-- forwarded letter, please reply to sender and MMD --

Mme Aressy certainly has good information about the question where
rolls were made.  I have just thought about the different types of
rolls.  I realize that there must have been three different places that
they were punching piano rolls in France: Le Pleyela, l'EMP and Francis
Salabert.

Odeola must have been made in different machines, but here I really
don't know.  I can say as a technician that I have seen three different
types of perforation, even four with the Aeolian type.

The main production from Pleyela is very typical from punching and
paper feeding viewpoint.  Whether these, as well as the Salabert rolls,
were made at the l'EMP factory or not I don't know.  The spools were
the same and often the boxes, too.

The Pleyel piano factory was in St Denis, just outside the northern part
of Paris.  There is a metro station, Carrefour Pleyel, where the
factory was, and now some terrible "centre commercial" shopping center.

I have seen Aeolian rolls, popular music, i, edition Salabert, with
their typical perforation and really poor musical editing work.  The
Salabert rolls are nice to see with their happy decoration, but the
arrangements are just mechanical, without any musical interest at all.

About the l'EMP leaders designed by George Barbier, I can inform you
that I have an issue of l'Illustration with a complete article about
the young and brilliant George Barbier; he should have been about 20
years old in 1919, when he worked for L'Emp.

Best regards from Montmartre,
Douglas Heffer
France