Hello MMD.  This, I know, is a long shot, but does anybody have
a catalog of Wurlitzer Rolla Artis rolls?  If so, would that person
please have a look to see what information is available about Rolla
Artis roll no. 63, Etude Caprice, by C. V. Alkan, played by Clarence
Jacobs?

I won this roll from eBay a couple of weeks ago but haven't been able
to track down the opus number.  I spent a couple of hours the other
evening in churning through reams and reams of scanned sheet music on
an Alkan web site, without seeing anything that looked like this piece.
It's true that I'm not an expert interpreter of music scores, but this
roll has a quite simple beginning and I don't think I missed it.

I'm a great admirer of Alkan's music but in forty years of collecting
piano rolls this is only the fourth one I've found.  I've also listened
to all my Alkan CDs, without luck.  It certainly sounds like an Alkan
piece.  I'm beginning to wonder whether it might be an accompaniment
roll, although the box label says nothing about that.  If anyone has
any ideas I'd be grateful to hear them.

During my web search for Rolla Artis I was surprised to find a hit
attributed to John Phillips.  Of course I had to have a look and
found it was an MMD submission from 2000, when I sent in a short note
about European Rolla Artis rolls, seemingly quite independent of the
Wurlitzer ones.  I also noticed that my sense of humor was just as bad
then as now.

John Phillips in Hobart, Tasmania

 [ A list of Alkan pieces on piano rolls is given at
 [ http://www.alkansociety.org/disco6.htm
 [ -- Robbie