I am currently in the process of creating an audio recording of
Magdeleine Brard's reproducing piano rolls for her daughter and
granddaughter.  Mlle Brard was an exceptionally fine pianist, and
she recorded for both Licensee and Duo-Art.  Her Licensee recordings
in particular are superb.

So far, I have been able to locate, borrow, and scan 18 of Mlle Brard's
19 Licensee rolls.  The one title that has eluded me is Licensee 7570,
the Schumann Arabesque, Op. 18.  That title was copied by Harold Powell,
probably in the 1970s, and there are many copies of the recut roll
available, but I would much prefer to work with an original roll.

It appears that The Nethercutt Collection owned an original copy of
7570 at one time, based on the shelf number given in their inventory.
Original rolls and recuts were shelved in different locations, making
it easy to tell originals from recuts.  Now, however, the collection
contains only a single copy of the roll, and it is a Powell recut.

Harold Powell borrowed many rolls from The Nethercutt Collection in
the 1970s for recutting.  He very often returned recut rolls rather
than the originals, which he kept for himself.  (The collection was
happy with that arrangement, because they received a new copy in
exchange for an old one.)  I suspect that that is what happened here.
If I am right, the original roll may be in Harold Powell's collection.
I do not know what happened to that collection after Mr. Powell's
passing.

If you know of an original copy of Licensee 7570, or if you have any
knowledge of where Mr. Powell's collection is today, please contact me.
I would very much like to make the set of audio recordings complete.

In addition, I am also looking for original copies of these Duo-Art
rolls, also played by Brard:

  6148(0) Fourth Nocturne, by Faure
  70198 Hide and Seek (Cache-cache), by Pierne
  70249 Vivo, by Liszt

I appreciate any help you can give regarding the whereabouts of any
of these rolls.

Wayne Stahnke
Reno, Nevada
http://live-performance.com/ 
wayne@live-performance.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]