Whoever is interested in TACET's "Welte Mystery Series," long unique for its range, completeness, state of research and sound quality, has known for a long time that the Welte firm, once admired as a wonder of the world, not only issued 2500 piano rolls with recordings of famous composers and pianists, but also largely lived from the sale of rolls with entertainment music. So just 2000 more rolls were made, all with a content of greater or lesser music-historical importance. It was sad enough that the Welte piano increasingly replaced bar pianists and dance bands during the 1920s. One advantage they had was that it was not more expensive when more than 10 fingers played. I myself once saw, unobserved, such a mechanical instrument in the corner of a pub in the Black Forest near Freiburg. Our Welte series would not be representative of the Welte catalogue if at least one CD did not contain some of the best music from this area. Hans W. Schmitz, the owner of all these treasures and a specialist in the alignment of Welte pneumatics, disappeared into his basement and, from his many hundreds of rolls, got out 50 of them that have a lot to offer. Of these, we are presenting the 18 best rolls. We already know George Gershwin, but do we also know Howard Lutter or Hans Sommer?

What is "Welte Mignon"?

Video on the Welte Mignon piano with the expert Hans W. Schmitz