Re: 980801 MMDigest

Benet died about two years ago. I gave an interim report in MMD970822
when the roll collection was still intact.

His sons have gradually disposed of the pianos, organs and rolls in
that approximate order, many of them going to collectors in Europe.
Nothing was destroyed.

The tail end of the Duo-Art collection was bought as a lot by Denis
Hall and is in his loft awaiting listing. I have been promised first
say on the duplicates, of which there are several hundred, not to say
triplicates even up to sextuplicates ! This was because Benet bought
whole collections with pianos and never managed to catalogue anything.

There are some very rare Duo-Arts in amongst the familiar titles,
even some not in Gerald Stonehill's collection, which is alleged to
contain a copy of everything cut in England. These include (an
unknown number of) demonstration rolls where the Duo-Art plays the
bottom two hands of four-handed pieces, eg by Schubert & Brahms,
leaving someone like Harold Bauer to fill in at the top.

I am sure we shall be hearing some of these in London recitals before
long, although there is always a difficulty reconciling what
interests the player fraternity with what will pull in enough of the
culture-vultures to pay for the hall.

Dan Wilson, London