If someone were to tell me that they were going to perform a Chopin
piece, and that they were making some changes in it, I would be very
interested in hearing it.  How they can think that they can improve on
Chopin is beyond me, yet it is possible that the results will not be
disastrous.

How many collectors out there are aware that when Alfred Cortot
recorded Chopin's "Winter Wind Etude" (Opus 25 No. 11) for Duo-Art, he
made up a new ending?  The strangest thing is that I actually prefer
Cortot's ending!  And how many know that in Ferruccio Busoni's Welte
roll of Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat, he made up a brief section right
in the middle of the piece?  He also made a number of bass chords
denser, and made other changes as well.

When Leopold Godowsky played the same Polonaise for Ampico, all he did
was add in a little run near the end of the piece, as he goes into the
final repeat of the main theme.  In the Chopin "Funeral March", Alfred
Mirovitch on Ampico adds in a few chords when he returns to the main
theme.

The pieces are changed, yes, but they are not ruined, and they are all
interesting attempts.  Nowadays, pianists do not use the sheet music as
a mere source of inspiration for their own ideas but instead follow the
score as though it were the word of God.  If a young pianist enters the
Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition, and then plays the Polonaise just
the way Busoni played it, I have no doubt that they would be eliminated,
which is a strange way to honor the man that the piano competition was
named after!

Are there any other classical music rolls out there, by _any_ major
composer, that have these kind of changes?  The most important ones
(to me) are where nothing on the label indicates that the music has
been changed, such as the examples above.  Of secondary interest are
rolls that are listed as arranged by someone other than the composer,
a familiar example being Strauss' "The Blue Danube" as arranged for
the piano by Schultz-Evler.

There are also many rolls where parts of the music are cut, and these
are not as interesting as the other two kinds of changes, since it
could be the roll company trying to save paper, and not the pianist's
doing at all.  If any MMD reader knows of any example(s) of this,
please write in to MMD although you can email me directly at
<Aeolian@nyc.rr.com>.  Thanks in advance.

Randolph Herr