These whole discussion about the value of CD recording piano rolls
seems to me very valuable, because we are actually discussing music,
and not only technical matters. And mechanical music should not be
music played mechanically, but live music played by mechanical means.
That is why the term mechanical is ambiguous, as well as automatic,
actually .

I was told by a French collector that, in the old days, some people
used the French expression: "Musique a la mecanique" which means:
music played with a mechanical system.

Jergen Hocker, the president of the German society, wrote a very
interesting long article upon automatic pianos, listing and reviewing
(with a very strong personal point of view) some of the 66 CD recording
piano rolls he mentions in the discography annexed to his article.  It
was published (in German) in a magazine called Klassische Musik, Fono
Forum, Mai 1995, pp 26-37. Alas, it would be a huge task to translate
it in english or in French ...

For myself, I do think the best CD of that kind are the Ampico
recordings of Rachamninov (3 CD, one of Rachamninov playing his works,
another of Rachmaninov playing works others than his, and the third one
with Rachmaninov and some other pianists, Lhevine, etc.), realized by
Norman Evans/Denis Hall on a specially rebuilt Estonia grand piano with
the Ampico system (published by Decca Historic).

As for the Condon collection (32 CD), I have about 12 or them (mainly
classical). They are usually good, sometimes very good, but I am angry
at the lack of information of the leaflets inside: impossible to know
on which system (Duo-Art ? Ampico ? Welte ?) were made the recordings,
no number of the rolls, no precisions on the works played, etc.  I
would like very much to know the reasons for this lack of information,
as Dennis Condon is a member of this list, and I know he knows a lot
about reproducing pianos. But probably he is not responsible of the
editing in Europe of these CDs by Bellaphon.

Best regards,

Philippe Rouille (Paris, France)