Mechanical Music Digest  Gallery
You Are Not Logged In Login/Get New Account
Please Log In. Accounts are free!
Logged In users are granted additional features including a more current version of the Archives and a simplified process for submitting articles.
Home Archives Calendar Gallery Store Links Info
MMD > Gallery > Pictures > ramet_pianola1902

Pianola 1902
1902 Pianola Concert Centenary
by Adam Ramet


ramet_pianola1902a.jpg (19 kb)This Thursday (28th February) marks the centenary of the first currently known Pianola Concert in the UK.  I am sending you a copy of the original programme for the recital to see.  The pictures are black and white (so they reproduced well for the previous PPG bulletin).  The original cover was a mid-blue color with "Programme" embossed in gold lettering on the front.

The 1902 concert was organized by Milsoms, very large music dealers from Clifton, Bristol, at that time. It appears to have been a proper recital at a smart large venue and was no tiny private affair.

Until recently the earliest known proper player recital was a later one (by a week or so only!) which was performed at Steinway Hall in London using a Cecilian push-up piano player operated by Reginald Reynolds.  There is a centenary recital at the hall shortly to celebrate the anniversary of this later recital.

I take care to say that this is the earliest currently known UK recital.  It too easy to use superlatives like "the earliest" only to be blown out of the water once something earlier comes to light.  This programme turned up on eBay just a few months ago and re-defined which was the earliest UK recital at a stroke.  The funny thing was the seller lived three roads away from my family home in Essex (a very long way from Bristol) and had no interest in music at all!

Apparently Aeolian began a concertizing program in 1902 so this one, being from 1902 may have been at Aeolian's prompting.  We may never know; but there again you never what'll turn up next!

Nothing public is being done to celebrate this particular centenary.  May I suggest you have a hunt through your rolls and see if you have any of the tunes that were played.  If you do, then perhaps you might give them a private run through in your own homes on Thursday and celebrate in a very small way a rather obscure but unique centenary in the history of the pianola.

Best regards

Adam Ramet
Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England
http://website.lineone.net/~agr/index2.html
Date: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 1:35 PM

High resolution images:  ramet_pianola1902.jpg  (239 kb),  ramet_pianola1902b.jpg  (176 kb)

ramet_pianola1902b1.jpg (46 kb)ramet_pianola1902b2.jpg (39 kb)


02 March 2002

Home    Archives    Calendar    Gallery    Store    Links    Info   


Enter text below to search the MMD Website with Google



CONTACT FORM: Click HERE to write to the editor, or to post a message about Mechanical Musical Instruments to the MMD

Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are those of the individual authors and may not represent those of the editors. Compilation copyright 1995-2024 by Jody Kravitz.

Please read our Republication Policy before copying information from or creating links to this web site.

Click HERE to contact the webmaster regarding problems with the website.

Please support publication of the MMD by donating online

Please Support Publication of the MMD with your Generous Donation

Pay via PayPal

No PayPal account required

                                     
Translate This Page