Joyce Brite (000320 MMDigest) quoted a passage in a Washington Post 
article that troubled her:

> "Between the Civil War and the early years of the 20th century,
>  the music business in America consisted mainly of sheet music and
>  piano rolls, and the pianos and organs they were played on.  While
>  sheet music conferred immortality on composers in the same way
>  books did for authors, it only captured composition, not
>  interpretation or performance."

A much worse example, which really offended me at the time, was in a
book "The Pianoforte", by Dr William Leslie Sumner, Professor of Music
at Nottingham University, published in 1966 by Macdonald & Jane's, ISBN
0-356-03516-6.  On player pianos, he gives a mediocre technical
description which is not so much wrong as concentrating on
inessentials, and then says (of the foot-operated instrument):

 "Some little expression was possible by modifying the wind pressure
  at the treble or the bass, but at times this could be of more
  hindrance than help.  The rolls could be cut by reference to the
  score without aid of a keyboard or a pianist.  Although this method
  had extra-ordinary vogue for several decades it was obviously
  incapable of subtle performances."

He gives the impression that reproducing pianos occurred late in the
player's history, but he finishes better with an appraisal of their
historical value after saying:

 "The Ampico, Welte-Mignon and, to a lesser extent, the Duo-Art would
  actually reproduce on the player piano the performances of the
  virtuosi, with most of the nuances of their playing and all the
  wrong notes."

Despite a foreword containing the names of all the major piano
companies who had assisted him in his labours, Dr Sumner gives the
impression elsewhere in the book of someone who has collected all the
material to make bricks and come up with compressed blocks of clay and
straw.  All the summaries are subtly wrong.

I should be more compassionate but this man, despite having a
reputation as an organist, was a Professor and deserves no quarter for
such crude misrepresentations.  He died in 1973.  Why have I kept this
book?  It has some good pictures and diagrams of piano actions,
supplied by other people.

Dan Wilson, London