Collection Guide
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Richard Simonton Collection of Welte system-recorded piano rolls
0176
0176
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Richard Simonton collection of Welte system-recorded piano rolls
creator:
Simonton, Richard
creator:
M. Welte & Sons (Freiburg and New York)
Identifier/Call Number: 0176
Physical Description:
60 Linear Feet
60 boxes
Date (inclusive): circa 1905-1920
Abstract: Player piano rolls recorded with the Emil Welte system by prominent European and American musicians, 1905-1920; catalogs of
the Welte Company in Freiburg, Germany. The collection was brought to the United States in 1948 by Simonton, and some of the
performances have since been released on modern recordings.
Container: 52-54
Container: 49-51
Container: 55-57
Container: 40-42
Container: 34-36
Container: 37-39
Container: 46-48
Container: 60
Container: 28-30
Container: 43-45
Container: 31-33
Container: 22-24
Container: 25-27
Container: 16-18
Container: 19-21
Container: 10-12
Container: 13-15
Container: 4-6
Container: 7-9
Container: 1-3
Container: 58-59
[Box/folder# or item name], Richard Simonton Collection of Welte system-recorded piano rolls, Collection no. 0176, Special
Collections, USC Libraries, University of Southern California
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Player piano rolls recorded with the Emil Welte system by prominent European and American musicians, 1905-1920; catalogs of
the Welte Company in Freiburg, Germany.
Richard Simonton (1915–1979), who also used the pseudonym Doug Malloy, was a Hollywood businessman and entrepreneur, known
for his rescue of the Steamboat Delta Queen, his work in preserving the work of musicians in the Welte-Mignon piano rolls,
and for founding the American Theatre Organ Society.
The Welte-Mignon Reproducing Piano, a more sophisticated cousin of the player piano, was a mechanical instrument that could
reproduce the subtleties of master pianists' styles on paper rolls. Invented by Edwin Welte and his brother-in-law Karl Bockisch
in Freiburg, Germany, in 1904, the rolls, recorded between 1904 and 1932 on Welte Philharmonic-Organs, are now historically
significant as evidence of the playing styles of many prominent musicians. These include Mahler, Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Scriabin,
and others, playing their own compositions.
The Welte firm and its founders suffered heavily in World War II. After the war, Simonton wrote to Edwin Welte in an attempt
to locate music rolls for his pipe organ. Welte answered that he had only managed to save about sixteen organ rolls, but had
managed to hide some more in a barn in the Black Forest. In 1948 Simonton travelled to Germany and worked with Welte and Bockisch
to rescue the remaining rolls. They played the rolls on Bockisch's Steinway-Welte piano and Simonton recorded the sound onto
a tape recorder, an invention which was also extremely rare at the time. These tapes were released as LPs by Columbia Records
in 1950. Welte and Bockisch selected and sold the best of the rolls to Simonton in 1948 and he bought more from Bockisch's
widow in 1952. After the initial purchase, Welte and Bockisch also found a Steinway-Welte piano for Simonton. Many of the
rolls have since been re-recorded from that piano and issued on CD.
[Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Simonton]
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Player piano rolls
Music -- History -- Archival resources
Musicians -- History -- Archival resources
Simonton, Richard
M. Welte & Sons (Freiburg and New York)
Simonton, Richard -- Archives
M. Welte & Sons (Freiburg and New York) -- Archives