SHIPPING REPORTER ON A ROLL

 Annoyed at  himself for not buying all the Halloween  gear at a  recent  Magnetic Island  garage sale , our  Shipping Reporter  made another raid on the  island   when  he heard   there  was  another garage sale there, possibly  two .

 

Revealing  his  obvious  peculiar  interests , he  surprisingly made known to one and  all   that  at   one  large  garage sale  he   had  scooped up and put in his  smelly  kitbag   the   above  six   old   pianola   rolls  in  silverfished  and  worn  boxes. 

 It  tickled his fancy , while  researching  pianola   rolls    on   Google ,  to   discover  that  the  Australian  internationally renowned  pianist  and composer , Percy Grainger,  1882-1961, not  only  had  a   pianola , but  promoted   their   sale  and   the  perforated   paper  rolls  used  in  them .

                    

 

The University of  Melbourne  Percy Grainger   Museum  includes the  above photo of Grainger posing with a  pianola . The Rare Music Curator  at the  university , Jennifer Hill , provides  interesting information about   Grainger  and  its  pianola  roll collection . 

While Grainger   had recorded piano rolls overseas  ,most of the  collection  donated to   Rare Music  was all  Australian , traced back  to 1947 when it was   located in an outbuilding on a  Euroa, Victoria, property, at  the time it changed  hands.

The Shipping Reporter  was  delighted    to read that  some of the   rolls he  bought  were  obviously made by  Australian   companies. Hill  wrote:

The Australian rolls in our new acquisition were produced by the Anglo-American Player Roll Co. (Melbourne) and Mastertouch Piano Roll Co. (Sydney). The former business, producing Broadway Word Rolls, was essentially, a “one man show”, established around 1921 by Len Luscombe (1(1893-1957), who was both the sole recording artist and business owner. 

 His taste and interest was in popular dance music and our collection is dominated by fox trots plus a handful of waltzes and one-steps. Luscombe used a number of aliases to give the impression of a larger enterprise. “Word rolls”, by the way, have the lyrics written on the paper, parallel to the lines of perforations, and reveal themselves gradually as the roll turns–ready  for singing along—very much as do the lyrics during karaoke.

Sydney’s Mastertouch Company was a little different, involving a larger number of recording artists, including in-house “pianola pianists”.  The firm was established by George Horton in 1919 and closed as recently as 2005.  Lettie Keyes from Nathalia (near Shepparton) and Katoomba sisters Laurel and Edith Pardey (later Edith Murn) dominate the performer list.

 Keyes (active for Mastertouch from 1923-29, and from 1961) was both an accomplished pianist and a highly skilled arranger of music and editor of rolls. Keyes’s speciality was opera arrangements and our collection includes her selections from Rigoletto, Faust and Martha, which exploit that potential for a liberally “edited” piano roll to deliver a complex, almost orchestral texture.

Four-handed arrangements were the specialty of the Pardey sisters, full-time employees of Mastertouch, specialising, like Luscombe, in popular music. The sisters recorded some Australian compositions, such as “After the Dawn: Waltz” by Jack O’Hagan (of Along the Road to Gundagai fame). The collection also includes a “Gippsland March”. Our collection also includes some “classical” repertoire, recorded by, for example, Russian pianist Paul Vinogradoff. Well-known pianists would simply visit and record, leaving staffers to edit for them.

Hill went on  to say the Stanford University  in  America , which has a  Piano Player Project,  acquired a  massive collection - 7540 rolls-, from  Australian Denis Condon.  The  university recently  featured  Percy Grainger per pianola rolls .

Upcoming : More about the Shipping Reporter's  rolls  and other oddities .