Google to www.pianomelodico.com (in English too), and learn a lot about
the Piano Melodicon and his inventor, Giovanni Racca.
Bjorn Isebaert has bought both Russian and French books for a 30-key
Piano Melodicon. This combination is not strange, if we remember that,
after the Russian revolution many rich (noble) Russian families went
to France (just to save their lives, as well as their money), and
especially to Paris where quite a big Russian community existed.
Members of these upper-class will have been owning mechanical music
instruments, such as the Piano Melodicon, and I think they would play
French and Russian music. Russian, of course, for nostalgic purposes.
On the Piano Melodicon web site it is written that Russian music books
were produced also.
Jan Kijlstra
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