine details which make this part ofrestoration challenging. Each of the Willyard’s pianos andother instruments performed beautifully. The Lincolns weremostly up and running, too.

Carl Kehret agreed to serve as chapter reporter, much tothe relief of Dan Brown, who has been “interim reporter” for acouple years. Mark Smithberg reported on the dedication ofthe Steinway grand piano which had been owned by MaxKortlander’s late nephew Walt Jones, a member of the chap-ter. The newly reconditioned instrument is now in St. Luke’sPresbyterian Church in Sequim, Washington, and will be usedfor concerts as well as church services.

The chapter is still considering hosting the 2003 Conven-tion, and a planning meeting was held for interested members.Possible sites are being investigated and Carl Dodrill is coordi-nating efforts. The plans are moving forward for a band organrally to be held Labor Day weekend 2001 in Ocean Shores,Washington, September 1-2. Norm Gibson is heading theeffort and the Ocean Shores Convention Center has beenbooked for those dates. A number of organs have already beencommitted and an indoor display of other automatic mechanicalmusic machines is planned. Several hotels are available forthose attending with a wide range of costs. Ocean Shores is aresort community and Labor Day weekend is historically one ofthe most pleasant weatherwise.

PACIFIC CAN-AM CHAPTERReporter: Dan Brown

President: Mark Smithberg - 206-763-9468

The final chapter meeting of 2000 will be on December 9that the home of Bev and Wes Spore, in Kenmore, Washington(at the north end of Lake Washington). They have a large pipeorgan in their home which operates from several player sys-tems. The traditional white elephant holiday gift exchange willbe a featured attraction.

Hosts Fran and MauryWillyard at the TeddyBears Picnic.

Carl Kehret shows his innovativetransformation of an organ pipe

into a birdhouse.

Wes Spore demonstrates an innovative way of playing Welte rolls on the Radle Recordo.

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President Mark Smithberg and Maury and the chapter welcoming sign.

Nathan Bello at the artcase Weber Duo-Art.Members seem delighted with mart items.

Maury plays the 58-65 Aeolian Pianola for Nathan and Chris Bello and Ray Parkinson.

Nathan admiring the 1959 Lincoln Continental.

Norm Gibson provides details of the proposed band organ rally for August 2001.

SOWNY CHAPTERReporter: Frank Warbis

President: Anne Lemon - 905-295-4228

Summer Meeting

An invitation to the home of Howard and Lori Root isalways a feast for the eyes as well as a culinary delight. Theirgarden which covers two large city lots has hundreds of vari-eties of flowers and plants including a bountiful vegetable dis-play. All the gardening work is accomplished by Lori herselfwho digs, plants, rearranges, cultivates and nurses each plantinto full bloom. The highlight of the garden is the large bub-bling pond complete with lily pads and goldfish.

A complete surprise to our meeting was the presentation ofa birthday cake and a rather large card to Muriel Hodgkins byour hostess Lori Root. While John Cairns looked on, Murielmade sure that each person had inscribed their names for thismomentous occasion.

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Gary Lemon (center) makes a point to John Cairns, just prior to the business meeting.Our President Anne makes a point while John, Wayne,

and Harold look on.

Led by Holly Walter and Diane and John Thompson the Fun business meeting comes to a close.

Muriel Hodgkins checks each name while John Cairns looks on.

Lori Root presents a large birthday cake while Joan Warbis looks on.

House, garden and pond.

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ADVERTISING GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT

ALL ADVERTISING IN THE AMICA BULLETINAll advertising should be directed to:

Robin Pratt630 East Monroe StreetSandusky, Ohio 44870-3708Phone (419) 626-1903 e-mail: pianola@aol.com

Ad copy must contain text directly related to the product/servicebeing offered. Extraneous text will be deleted at the Publisher’sdiscretion. All advertising must be accompanied by payment inU.S. funds. No telephone ads or written ads without payment willbe accepted. This policy was established by a unanimous vote ofthe AMICA Board at the 1991 Board Meeting and reaffirmed atthe 1992 meeting. AMICA reserves the right to edit or toreject any ad deemed inappropriate or not in keeping withAMICA’s objectives.

The BULLETIN accepts advertising without endorsement,implied or otherwise, of the products or services being offered.Publication of business advertising in no way implies AMICA’sendorsement of any commercial operation.

AMICA PUBLICATIONS RESERVES THE RIGHT TOACCEPT, REJECT, OR EDIT ANY AND ALL SUBMIT-TED ARTICLES AND ADVERTISING.

All items for publication must be submitted directly to thePublisher for consideration.

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: $.20 per word, $5.00 minimumfor AMICA members. Non-members may advertise double themember rates ($10.00 minimum). Because of the low cost ofadvertising, we are unable to provide proof copies or “tear sheets”.

DISPLAY ADVERTISINGFull Page — 71/2 " x 10" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $150.00Half Page — 71/2 " x 43/4" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 80.00Quarter Page —35/8 " x 43/4" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 45.00Business Card — 31/2 " x 2" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 30.00

Non-member rates are double for all advertising. Special 6 for 5 Ad Offer - Place any ad, with no changes, for afull year (6 issues), and pay for only 5 issues. Payable in advance.Photographs or halftones $15.00 eachLoose Sheet or Insert Advertising: InquireWe recommend that display advertisers supply camera-readycopy. Copy that is oversized or undersized will be changed tocorrect size at your cost. We can prepare advertisements fromyour suggested layout at cost.PAYMENT: U.S. funds must accompany ad order. Make checkpayable to AMICA INTERNATIONAL. Typesetting and layout size alterations charges will be billed.DEADLINES: Submissions must be received no later than thefirst of the odd months (January, March, May, July, September,November). The Bulletin will be mailed the first week of theeven months.

(Rev. 6-98)

FOR SALEMUST SELL!!! Personal Collection of AMICA HonoraryEmmett Ford — 1921 J. & C. Fischer Ampico Grand, restored,includes bench and 15 rolls - $8,500.; 1922 George SteckDuo-Art, restored, includes bench and 15 rolls - $8,500.Contact Emmett Ford - (316) 683-2508 (1-01)

1972 MASON-HAMLIN Style A #76183, medium walnut, factoryfitted Pianocorder, modified with MC1 to record and play tapes andfloppy disks. Huge tape and disk library. $16,000 delivered.Tel. (U.K.code) + 1624 813358; E-mail: rocketman@onetel.net.uk(1-01)

LAUTER Recordo Grand, 4’10” mahogany single leg (Spade);4’10” DUO-ART Grand, walnut case. Both complete but needfull restoration. $1250.00 each or $2,000.00 for both. NJ (732) 870-2238 Bryan. (1-01)

MASON & HAMLIN, Red Welte upright. Exceptionally clean,operating original. Matching bench and 140-roll library - $7900.00.Paul Ciancia, 437 Sicomac Ave., Wyckoff, NJ 07481; days: 201-569-8255, eves: 201-891-6842. (3-01)

1923 CHICKERING Ampico Centennial Grand Player Piano,5’4”. Ampico is completely restored including all valve parts,plays and sounds beautifully. The case is original mahogany, hammers, dampers, etc., are in good condition. Located inPhiladelphia, PA. Price $8,000. 215-629-1673,jmajimenez@aol.com. (1-01)

MASON & HAMLIN Ampico B. Dave 775-448-9656 (3-01)

1922 KNABE Ampico A Grand Reproducer. Excellent unrestoredcondition. $4850 including 36 rolls. Reproducer mechanism notoperating, but has not been tampered with. Ivories, piano action,soundboard, bridges excellent. Mahogany cabinet 5’6”, is checkedbut free from gouges which would show as flaws when refinished.In family since new. Serial No. 92991. Phone: 858-518-4394 and858-279-8155 San Diego, CA (1-01)

WHITNEY & BECKWITH upright players. Aeolian 5’2” Duo-Art, Beckwith 5’Ampico, Chickering upright Ampico. For moreinformation: jharvey@greenbriarantiques.com 304-645-6579,Fax: 304-645-5872. (1-01)

Beautiful 5’8” 1919 CHICKERING AMPICO #130428, pianocompletely rebuilt approx. 20 years ago. New strings and newhammers. Exquisite hand-rubbed lacquer finish on case has beenreturned to the original brown mahogany color. This StoddardAmpico is the “universal” Ampico: it plays all Ampico rollsbeautifully with ease from the earliest Stoddard rolls to the late ‘B’rolls. Includes matching bench and thirty-five Ampico rolls. Asking$15,000. David Wallis 708-366-3103 (Chicago area). (1-01)

NEW PIANO ROLL BOXES - Large and Small available. Smallboxes (2 x 2) are covered with White Litho (bottom), and eitherBlack Leather or Brown Leather paper (top). Large boxes (3 x 3)are covered with Black Leather paper (bottom), and Black Alligatorpaper (top). Prices are: $1.20 each (small), $2.50 each (large), plusshipping. A 20% discount will be given for orders over $100.Many other repair supplies available (leaders, tabs, tubes, flanges,repair tape). New QRS Rolls 20% off catalog price on orders over$100, 5% on orders less than $100. Refurbished 88-note rolls (newleader, tab, labels and box), $6.00 each. Hundreds of used rollsstarting at $3.00 each (guaranteed playable). California Player RollCo., www.calroll.com, (760) 244-ROLL (7655) (6-01)

AMPICO B stack for 5’8” Mason & Hamlin $1,000 / offers considered. Mel Septon (847) 679-3455. (2-01)

AMPICO, DUO-ART & WELTE Rolls, great selection ofpopular, classical and medleys. Also, 88-Note Piano Rolls, hundreds of used rolls, - $3.00 each plus shipping. Also New OldStock QRS Rolls, $5.00 each. Will furnish lists on request. DaveCaldwell, 400 Lincoln Lake Road NE, Lowell, Michigan 49331;(616) 897-5609 (6-01)

“ The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of

comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

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John WrassePiano Moving

Specializing in:Player Grands, Nickelodeons, & Orchestrions

Anywhere in Continental US & Canada• • • • •

25 years experienceKnowledgeable Rebuilder and Collector

Well-known • References AvailableInsured• • • • •

Your instrument is wrapped, padded andsecured for transport in an insulated and

clean custom-built heavy-duty trailer.Professional and personal service.

John P. WrassePhone: 319-872-3495 - Cell: 630-542-4298

E-mail: pianopro@iowatellecom.net31449 216th St., Bellevue, IA 52031

(6-01)

WELTE-MIGNON RECUTS!!! 32 titles in our current cata-logue. THRILLING CLASSICAL and HOT LATE POPULARselections! Rolls are limited in quantity so order now! Robin Pratt,PIANOLA@aol.com, ARTISTS’ CHOICE MUSIC ROLLS, 419-626-1903, http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/pratt.htm

CD’s and Tapes of the San Francisco Starlight Orchestra.Recordings available are: Charleston Is The Best Dance (tapeonly), Doin The Raccoon (tape and CD), Cheerful Little Earful(tape and CD), Rose Colored Glasses (CD only). CD’s are $18each, tapes are $12 each which includes shipping and handling.Payment is by personal check or money order - no credit card sales.Orders/Inquiries: San Francisco Starlight Orchestra (SFSO),c/o Jim Brennan, 442 Skylark Street, Windsor, CA 95492;phone 707-973-6107 (1-01)

MUSIC BOXES: Bell Box, Drum, 4 Bells, Castanet, 8 tune, completely restored $5,000.00. Nicole Freres: 8 tune, 76 teeth,11” cylinder, completely restored $3500.00. View at www.puls-inc.com, Roger Puls, 1521 Parkhaven Dr.,Parma, Ohio 44134, 440-845-5000. (1-01-G)

Eleven unrestored player pianos. Located Blue Ridge Summit,Pennsylvania. Make an offer. 717-794-5155. (1-01-G)

3 Mills Violano rolls: $95 each. Several player piano chests andspoolboxes, $25 each. Phone 262-965-2627. (1-01-G)

1924 MARSHALL & WENDALL Ampico, professionallyrestored 1989, with 150 rolls, $5,000.00. Located in Michigan,248-559-5495. (1-01-G)

RED WELTE Rolls coming in Spring 2001. Place your name onmailing list by e-mail at redwelte@simplyweb.net or calling 562-731-0131, evenings. (1-01-G)

WIDDICOMB Phonograph, good condition, partially restored,$190. Bob Huser, 201-907-0232, Teaneck, New Jersey, E-mail:pananing@aol.com (1-01-G)

WANTED

All kinds of disc & cylinder music boxes and rare ones as well.Orchestrions of German origin. Organs of German origin. Relatedinstruments. Small to medium collections welcome. Offers to: H.P.Kyburz, Jubilaumsweg 10, CH-5036 Oberentfelden/Switzerland.(6-01)

88-note roll: Bouncing Balls, A.G.O. Rolls. Jharvey@greenbriarantiques.com, 304-645-6579, Fax 304-645-5872. (1-01)

Duo-Art player for Aeolian PIPE-ORGAN (176 note). Ideally aremote cabinet, but whole console considered, also parts. I wouldalso like to correspond with other owners of Aeolian Pipe-Organs.Thank you. P. Morris, 27 Blackall Road,Exeter England 44 1392 681810. (1-01)

ARTRIO-ANGELUS reproducing rolls and catalogs wanted.David Krall, 4218 Torrence Ave., Hammond, IN 46327, 219-932-2322. (1-01)

We buy all types of standard pianos - “concert grand to miniaturegrand” - we sell wholesale to the trade. We exchange pianos forwhat you are looking for! Jay Mart Wholesale, “The Piano Storefor Piano Stores”, 800-411-2363; 216-382-7600. (4-01)

10-roll changer for Welte Philharmonic Organ (150 note).Klaus Peuler, phone +49236412941 (Germany) (1-01-G)

Piano roll and written music for “Bluey, Bluey” by EdytheBaker. John E. Myers, P.O. Box 1255, Wheeling, WV 26003. (1-01-G)

Magic Melodies360 LAWLESS ROAD - JAMESTOWN, KY 42629

Reproducing and 88 Note RollsProgram Rolls Collectibles

AUCTIONS AND FIXED PRICE SALES!ALL ROLLS IN PERFECT PLAYING CONDITION

WITH GOOD BOXES

For Periodic Lists Write or CallTel. 270-343-2061

Laura Shelby (5-01)

A pneumatic restoration service for reproducingpianos, nickelodeons and player pianos. Factory

new restoration techniques will insure many yearsof trouble free operation. UPS shipping cartons

furnished for any style action.

464 Dugan Rd. • Richfield Springs, NY 13439

315-858-2164 (6-01)

_r,_;d, DUES N"OTICE'-.'

Have you sent your dues check or credit card payment yet?

AMICA MelllbershipsU.S. Bulk - $37; U. S. First Class - $52;

Canada - $43; Overseas Air Mail- $63; Overseas Surface $43

If not, forward to:Bill Chapman

2150 Hastings CourtSanta Rosa, CA 95405-8377

As a courtesy to aJl2000 members, each member will receive the JanuarylFebruary 2001 AMICA Bulletin. How­ever, it could be your last issue if you have overlooked your renewal notice. The Bulletin continues to receivevery positive praise for its content.

Some of the interesting articles in the future will be - Articles on the Welte-Mignon; Green Paper Welte Service

Manual Translation; A Series on Rebuilders' Shops; Rare Reprints for your collections, and more.

If paying by credit card, you may contact Bill Chapman by phone (707) 570-2258, or email shazam@sonic.net

Do not send credit card numbers in a single email message.

-r .- f

Always in the market for better quality disc and cylindermusic boxes, musical clocks, singing birds, band organs,player organs, monkey organs, Wurlitzer 78 rpm jukeboxes,slot machines. Any condition.

~L (6-99) LI _

75 Prospect AvenueEureka Springs, AR 72632

(800) 671-6333 • (501) 253-0405

www.mechantiques.com·mroenigk@aol.com

WIARTIN ROENIGK/:-

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AMICA TechnicalitiesSince 1969, AMICA has been publishing into bound vol-umes, collections of technical articles written and con-tributed by its members for publication in The AMICABulletin. They may be purchased as follows:Vol 1 - 1969 to 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10.00Vol 2 - 1972 to 1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8.00Vol 3 - 1975 to 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9.00Vol 4 - 1978 to 1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7.00Vol 5 - 1981 to 1988 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20.00Vol 6 - 1989 to 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20.00

Postage PaidPlease note: Supplies of the earlier volumes may be

temporarily unavailable as stock is depleted. Overseas orders may take longer than domestic shipments.

AMICASTATIONERY

andENVELOPES

This is a reducedsample of

the small letterheadswhich can be purchased.

AMICA ITEMS FOR SALE

AMICA STATIONERY & ENVELOPESFor Quantities and Pricing contact:

Stuart GriggGrigg Graphic Services, Inc.20982 Bridge StreetSouthfield, MI 48034

Fax: (248) 356-5636e-mail: stuartg@grigg.com

The AMICA Bulletin1971 through 1999 bound annuals

of the AMICA Bulletins$24.00 (U.S. Dollars) per year postage paid

Make checks payable to: AMICA International

Send Orders to: Stuart GriggGrigg Graphic Services, Inc.20982 Bridge StreetSouthfield, MI 48034Fax: (248) 356-5636e-mail: stuartg@grigg.com

Get the Whole Story !In Stock Now Shipped Immediately !

The AMICA Bulletin remains the single source of complete information about the technical andsocial aspects of our hobby. No home library would be complete without a FULL SET of theAMICA Bulletins, bound into sets by year.

In addition, technical articles published in the bulletin have been extracted and published asinvaluable reference volumes. More than 30 years of knowledge, discovery and revelation can befound in the TECHNICALITIES, a complete set of which takes less than 30 inches of shelf space!

ORDER TODAY! In stock for immediate shipping via United Parcel Service or US Mail.

Attention Chapters!AMICA Brochure Holders

are now available for $3.00 each.

They are clear plastic with AMICA Logo imprinted

on a gold label.

Included will be as many AMICA New Member Info Brochures

as you wish at no charge.

Make checks payable to AMICA International.

Order from:Robin Pratt

AMICA Publications630 East Monroe Street

Sandusky, OH 44870-3708Pianola@aol.com

REPLACEMENT LEADERSThese 11 1/4" x 17" reprints, not trimmed and without tabs, are excellent replicas of the more popular types ofreproducing piano roll leaders. While intended for roll repairs, they may also be used for decorative purposes.To splice, overlay new leader on old roll, lay a straightedge on an angle, cut through both papers with a sharpknife, discard scrap, and butt-join with magic mending tape on top surface.

A. Brown on buff(For early red label boxes)

B. Black on ivory(Area for reusableaI1ist photo)

C. Black on ivory(Most common)

D. Black on ivory(Very late rolls by combinedAeolian!American)

Note: Early Welte'swith blue leaders maybe repaired with thisbrown leader. Many ofthese when reissuedhad brown leaders.

E. Green on ivory(Most common)

F. Green on ivory(Favorite Fifty &Selected Roll Service)

G. WelteBrown on buff(Most common)

QuantityPlease make checks payable toAMICA INTERNATIONAL,And send to:

BRIAN K. MEEDER904A West Victoria StreetSanta Barbara, CA 93101-4745

e-mail address for orders:BKMEEDER@aol.com

68

Checks or moneyorders from for­eign countriesmust be drawnon U.S. bank.

Price: $ 1.00 eachMinimum Order: $10.00

Postage and Handling $ 5.50

Roll Order $ _

Total Amount (U.S. $) $ _

Style

A

BC

DEFG

Total Quantity _

"GJeere I am </' Sitting in this ~hair </'

and yet I am in that epiano"~C7V1'ILD INTEREST-then rapt attention-then wonder and amazement­c..=:/ 0L registered in the face of Heniot Levy, of the American Conservatory

of Music, Chicago, as he listened for the first time to a WELTE-MIGNON*reproduction of his playing of one of his own compositions. "Impossible,"he said, "for here I am sitting in this chair-and yet I am in that Piano. JJ

Most great pianists-skeptical of all reproducing pianos-express equalwonder and amazement at the "magical" fidelity of the WELTE·MIGNON'reproducing action-rhythm, tone, color, quality, time, individuality.

One hundred and three leading American piano manufacrurers have selecredWELTE-MIGNON' as the only reproducing action for their pianos. Therefore, whenyou select a reproducing piano, select one equipped with WELTE-MIGNON'.

®elt~"illiBnonrt-- _._-~ _-_

THE MASTER'S FINGERS ON YOUR PIANO7;~._._.0.· _

*Licensed under IhilJriginal Welle-Mignon palenl1

Send for our most interesting Booklet" Why Welte-Mignon* ir SlIpreme" Free on request,Auto·Pneuma,ic Action Co., 653 West 51st S"eet. New Yo,k

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