The recordings made by Marguerite Volavy provide a good demonstration
of the extent to which musical style changed during the player piano
era.  As a student of Leschetizky, she was one step removed from Liszt
and her early rolls, with their split chords and excessive rubato,
demonstrate the fashion  of those days and jar somewhat to modern ears.
(One wonders how Liszt himself would be received on today's concert
platform).

Volavy adjusted well to the changing tastes of the period and her later
work, especially the rolls she recorded under the pseudonym of Felix
Gerdts, demonstrate the extent to which she loosened up over the years.

She even recorded a few Ampico "pops" as "Joseph Lambert" which are
interesting because their "rump-te-tump" treatment shows she never
completely forgot her East European roots.  The best example of Volavy
in pop mode is Ampico 200103, "Oui Oui Marie", by Fred Fisher (1918).

Richard Stibbons

 [ "Oui Oui Marie" played by Marguerite Volavy as Joseph Lambert
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/01/12/170112_013903_200103A.mid 

 [ In "Oui Oui Marie" the American composer, Fred Fisher, honors
 [ the great European composers like Paul Lincke ("The Glow Worm"),
 [ Robert Stolz ("Salome") and Franz Lehár.  Volavy, at the piano,
 [ honors the European _orchestras_ that performed the works of
 [ those great composers.  -- Robbie