Piano rolls were a popular medium for reproducing pianists' performances in the early 20th century. The rolls were made of paper, and contained holes punched in them by a special piano upon which the pianist played to record their performance. The roll could then be mass produced and played back by any owner of a player piano capable of playing back that particular brand of roll (each player piano manufacturer had their own piano roll technology, making their piano rolls exclusive to that particular brand). Though somewhat crude, and far from an exact reproduction of the pianists' performance, they still preserve a sense of the artists' conception of the work. In the case of some works in Cortot's repertoire, piano rolls are the only documents of his interpetation available, making them an interesting supplement to his vast discography of sound recordings.

N.B.: We are very interested in recordings of piano rolls which currently do not have a Youtube or Spotify link attached on the site. If you have a piano roll and the means to record it being performed and upload it to Youtube, please get in touch!