Papers by Artis Wodehouse
Should We Document The Dark Backwaters Of Fame, Celebrity and Fandom? The George Gershwin/Julia Van Norman Correspondence, 1927-37, 2024
Preserved in the Library of Congress George and Ira Gershwin Collection are a series of letters e... more Preserved in the Library of Congress George and Ira Gershwin Collection are a series of letters exchanged between George Gershwin (1898-1937) and Julia Van Norman (1905-1996)written between 1927 and 1937. In 1994 I conducted an extensive series of taped interviews with Julia Van Norman's husband, Horace Van Norman (1905-1995) that touched upon his wife and his wife's relationship with Gershwin. I donated these interviews to Yale's Oral History of American Music Collection after the death of Horace Van Norman. My paper -- delivered at the Fall Meeting of the American Musicological Society New York Chapter on September 14th, 2024 at CUNY Graduate Center, NYC -- documents both the content of the Gershwin/Van Norman correspondence housed in the Gershwin Collection of the Library of Congress and my 1994 interviews with Horace Van Norman. From these I summarize the positive and negative effects experienced by each -- George Gershwin, Julia and Horace Van Norman -- in their interactions.
George Gershwin made over 100 piano rolls during his earliest years as an active musician (1915-2... more George Gershwin made over 100 piano rolls during his earliest years as an active musician (1915-27). They span a remarkably wide swath of music, not only original works by Gershwin, but song arrangements and instrumentals by a parade of his distinguished musical contemporaries. Artis Wodehouse provides an overview of the music these roll performances embody and the developing technology that made possible capture and playback of his work in this medium.
Why Transcribe Mahler's 1905 Welte Piano Rolls?, 2024
In 1905 Mahler recorded four piano renditions of selections from his orchestral/vocal music on pi... more In 1905 Mahler recorded four piano renditions of selections from his orchestral/vocal music on piano roll for the Welte-Mignon. They are particularly valuable since the Welte-Mignon method for performance capture — and lack of invasive post-production editing — can be trusted to give some representation of Mahler's actual performance.
Wodehouse is currently collaborating with Dr. Peter Phillips, researcher/ expert in the conversion of Welte piano roll data to the digital domain, and Bill Ooms, transcriber of Mahler's Welte-Mignon MIDI data as formulated by Dr. Phillips. The presentation will give an overview of their work to date as well as Wodehouse's goal of creating a print edition encompassing both a readable score and extensive commentary on Mahler's deeply embedded late 19th C. performance practice. The presentation will touch on the core issues of transcription of Mahler's live performance captured on roll — what a score can or should depict, and the relationship between Mahler's roll performance to his published scores of same. Sound recordings of the original roll will be heard in tandem with newly-created print scores generated in the MIDI realm.
Artis Wodehouse 1990 interview with Robert Armbruster, 1990
In the spring of 1990 I was in Los Angeles and Robert Armbruster-then living in the area and 93 y... more In the spring of 1990 I was in Los Angeles and Robert Armbruster-then living in the area and 93 years old-kindly agreed to an interview at his home. He did not allow me to make an audio recording of the interview. Therefore, I hastily transcribed into a notebook as much as I could of the conversation. In the transcription below, I've edited in a few words enclosed in parentheses. These serve narrowly to clarify some of Armbruster's comments that-due the circumstances of the interview-I was unable to write out fully in my notes. I came prepared for the interview with a number of questions centering on Armbruster's work as roll artist at Aeolian, several of which he answered. In addition to his observations about the piano roll industry, he commented upon his wide-ranging, highly-successful career and some assessments of musical styles and other musicians. …Artis Wodehouse 12/26/23
Warner Bros. eBooks, 1995
Notes, Sep 1, 1992
Franz Liszt has become for music historians the archetypical genius--able to upstage such titans ... more Franz Liszt has become for music historians the archetypical genius--able to upstage such titans as Chopin and Thalberg on the piano, then moving with ease into composition and effortlessly traveling outside the boundaries of his age with wildly original music. Such a figure will always be difficult to evaluate and thus this comprehensive bibliography and guide will be all the more valuable for student and scholar.
A complete entertainment package, Edythe Baker (1899-1971) — who was also a beautiful, white Amer... more A complete entertainment package, Edythe Baker (1899-1971) — who was also a beautiful, white American virtuoso pianist — was an accomplished composer, singer and dancer. She grew up in the Kansas City area. It was there and in other Mid-West locations that she heard and absorbed elements of African-American ragtime and the blues. When she arrived in New York City at age 20, talent scouts immediately recognized her unique assimilation of these emerging vernacular styles (particularly the blues) which had become wildly popular by 1920. In New York, she was propelled to the upper echelon of the entertainment industry, appearing as piano soloist, stage performer (singing and dancing), and in making over 70 piano roll recordings from 1919 to 1926.
Baker was signed to make piano rolls for the Aeolian company, (the behemoth player piano and piano roll manufacturer of the day) shortly after arriving in New York. Aeolian initially marketed her as a ragtime and blues player, but as she developed additional styles in her New York-based live performance career, Aeolian broadened her roll work to include a greater variety of popular genres and procedures.
The paper focuses on Baker's blues orientation as a piano roll artist. The analysis will rely on some elements of Topic Theory, an approach developed by the late Leonard Ratner that centers on an examination of genres and styles for expressive musical discourse. While Ratner's theory addresses Classical music from the mid-18th to the early 19th century, it provides an apt template for exploring the popular piano roll idiom of the early 20th C.
Music, Jelly Roll Morton - The Piano Rolls (Songbook), Feb 1, 1999
Expression and the Player Piano, 2022
When the player piano first came to market around 1900, it was viewed with suspicion. It was fea... more When the player piano first came to market around 1900, it was viewed with suspicion. It was feared that the player piano’s mechanization of piano performance would remove the necessary component of a uniquely expressed human rendition.
However, despite the fact that the majority of early piano rolls were sourced from printed sheet music and metronomically quantized as perforated into the paper roll, player piano design allowed for molding a personalized and potentially expressive performance. Player pianos at all price points featured hand controls capable of temporal and dynamic variation that the "player pianist" or "pianolist" could manipulate according to personal taste as they foot-pumped in real time. The player piano/piano roll interface offered the appeal of instant technical mastery — no need to spend laborious hours practicing by hand in order to master notes and rhythms — thus accelerating the leap to the end goal of achieving a personalized, expressive rendition.
To allay the unease the player piano initially aroused, a number of UK and US music writers entered into the breach, defending the new instrument by touting its educational value and expressive potential. Articles were written, journals established and books were published on the subject of how to “play” the player piano, ranging from general hints to massive tomes containing detailed instructions for how to achieve an expressive rendition via a player piano.
The paper comprises an an overview of several significant such books generated during the heyday of the player piano era (1900-1930), and summarize some commonly shared guidelines put forth for obtaining expressive pianola performance. Authors include Gustav Kobbé, Harry Ellingham, Ernst Newman, Sidney Grew, Reginald Reynolds and William Braid White.
The American Organist, 2022
The virtual world has opened new possibilities for disseminating music both new and historic. Thi... more The virtual world has opened new possibilities for disseminating music both new and historic. This 2020 virtual concert, created in collaboration with The Friends of the Erben Organ and described in this article allowed for a wide-ranging presentation about the harmonium and reed organ and its relationship to the pipe organ. In addition to introducing music world-wide that was written for important restored antique instruments, the virtual format allowed for technological/cultural narrative analysis via the insertion of spoken clips. Functioning like program notes of old, the extensive narrative clips do not disturb the flow of the concert because they can be electively clicked on by the viewer at any time. The concert featured music for a 1903 Mustel Art Harmonium, a Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ from 1887, a 1925 portable preacher's organ and the historic Erben Organ. Composers included Kodaly, Bizet, Widor, Karg-Elert, Harry T. Burleigh, George Templeton Strong, Dudley Buck and Carson Cooman.
Keyboard Wizards of the Gershwin Era: Vee Lawnhurst, Constance Mering, Muriel Pollock, 1998
During the first quarter of the 20th century technological innovations set off a chain reaction o... more During the first quarter of the 20th century technological innovations set off a chain reaction of growth in the music entertainment industry. The exploding need for content opened to women unprecedented opportunities for musical employment. Vee Lawnhurst, Constance Mering and Muriel Pollock were exemplars who took advantage of the explosion of opportunity during this period. From 1915 through the 1950 they contributed as gifted pianists, piano roll artists, radio and stage performers, phonograph recording artists and as songwriter/composers. Artis Wodehouse's essay accompanies the 1998 CD release of representative recordings of these three artists. It is Volume V of the Keyboard Wizards of the Gershwin Era produced by Wodehouse on Pearl GEMM CD 9206.
Whither the soul of the artist? A pilot methodology for comparing early phonograph disc recordings to corresponding piano roll renditions, 2020
Professional musicians and connoisseurs have frequently questioned the performance authenticity o... more Professional musicians and connoisseurs have frequently questioned the performance authenticity of piano roll renditions. Do they give a fair representation of the artist’s expressive intention, or were so-called hand-played reproducing piano roll performances so constrained by technological limitations that in order to produce salable product, the artist’s live rendition needed to be significantly modified? Artis Wodehouse seeks to open a discussion of these questions through a new analytic method.
Stanford University Doctor of Musical Arts Term Project, 1977
The recordings of pianists born before 1900 offer tantalizing evidence of nineteenth-century perf... more The recordings of pianists born before 1900 offer tantalizing evidence of nineteenth-century performance practice. However, the unfamiliar environment of the early recording studio and technical restrictions of the the recording process caused many artists to adopt interpretive compromises from their normal approach to their live performance. This bibliography focuses on the relationship between the live performances of pianists born before 1900 and their recordings on cylinder and disc.
Artis Wodehouse Stanford University Doctoral Dissertation, 1977
The recordings of pianists born before the turn of the century provide perhaps the most tangible ... more The recordings of pianists born before the turn of the century provide perhaps the most tangible link available to a previous performance practice. Evidence such as eye-witness accounts of live performances, editions and recorded performances of pianists born before 1900 suggest overwhelmingly that in the 19th century the printed page had nowhere near its present significance. This dissertation documents and compares temporal and dynamic deviations employed by a representative group of early recorded pianists with respect to both Chopin’s score and 19th century performance treatises. It features a unique methodology for evaluating and summarizing common piano performance approaches of the 19th century in fine detail.
Frank Campbell Milne (1887 – 1959) was one of a handful of acknowledged masters of player piano r... more Frank Campbell Milne (1887 – 1959) was one of a handful of acknowledged masters of player piano roll arranging. His prolific work in this idiom spanned from 1912 through 1946, during which he was employed by leading piano roll companies of the time: Aristo, Aeolian, Aeolian-American and QRS. Frank Milne worked with George Gershwin in the piano roll idiom, and knew many important pianists from the 1920s, including Paderewski and Josef Hofmann.This paper is a condensed transcription of an interview of Frank Milne’s son, Alexander Milne (1913-2013) conducted by Artis Wodehouse in July 1990.
Edward O. Schaaf 1869-1939), composer and music theorist based in Newark New Jersey, USA sought t... more Edward O. Schaaf 1869-1939), composer and music theorist based in Newark New Jersey, USA sought to incorporate the unique characteristics of the player piano into his own compositions. His 1914 treatise, "The Art of Player Piano Transcription" explicates his unique approach to creating music expressly intended for the player piano.
Artis Wodehouse summarizes her George Gershwin piano roll project from the 1990s through current ... more Artis Wodehouse summarizes her George Gershwin piano roll project from the 1990s through current developments in a video filmed 6/30/18. The video includes her demonstration of the first instrument to be used for this phase of creating good audio recordings of Gershwin's (1898-1937) over 100 piano rolls that date from 1916 to 1925.
Video and audio were recorded by Dr. Whitney Slaten at the United Church of Westford at Westford VT.
Pianist/composer Franz Liszt (1811-1883) never recorded, but a number of his many pupils made rec... more Pianist/composer Franz Liszt (1811-1883) never recorded, but a number of his many pupils made recordings. Since Liszt did not record, we cannot be certain of the extent to which the recordings left by his pupils may have left traces of Liszt's own performance approach. Nevertheless, the range and diversity of recordings of his pupils paints a sonic picture of performance practices of the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Papers by Artis Wodehouse
Wodehouse is currently collaborating with Dr. Peter Phillips, researcher/ expert in the conversion of Welte piano roll data to the digital domain, and Bill Ooms, transcriber of Mahler's Welte-Mignon MIDI data as formulated by Dr. Phillips. The presentation will give an overview of their work to date as well as Wodehouse's goal of creating a print edition encompassing both a readable score and extensive commentary on Mahler's deeply embedded late 19th C. performance practice. The presentation will touch on the core issues of transcription of Mahler's live performance captured on roll — what a score can or should depict, and the relationship between Mahler's roll performance to his published scores of same. Sound recordings of the original roll will be heard in tandem with newly-created print scores generated in the MIDI realm.
Baker was signed to make piano rolls for the Aeolian company, (the behemoth player piano and piano roll manufacturer of the day) shortly after arriving in New York. Aeolian initially marketed her as a ragtime and blues player, but as she developed additional styles in her New York-based live performance career, Aeolian broadened her roll work to include a greater variety of popular genres and procedures.
The paper focuses on Baker's blues orientation as a piano roll artist. The analysis will rely on some elements of Topic Theory, an approach developed by the late Leonard Ratner that centers on an examination of genres and styles for expressive musical discourse. While Ratner's theory addresses Classical music from the mid-18th to the early 19th century, it provides an apt template for exploring the popular piano roll idiom of the early 20th C.
However, despite the fact that the majority of early piano rolls were sourced from printed sheet music and metronomically quantized as perforated into the paper roll, player piano design allowed for molding a personalized and potentially expressive performance. Player pianos at all price points featured hand controls capable of temporal and dynamic variation that the "player pianist" or "pianolist" could manipulate according to personal taste as they foot-pumped in real time. The player piano/piano roll interface offered the appeal of instant technical mastery — no need to spend laborious hours practicing by hand in order to master notes and rhythms — thus accelerating the leap to the end goal of achieving a personalized, expressive rendition.
To allay the unease the player piano initially aroused, a number of UK and US music writers entered into the breach, defending the new instrument by touting its educational value and expressive potential. Articles were written, journals established and books were published on the subject of how to “play” the player piano, ranging from general hints to massive tomes containing detailed instructions for how to achieve an expressive rendition via a player piano.
The paper comprises an an overview of several significant such books generated during the heyday of the player piano era (1900-1930), and summarize some commonly shared guidelines put forth for obtaining expressive pianola performance. Authors include Gustav Kobbé, Harry Ellingham, Ernst Newman, Sidney Grew, Reginald Reynolds and William Braid White.
Video and audio were recorded by Dr. Whitney Slaten at the United Church of Westford at Westford VT.
Wodehouse is currently collaborating with Dr. Peter Phillips, researcher/ expert in the conversion of Welte piano roll data to the digital domain, and Bill Ooms, transcriber of Mahler's Welte-Mignon MIDI data as formulated by Dr. Phillips. The presentation will give an overview of their work to date as well as Wodehouse's goal of creating a print edition encompassing both a readable score and extensive commentary on Mahler's deeply embedded late 19th C. performance practice. The presentation will touch on the core issues of transcription of Mahler's live performance captured on roll — what a score can or should depict, and the relationship between Mahler's roll performance to his published scores of same. Sound recordings of the original roll will be heard in tandem with newly-created print scores generated in the MIDI realm.
Baker was signed to make piano rolls for the Aeolian company, (the behemoth player piano and piano roll manufacturer of the day) shortly after arriving in New York. Aeolian initially marketed her as a ragtime and blues player, but as she developed additional styles in her New York-based live performance career, Aeolian broadened her roll work to include a greater variety of popular genres and procedures.
The paper focuses on Baker's blues orientation as a piano roll artist. The analysis will rely on some elements of Topic Theory, an approach developed by the late Leonard Ratner that centers on an examination of genres and styles for expressive musical discourse. While Ratner's theory addresses Classical music from the mid-18th to the early 19th century, it provides an apt template for exploring the popular piano roll idiom of the early 20th C.
However, despite the fact that the majority of early piano rolls were sourced from printed sheet music and metronomically quantized as perforated into the paper roll, player piano design allowed for molding a personalized and potentially expressive performance. Player pianos at all price points featured hand controls capable of temporal and dynamic variation that the "player pianist" or "pianolist" could manipulate according to personal taste as they foot-pumped in real time. The player piano/piano roll interface offered the appeal of instant technical mastery — no need to spend laborious hours practicing by hand in order to master notes and rhythms — thus accelerating the leap to the end goal of achieving a personalized, expressive rendition.
To allay the unease the player piano initially aroused, a number of UK and US music writers entered into the breach, defending the new instrument by touting its educational value and expressive potential. Articles were written, journals established and books were published on the subject of how to “play” the player piano, ranging from general hints to massive tomes containing detailed instructions for how to achieve an expressive rendition via a player piano.
The paper comprises an an overview of several significant such books generated during the heyday of the player piano era (1900-1930), and summarize some commonly shared guidelines put forth for obtaining expressive pianola performance. Authors include Gustav Kobbé, Harry Ellingham, Ernst Newman, Sidney Grew, Reginald Reynolds and William Braid White.
Video and audio were recorded by Dr. Whitney Slaten at the United Church of Westford at Westford VT.
1) Each composer studied in Europe, and came into their artistic maturity during the time when interest began to mount in historical keyboard music and the harpsichord and clavichord. 2) It was also during the 19th C. that the harmonium, itself was invented and perfected. 3) All three were grounded in the music of J. S. Bach, but their aesthetics and performance practices were very much a manifestation of the 19th C. Romantic tradition. It was a time when there was no problem with compositionally re-interpreting music from the past. Further these re-interpretations were conceived and rendered in the highly expressive performance practice of the late romantic period.
Dozens of these gifted pianists enriched mainstream American musical life and created a new piano idiom intended for the general public to both listen to and to play. The music they produced is the last time a distinctly recognizable piano idiom achieved mass distribution. After the Second World War and the precipitous drop in amateur piano playing, new piano music for mainstream audiences and home players fragmented. Sadly, the names, music and performance of these brilliant women American pianist/composers have been largely forgotten.
The artists included in the Scrapbook were chose for their uniqueness, excellence scope of their work and relative familiarity to the general public when musically active.
The show centered on her 1912 Bush & Lane upright player piano. Wodehouse foot-pumped several of George Gershwin’s (1898-1937) most provocative piano rolls for the audience, providing a narration that traced Gershwin’s unique personal history as a first-generation child of Jewish immigrants through the mighty social/technological/musical changes that occurred from the 1900s through the roaring 20s and beyond.
Wodehouse was joined by singers Allison and Cameron Steinmetz. This husband-and-wife duo demonstrated — probably for the first time in the 21st century — the purpose for which most of Gershwin’s piano rolls were made. Based in popular tunes of the day, they were often intended as an interesting accompaniment for singing around the player piano.
Musical selections as follows:
00:00:39 Swanee 1920 Gershwin piano roll
00:12:56 Gott un Sein Mishpet is Gerecht 1905 phonograph recording
00:16:21 Gott un Sein Mishpet is Gerecht 1916 Gershwin piano roll
00:24:07 The Scandal Walk 1920 Gershwin piano roll
00:30:34 Weeping Willow Rag Scott Joplin 1916 piano roll
00:37:11 Lawdy, Lawdy Blues 1924 Edythe Baker piano roll
00:41:22 I Was So Young, You Were So Beautiful 1920 Gershwin
piano roll
00:51:01 Nobody But You 1919 Gershwin piano roll
01:01:26 My Faultless Pajama Girl 1917 Gershwin piano roll
01:05:59 Chu Chin Chow 1917 Gershwin piano roll
Gershwin made approximately 140 piano rolls total between 1915 and 1925.
1. An 1889 Mason & Hamlin 49-note portable organ made in Boston;
2. A 1925 Bilhorn Bros. 49-note folding preacher's organ made in Chicago
3. A ca. 1940s 61-note folding Chaplain's organ used during WWII and likely made by A B. White in Chicago;
4. A ca. 1950s-60s 49-note Yamaha portable organ made in Japan.