Hofmann, Schelling and Rubner - Treated or Tormented?

I was going through my voluminous volumes of reproducing piano
stuff and came across a little thing that I thought needed exposing,
and pronto!

Were they -- Josef Hofmann, Ernest Schelling and Cornelius Rubner
themselves -- made captives to torturous or treating auditions of their
own and others' record-rolls at Bar Harbor, way back in that Good Old
Summer Time of '15?

What served to inspire this concern here, that they might have been so
very put-upon either pleasantly or not, was a clipping I have published
compliments of Musical America, and dated August 28, 1915.  It states
as follows:

  "Noted Musicians Hear Their 'Canned Music'

  "To hear their own music played on a mechanical piano Josef Hofmann,
  Ernest Schelling and Professor Cornelius Rubner attended a musicale
  the other evening at the Malvern Cottage in Bar Harbor, while all
  three are staying and helping make the musical colony more musical.
  It was a unique concert, at which these three musicians sat back
  and heard themselves play.  Records made by Paderewski, De Pachmann,
  d'Albert and Ganz figured on the program.  The patronesses were Mmes.
  Marcus A. Hanns, William H. Bliss, C. Vanderbilt Cross, Dave Hennon
  Morris, E. Hunt Slater, F. Fremont Smith, Edward S. Knapp, Ernesto
  Fabri, and Warner M. Leeds." (All women!)

There the article stops cold, thus depriving us now of how all might
have gone then but, pending more information reporting (and it might
still), we are only left to imagine that, doubtless-so, the event was
splendid and agreeable to all ... perhaps.

I shall have to consult that most revealing tome, "The Amazing
Marriage of Marie Eustis and Josef Hofmann," as it might contain hints
relating to this particular reproducing piano episode.  (As an example
of such-of-the-revelatory, in a letter reproduced therein, Hofmann
refers to a "Web-Mignon" with regard to his recording experiences.
Now, I wonder what he might have meant by that?)

I have 'Googled' matters Bar Harbor for hints as to what the referred
to Malvern Cottage might have been, and how appearing, and did come up
with some views of a hotel and cottages named this same.  It seems that
the wealthy denizens of that cozy village referred to what are to us
actually mansions, as "cottages," and this one was to be no exception.

None of the Mmes. names did I recognize excepting for C. (Cornelius)
Vanderbilt Cross, this being his widow (ne Emma Mathilda Elderd), as
this grandson of the Commodore's eldest daughter, had expired some
years previously.

I seem to recall that were was a Vanderbilt prominent on the list of
Welte instrument patrons so, my guess for this moment is that all three
were treated to their own and others' Mignon record-roll recordings
only.  Schelling recorded but once and fairly early around late '07,
and Rubner about 1913, and Hofmann for a second time also in that year,
and so scroll-forward to mid-'15.  It all fits.

Since the Musical America had access somehow to this one event, it is
possible, so I suppose, that some follow-up might be found, therefor
let's keep this file open, pending further, exciting developments...

Jim Miller
Las Vegas, Nevada

 [ Malvern Cottage Hotel at Bar Harbor, Maine
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/06/18/170618_030312_MalvernCottageBar%20HarborMaine.png