Sound memory in player piano roll format: the Hazen Collection

The Hazen family's collection of 489 piano rolls is a magnificent example of preservation and maintenance of the sound memory of a time not so long ago. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, autopianos, pianolas and electric pianos began to become popular and burst into many bourgeois homes in Europe and America. Hazen, the main seller, and distributor of pianos in Spain, began with the sale and marketing of these instruments and the repertoire for their execution: the piano rolls. All kinds of melodies were recorded on these media, with Beethoven's Symphonies being some of the most common titles in the present collection. Although Hazen supplied piano rolls of all kinds and styles, especially relevant were those that made up the catalog of Victoria and Best, a subsidiary of the former for sale and export to Latin America, with a repertoire more suited to those latitudes.Currently, both libraries of certain importance and private owners of this type of media are focusing their efforts on the digitization of these materials for a better preservation of the documentary musical heritage and for its dissemination through new devices.