Hello MMDers; here is a story about an unusual piano roll.  About
25 years ago I bought an Aeolian 65-note pushup player and shortly
thereafter a big heap of 65-note rolls.  Among them was a big roll of
"Rule Britannia" Overture, written by Richard Wagner.  It looked very
intriguing, but as the player was not working I packed it away with all
the other rolls.

Twenty years later I finished rebuilding the player and started playing
the rolls, but I never could find "Rule Britannia".  A few weeks ago
I finally discovered it in an unmarked box.  It was made in the UK,
and is a Metzler & Co. roll and they proudly announce that they have
acquired Sole Rights of Publication and Performance of the music.  The
leader also contains a reprint of a letter sent to The Times newspaper
and this makes interesting reading:

 - - -

>From "The Times," Oct. 14th, 1904.
Wagner's "Rule Britannia" Overture
To the Editor of The Times

Sir,- The news that the long-lost score of Wagner's "Rule Britannia"
Overture, composed as a tribute to the English nation, had been
discovered at Leicester last May by Mr. Cyrus Gamble aroused
considerable interest, not only in the musical world generally, but
in Great Britain, where its loss had been more especially deplored.

The great wish of the people to hear the fine old ode in honour of
Great Britain, set for orchestra by the greatest musical genius the
world has ever known, is about to be gratified.  "Rule Britannia" has
now, for the second time, been given to the British people.  Setting
aside her own wishes that this youthful work might remain unpublished,
Madame Wagner has graciously granted the rights of performance and
publication for the whole world to the London firm of Metzler and Co.

Composed in 1740 by Dr. Arne for his masque of Alfred, in commemoration
of the accession of George I., the song speedily won favour as the
British political hymn.  Wagner himself declared that the first eight
notes of "Rule Britannia" embodied the whole character of the British

people.

The fate of the score itself, so far as it is known, is not without
interest.  The preliminary sketch, which is in the archives at
Bayreuth, bears the date 1836, but the overture was composed at
Konigsberg in March, 1837, and was performed once there and once in
Riga under Wagner's own direction.

On the occasion of his first visit to London in 1839, when on his way
to Paris from Riga, Wagner handed over the score to the Philharmonic
Society with the hope that it would be performed -- a hope which was
not realised; the manuscript was returned to Wagner's lodgings, and
the landlord forwarded it to Paris, without, however, prepaying the
postage.  Wagner, not choosing to be mulcted of the heavy fee, refused
the package.  It would be a mistake to assume that the Master set a
low value on his work -- he had retained the orchestral parts in his
possession, and was independent.

These parts perished when the Dresden Opera House was burned to the
ground in 1869, but a copy of the score, fortunately, survived.  What
eventually became of the returned package containing the original
manuscript, and how it came into the possession of Mr. Thomas, from
whom it was purchased by Mr. Gamble, remains a mystery.

Yours etc., Katherine Schlesinger.

 - - -

Well, I don't think Wagner was "the greatest musical genius the world
has ever known" and the letter sounds suspiciously like a successful
attempt to get a free advert in "The Times", but there you are.

What does the music sound like?  An explosion in a boiler factory comes
to mind; the roll has an expression line, but it rarely leaves the
extreme right hand side of the paper.  The leader also reproduces the
first 16 bars of the piano solo manuscript and that is liberally
bespattered with ff's.

John Phillips in Hobart, Tasmania.

 [ to mulct (v.t.): to punish for an offense by imposing a fine;
 [ hence, to deprive of, as by deceit.  -- Robbie