AUDIOGRAPHIC MUSIC ROLL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20288, 22 December 1927, Page 12

AUDIOGRAPHIC MUSIC ROLL.

DEMONSTRATION OF NEW INVENTION. INTERPRETATION AND MEANING. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 16. Lord Burnham presided at a demonstration, at the Aeolian Hall, of the invention of the audiographic music roll which provides both an aid to the interpretation of music and an explanation of its meaning. The invention, it is claimed, gives to the listener not only the world’s greatest music, but the ideas which were m the minds of the composers when they wrote it. In effect, explains the Daily Telegraph, this latest departure in the reproduction of music Jinks the eye with the ear, and, through the medium of the printed commentaries which appear side by side with the perforations on the roll, enables the music to deliver the authentic message of its composer. On this account alone the invention would be of notable educational value; but it has also given the opportunity for the presentation on the rolls of authoritative biographies of the leading composers, the "stories” which the music seeks to interpret, and a system of “ themo-phrasing ” which enables the student to analyse a study into its appropriate parts. Autobiographical rolls are now in course of preparation by many famous composers; and where these are unobtainable—as in the cases of Beethoven, Wagner, and Chopin—the deficiency is supplied in each case, as far as it can be, Dy the annotations of leading living authorities.

At the demonstration the exposition wa D undertaken by Mr Percy A. Scholes, the editor of the series. The first part of the programme was devoted to a demonstration of the distinction between* the piano, the pianola, and the duo-art, Mr William Murdoch playing the pianoforte solo (Debussy’s " Minstrels") and Mr Reginald Reynolds the pianola solo. The duo-art solo was reproduced—in the absence of the performer—from Mr Murdoch’s record ot " A cheval dans la Prairie ” (de Severac). Mr Scholes, describing the conception and development of audiographic music, said that, with the realisation of the power to print on the music rolls of the pianola and the duo-art, there opened up a vista ot illimitable usefulness for the instrument. Noo only was it thus possiblo to give letterpress and musical notation, but also fine woodcuts and other illustrations by famous contemporary artists. Among the distinct classes into which the roils were divided was the biographical, one example of which, by Sir .Alexander Mackenzie, gave a short ” life” of Beethoven, with many musical illustrations, which came to tonal life as the reader looked at them. Others presented “ programme ” music—compositions in which the composer had expressed in tone the emotions of a groat picture, a drama or a poem—and by letterpress and illustration helped the reader to “ see ” tho composer’s imagination at work. Others again were for the children; every child should learn music in an imaginative way, and so they had associated with the musio as it was heard thoughts which seemed to be relevant and to give a suggestive aid to its interpretation. Further, by moans of these rolls, a great deal of help could be given in the grasping of a picco of music’s formal Red lines—continuous or dotted—showed the different themes, indicating the passages that were developed from them, and, under tho name of “themo-phrasing,” represented 1 one of the most valuable developments of audiographic music. Bv a clever niece of synchronisation tho First Movement of the Appasionata Sonata was given from an audiographic roll, the movement of which was simultaneously thrown upon the screen by the kinematograph. In similar manner Greig’s “Puck” —with letterpress and illustrations peculiarly suitable for the children—was presented; and then the audience tho opportunity of comparing an actual pianoforte solo with the audiographic coll and the same work recorded by tho same player —Mr William Murdoch. The piece was Debussy’s “ Cathedral Under the Waves, and if the “roll” seemed more satisfactory than the pianoforte solo itself, it was duo entirely to (he illuminating explanation of the’ letterpress upon it. _ Mr Scholes observed that the audience had witnessed either an historic success or an historic failure. Au (iograph-’c music was a great musical educational scheme in the widest sense, with applications in the homo as well as in tho school, and should secure in many homes for the masterpieces of music that sympathetic hearing without which they could make no valuable impression. In this now experience, which has cost them £IOO,OOO, the Aelian Company has received the help of an honorary-advisory committee which includes: Sir Alexander MacKcnzio (formerly principal ot the Royal Academy of Music), Sir Hugh P. Mien, Professor J. C. Bridge, Professor C. H. Kit-son, Mr Robert H. Legffo, J B M’Ewen Sir Landon Ronald, Sir Henry J. Wood, and Mr J. Aikman Forsvth.