This YouTube video is the first full documentation of Bela Bartok's
Welte piano roll recordings made at the Welte office in New York on
December 23, 1927.  The date of the recording is authenticated in the
book, "Apám" (My father), by Bela Bartok's son, Bela Bartok Jr., with
whom I participated as a performing pianist in a series of lectures
on his father at the beginning of the 1970s in the USA.

At the end of the video, a few Edison cylinder recordings by Bela
Bartok provide a direct connection with his field trips among peasants
of various nationalities (you will hear some authentic Rumanian folk
music recordings made by Bela Bartok at the beginning of the 20th
century).  The just uploaded video may be found at the following
YouTube link:

  http://youtu.be/-tpOTEXnsrQ
 

The present owner of the original Welte rolls is unknown.  This
documentation may help in tracing the whereabouts of the original
rolls.

Given the existence of transfer technologies similar to those developed
by Wayne Stahnke (see his "A Window in Time: Rachmaninoff Performs
..."), it is crucial to locate the original rolls in order to preserve
their audio material in a technologically updated rendition.

The rolls bear these numbers:

  Welte Roll 7768
  Welte Roll 7791
  Welte Roll 7785
  Welte Roll 7767

For further documentation check the German article

  http://www.jstor.org/stable/902225 

Tibor Szász - Professor of Piano
University of Music Freiburg (Hochschule für Musik Freiburg)
Freiburg, Germany
http://www.tiborszasz.de/ 

 [ This roll data below appears in the book, "The Welte-Mignon - It's
 [ Music and Musicians," by Charles Davis Smith and Richard James Howe,
 [ published by Vestal Press, (C) 1994 AMICA:
 [
 [     Hungarian Folk Songs (Old Dance Tunes)
 [
 [ C-7768 Evening in the Country; Ballade, No. 6 - Bartok (3/28)
 [ C-7791 Evening in the Country;
 [   Ballades Numbers 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 15 - Bartok (5/28)
 [ C-7785 Sonatine - Bartok (4/28)
 [ C-7767 Rumanian Folk Dances - Bartok (3/28)
 [
 [ Prof. Szász can be heard performing several of the above pieces at
 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL5Jrc0rKiY
  -- Robbie