The American Universal catalog of January 1920 lists only one roll
of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata Op 27 No 2, number 92205, which
contains the whole sonata. Later that year the entire catalog switched
to the Melodee label, using the same numbers. The same roll master
was also used for the Themodist-Metrostyle issue as number 92202.
There's a second Themodist version listed (along with the above
version) in the 1914 British catalogue. It's described as a "new
edition", issued as T82804 and T82806. The 1914 catalogue says that
the second movement is on the latter roll, but the 1928 catalogue
locates it on the first one! The numbers indicate that these rolls
originated from the American part of Aeolian, rather than London.
In the UK they were also issued as Universal rolls S2556 and S2558 --
the same thing except for omission of the red Metrostyle line.
The earlier MMD posting of roll U647f of the third movement of the
Sonata is a British issue taken directly from Josef Hofmann's Duo-Art
three-roll set. As ever with Aeolian these were issued in two forms,
as "Aeolian" rolls with prefix A and "Universal" rolls with prefix U,
the whole sonata being rolls 637, 639 and 647, all with price code f.
It's nice to give the pile of roll catalogues here a working out
occasionally!
Julian Dyer
|