In MMD 030903, Dan Wilson quoted a passage from the recent translation
of the wonderful book, "At the Hupfeld recording salon".  This was from
Hans W. Schmitz's article [page 19], "Music roll production at Ludwig
Hupfeld AG, Leipzig", in particular where he considers the moves within
the trade that prompted Hupfeld to introduce their hand-played Phonola
rolls in 1905.  The passage describes a tantalising offering from
Aeolian:

  "Nor was this all the Autumn Trade Fair [1904] had to offer.
  Employees of the New York Aeolian Co. and their sales representatives
  from Berlin had appeared in Leipzig with a "most wonderful device,
  whose ...  mechanism allows it to record pieces played on the piano
  with exact tempo, interpretation and ornamentation, and soon after
  to transfer them to the pianola."  Aeolian had Carl Reinecke, aged
  80 and living in Leipzig, record the complete Mozart sonatas for the
  benefit of future generations.  Although Aeolian's recording mechanism
  was later to vanish into oblivion and Reinecke's "Mozart package"
  never to appear, Hupfeld took the presentation [...] quite seriously."

Dan felt that this slice of history was something of a let-down, and
dowsed an explanation for us that filled in a lot of details that
paper-based techniques are quite inadequate for.  However, I think
I can go one better and tell you what actually happened, using
well-known facts that (conveniently for me) reside on the page!

The translation refers to a "device [to] record pieces played on the
piano with exact tempo, interpretation and ornamentation, and soon
after to transfer[*] them to Pianola."  This quote originates from
Zeitschrift fuer Instrumentenbau, Leipzig, Sept. 11, 1904, p. 1039.,
so is a contemporary description.

Now, this was 1904.  Aeolian started issuing hand-played rolls in their
"Metro-Art" series, around 1909 (this morphing into the Duo-Art some
five years later).  Did they really wait five years from this machine's
demonstration in Leipzig before starting to sell rolls, even though in
1904 it was sufficiently advanced to have Reinecke do all the Mozart
sonatas?  This clearly wouldn't make commercial sense.

So then, did the machine just not work?  Were Aeolian so put off by the
experience they delayed many years after the launch of the Phonola and
Welte-Mignon systems with their hand-played rolls?  Given Aeolian's
resources this wouldn't make sense either: if they wanted to compete,
they could do so quite easily.  The reason they delayed so long in
producing hand-played rolls is more credibly that they weren't
interested in producing them, because they had invested in something
quite different.

Back in 1904 Aeolian were wholeheartedly committed to the Pianola as
an instrument for artistic education and endeavour.  Their big thing
was the "Autograph Metrostyle" roll, where the Metrostyle marking on
a standard 65-note roll represented the performance of a great artist.
(See MMD 011004 for a full description of this system and the sheer
level of commitment that went into building its library.)

So, what did Aeolian think of as a "recording" of an artists'
performance in 1904, and for many years to come?  Yes -- a Metrostyle
line!  The place to look for the Reinecke Mozart is therefore in the
big 1914 Themodist-Metrostyle catalogue.  Sure enough, there are 14
Sonata rolls with "interpretation by Carl Reinecke".  This is about
half of all the Sonata rolls listed.

The [Schmitz] article is therefore wrong, because these "recordings"
were indeed issued.  The "recording mechanism" may well have vanished
into obscurity, but not before it put together a fairly substantial
catalogue with many illustrious names in it.  The only problem is that
nobody today considers these to be recordings, which is presumably
where the confusion arises.  What a pity, after all the work that
went into them.

All in all, an object lesson of making assumptions about what historical
documents mean, getting it wrong, and building on these incorrect
assumptions.  A warning to all historians!

However, this is a very minor point in a quite superb book.  Now that
Albert Petrak has arranged (and funded) a booklet with an English
translation of the words, there is no excuse for anyone not to buy it.

Julian Dyer

P.S.: Given the above, can the original German quote be read differently
so it is not quite so misleading?  It is "ganz wundervollen Apparat,
dessen [...] Mechanismus es ermoeglicht, Stuecke, die von irgend jemand
am Klavier gespielt werden, genau mit demselben Tempo, in der gleichen
Auffassung, mit denselben Verzierungen usw. aufzunehmen und gleich
darauf auf das Pianola zu uebertragen."[*]

 [ * Editor's remark:
 [
 [ The critical verb 'uebertragen' is one of those impressive but vague
 [ technical words that showmen and marketeers and advert writers love.
 [ Literally, it means 'to carry over', but it also variously means to
 [ transfer, translate, copy, communicate, render, confer, or hand over.
 [ An example about bookkeeping, translated from my 1969 Duden (Leipzig)
 [ word-usage dictionary:  "I carried over the total to the next page."
 [
 [ In my opinion the original German text is intentionally ambiguous;
 [ after all, die Zeitschrift fuer Instrumentenbau (Journal of Instrument
 [ Making) was a trade publication serving the interests of the industry,
 [ not the consumer.
 [
 [ Albert, would you please communicate/render/transfer/carry over/ to
 [ your expert translator, Frau Melissa Reaves Kreutzer, my sincerest
 [ admiration for the fine work she did.  The flourishes trumpeted by
 [ a showman or marketeer are surely among the greatest challenges
 [ that a translator could encounter.  (And we forgive Melissa for
 [ the error of the "80-ton mechanical player!"  ;-)  -- Robbie