Hello to all friends of Player Pianos and Conlon Nancarrow.  
May I introduce myself -- I am the president of the German Society
for Self-playing Musical Instruments (Gesellschaft fuer Selbstspielende
Musikinstrumente [GSM]).  I live in Bergisch Gladbach, near Cologne,
and want to be member of the Mechanical Music Digest.

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ A hearty "Welcome" to you, Juergen, and your arrival is most timely.
 [ Many questions about Nancarrow arrived recently; I'm glad that
 [ you are now here with answers!
 [
 [ Besides his duties as the president of a large society (over 700
 [ members), Juergen writes frequent articles for their journal.  He
 [ has a big interest in Nancarrow, as this article for MMD shows!
 [
 [ -- Robbie

Let's tell a little bit more about this great composer -- at least, 
my experiences with him.  The two most important things for Nancarrow
were:

  1. The printing of his scores by Peter Garland in Soundings, and 

  2. The recordings of his player piano music by Charles Amirkhanian 
and Arch records.

Now his music was made available for all who were interested.

In 1988 Wergo (Schott) recorded again the player piano studies in
Mexico.  At this time only one of Nancarrow's two player pianos was in
working condition, and after this recording his last player piano broke
down and he couldn't work without an instrument.  Also, in Mexico there
was no restorer for these odd instruments.  When Nancarrow told me this
story, I sent 'my' piano technician, Joerg Borchardt, to Mexico and he
repaired both player pianos (without any expenses for Nancarrow).

I visited him several times in Mexico, and I think I was the first 
person to whom he gave access to his studio and to his documents.  
I photocopied all of his piano rolls (a tremendous lot of work), and 
in the last ten years I re-punched from these photocopies nearly all 
of his player piano studies, using a rebuilt punching machine similar 
to Nancarrow's.  Hundreds of thousands of holes!

In the 'dust of his studio' I found scores which he thought were lost:
The second and third movement of his first Trio, some early piano 
compositions (e.g. Three Two Part Studies for Piano) and his Septett 
(with five missing pages).  Nancarrow often was asked for the scores of 
his Septett, and he always answered, "I threw them away because I was so 
angry about the bad first performance in New York in 1940."

So now I found in his studio, between old newspapers from the nineteen-
forties, a score for seven instruments.  I was absolutely excited and 
showed it to Nancarrow, saying, 

  Juergen: "Conlon, I believe I found your Septett." 
  Conlon: "It's not possible, I threw it away." 
  J: "But it's for seven instruments." 
  C: "Oh yes, I see." 
  J: "And it's your hand writing".  
  C: "Oh yes, I recognize my handwriting." 
  J: "Have you ever written another composition for seven instruments?"
  C: "Oh, no, never." 
  J: "Then it must be your Septett." 
  C: "Oh Juergen, I told you, I threw it away!!"

This was one facet of Conlon's personality.

In the last years I organized many Nancarrow concerts all over Europe 
with the Boesendorfer Ampico grand (it's smaller then a concert grand, 
built in 1925), and I believe Nancarrow is very well known here.  But 
this is mainly due to the promotion of Gyorgy Ligeti, who said once: 
"For me it's the best music of any composer living today."

Enough for today -- perhaps later more about his music, the concerts 
and the second player piano.

Greetings,

Juergen Hocker