Dear Robbie,  In 020627 MMDigest you wrote :

>[ One question remains, though: I cannot find evidence in the
>[ MMD Archive that "Pleyela" music rolls were perforated by Pleyel.
>[ Based on their appearance and mechanical attributes, Douglas Heffer
>[ speculates in 020208 MMDigest that "Pleyela" rolls may have been
>[ produced for Pleyel by l'EMP of France.

As seen in many catalogs in the library of "Perforons la musique",
88-note Pleyela rolls, edited under the trade mark Pleyela from Pleyel,
are also listed in the more complete "La Perforation Musicale" catalog.

This firm, who punched rolls for several editors, had an extensive
catalog of metronomical(?) and registered rolls [hand played and
registered at a recording piano].  They offered several collections:
one of the more famous (but not the best sold) was for the
"Compositeurs-associes" who gathered Artur Honegger, Jacques Ibert,
Marcel Delannoy and Darius Milhaud, in the same idea that Stravinsky's
work was published.

The 1929 Pleyela catalog, and also La Perforation Musicale catalog,
pages 104 to 106, offers the largest Stravinsky section.  These rolls
are :

8840 - Cinq pieces faciles pour piano
 8456 - Concertino
 8454 - Histoires pour enfants
 8451 to 8453 - Le chant du rossignol
 8848 to 8849 - Les cinq doigts
 8831 to 8861 - Les noces
 10039 to 10045 - L'oiseau de feu
 8429 to 8437 - Le sacre du printemps
 8441 to 8447 - Petrouchka
 8438 - Piano rag music
 8422 to 8428 - Pulcinella
 8455 - Quatre chants russes
8439 - Trois pieces faciles pour piano
 8457 to 8459 - Sonate

I have not a Stravinsky Pleyela roll under the hand to check its
punching, but one thing is certain : the PM (for Perforation Musicale)
rolls (and thus Pleyela rolls), and l'EMP (for l'Edition Musicale
Perforee) rolls (and thus Odeola rolls, as seen in a previous article)
are absolutely different.

L'EMP punched holes are round, while PM holes are squared.  The paper
and the ink markings are quite different too.  No confusion is possible.
I must add that l'EMP never edited the registered rolls as claimed in
their advertisements and seen in the 2000 and more rolls on my shelves.

I hope these elements will shed some light on French piano roll makers.

Lorraine Aressy -- Perforons la Musique
Toulouse, France

 [ Lorraine's MMD articles about l'EMP and Aeolian of France are
 [ indexed at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Authors/Aut1727.html
 [ and at  http://mmd.foxtail.com/MMMedia/EMP/index.html
 [ -- Robbie