Portugal between the 1900s and the 1930s

Portuguese society underwent profound transformations. A new entertainment culture dominated by the musical theatre had developed in Lisbon and Oporto in the last third of the 19th century and spread to many Portuguese towns and villages. Recent venues catered to new forms of accessible entertainment for a big audience and accommodated itinerant companies. The operetta and the musical revue became dominant as they ridiculed Portuguese society, caricatured stereotypes and promoted patriotism. The revues staged during the Portuguese Republic praised and mocked the new regime while their music circulated ubiquitously through a variety of objects: sheet music, librettos, sound recordings and piano rolls.

Furthermore, these shows maintained their dominance for a long time by rapidly incorporating new styles and genres. According to Presto, an American music trade magazine:

The First Republic aimed to transform Portuguese society. Portugal, a small agrarian country with large colonies, depended on foreign capital. Its agriculture relied predominantly on smallholders despite the arrival of ‘modern’ industrial farmers associated with products such as cork and wine. Some industries and a significant public sector developed during the Monarchy as the music business catered to rising demands for sheet music, pianos, discs and gramophones. This process took place in urban centres and is especially noticeable in Lisbon and Oporto, where most offices operated. The final years of the Monarchy witnessed a rising interest in the African colonies, which the Republic pursued with renewed energy.

Many Portuguese held high expectations of the new regime but were soon disappointed. Political protests, strikes and a succession of short-term cabinets were a staple of the Republic. The Portuguese participation in World War I aggravated a financial situation that was already dire; prices soared while living conditions became even more precarious.

Poverty coexisted with a new bourgeoisie whose capital was often associated with wartime hoarding and the black market. The wealthy cherished new forms of entertainment and frequented the dancings, clubs, casinos and movie palaces that opened in the aftermath of World War I (Barros Reference Barros1990). People frequented nightclubs decorated with modernist artworks that embodied cosmopolitan sophistication, a tendency especially visible in Lisbon. Remembering those years, the journalist Reinaldo Ferreira remarks:

Places such as the Bristol Club, the Club Mayer, and the Majestic Club transformed the sociability circuits of the newly arrived well-to-do. They employed a jazz-band, a type of ensemble that embodied modernity for people like António Ferro, a writer and a journalist who would later run the propaganda for the Estado Novo (1895–1956). For him, the jazz-band, ‘like a screen, is where all images of modern life fit in᾽ and is ‘the clock that best tells you the time of today, the hours spent dancing, the nervous fox-trotted hours᾽ (Ferro Reference Ferro1923, p. 3). In Portugal and other countries, the jazz-band was a small group that played a variety of dance music, integrating the newly arrived African American genres in their performances.

This fresh repertoire was fairly recent in the 1920s and, for people like Reinaldo Ferreira, it ‘was not yet well-translated᾽ by Portuguese musicians (Ferreira Reference Ferreira2006, p. 81). The journalist describes a group playing in the Club Mayer ‘a lively Charleston from the Revue nègre [a Parisian show featuring Josephine Baker] with the languor of a Viennese waltz’ in 1926 (Ferreira Reference Ferreira2006). This statement shows how local bands performed these repertoires before the spread of radio and electrical recordings. Portuguese musicians working in pit orchestras and military bands struggled with new genres such as the fox-trot and the charleston. Novelty interacted with local routines as the up-and-coming styles rapidly became part of the popular theatre, a market that incorporated changes quickly.

The Parque Mayer enlarged the entertainment circuit in the 1920s. Three revue theatres opened in its premises: the Teatro Maria Vitória (established in 1922), the Teatro Variedades and the Capitólio (both opened 1931). Parque Mayer also comprised restaurants, spaces to perform fado, and all sorts of amusements, which placed it as a small Portuguese Broadway (Melo Reference Melo2003). Thus, despite the political instability and the crisis associated with the First Portuguese Republic, a culture of popular recreation thrived.

The household piano, gender and entertainment

Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, a writer on education, describes Portuguese bourgeois young women using these words:

These women incarnated a form of domesticity that relied on personal achievement since their routines included activities such as collecting, embroidering, reading and music- making. The dominant instrument was the piano, which embodied bourgeois 19th century culture and occupied a unique place in everyday life, where musical soirées were more than public displays of amateur artistry. These events opened the doors of the domestic space where Victorian notions of privacy reigned, and the piano reflected and represented the refinement of the household.

Domesticity connects space, people and social bonds and is very important for studying how instruments, sheet music and music rolls circulated in Portugal. The vast majority of the music publishing business concentrated on the piano. However, Carvalho advised against the dominance of this instrument. ‘We must, however, warn that the monomania of the piano, as it is inoculated and propagated, is a scourge, a fearsome scourge, and nothing more’ (Carvalho Reference Carvalho1880, p. 50). Despite prizing music, she cautions against its frivolity and argues that better education for women would stop the piano from

Bourgeois women constructed the social meaning of the drawing-room piano, playing a fundamental role in selecting and arranging household goods. They ‘encouraged an emotional rather than a narrowly utilitarian relation to objects and marked the very form of domestic artefacts’ (Merish Reference Merish2000, p. 90). Moreover, ‘Victorian culture privileged a formal home life that was mediated by women, while the furniture that decorated each room fit circumscribed modes of behaviour’ (Barnett Reference Barnett2006, p. 309). The Portuguese writer José Gomes Ferreira (1900–1985) recollects how his mother loved, ‘in an almost physical sense, every object of her 1910 petty-bourgeois home’ (Ferreira Reference Ferreira and Ferreira1980, p. 25). Hence, the household incorporated and displayed property, respectability and family identity. People gathered around the piano, an instrument that worked both as a stage and as a theatrical box for performing family life, and musicked (Picker Reference Picker2003, p. 53; Leppert Reference Leppert1992). Thus, the player piano played a fundamental role in introducing mechanical music at home because it retained the timbre of the instrument with the added possibility of mechanical reproduction (Ospina-Romero Reference Ospina-Romero2019, p. 7). Mixing tradition with innovation was a key asset.

Before World War I most piano advertisements refer to German and French makers. In 1913, Germany had exported 413 pianos to Portugal, more than the 324 imported by Spain, for example (‘Some Statistics Regarding the German Piano Trade’ 1919, p. 67). The panorama changed with World War I with Portugal importing 186 pianos in 1919, 115 of which came from the United States (‘American Pianos Sell Well in Europe’, 1922, p. 9). Moreover, ‘American pianos were practically unknown in this market before the war’ (ibid.). However, there are references to American instruments being sold in Portugal before and Salão Neuparth traded Steinway & Sons pianos. This statement has to be carefully read given that the company had had a factory in Hamburg since 1880, a result of the ‘transplanting of American manufacturing methods, by American manufacturers, in Europe’ (Dolge Reference Dolge1911, p. 199).

The piano was a prominent site for performing family life as well as a piece of furniture in public spaces such as cafés and theatres. A small group of musicians accompanied theatrical performances and the popular companies employed a small ensemble. Therefore, pianos were ubiquitous in theatres and actors and singers used them to learn their parts in rehearsals before the orchestra joined the production (Brun Reference Brun1908). Portuguese soldiers fighting in Flanders during World War I went to an estaminet to ‘endure the nostalgia of their distant village᾽ while listening to a player piano (Capitão X 1917, p. 10). Furthermore, mechanical instruments accompanied plays and silent films, a new form of entertainment that rapidly became omnipresent.

Cinema was part of a booming stage of social and cultural modernity that reflected the spread of mass-produced goods (Grajeda Reference Grajeda, Taylor, Katz and Grajeda2012, p. 137). Places like Chiado Terrace, Olympia and Salão Foz showed silent films at the beginning of the 20th century. Social life associated with novel forms of entertainment that involved going out replaced ideals of domesticity in the interwar period as cinemas became widespread across the country (‘Noticias e réclamos – Animatographos’ 1912, p. 687). A ‘Manifesto to the Portuguese Girls’ published in 1933 highlights the importance of cinema as part of the weekly routine of local young women, illustrating how female behaviour changed in the early 20th century (‘Manifesto às raparigas portuguesas’ 1933, pp. 2–3). Moreover, projecting films transformed the architecture of theatres with the refurbishment of old rooms and the building of new venues according to guidelines that aimed to enhance the experience of the audience (Thompson Reference Thompson2004, pp. 256–7). Therefore, modern technologies joined forces in the entertainment market. Before the advent of electrical sound amplification in the 1920s, large rooms relied on player pianos since they were easy to operate and could be effortlessly adapted to an instrument that was already part of the furniture. These features motivated their acquisition by many Portuguese theatres.

Player pianos in Portugal

The early 1900s saw the introduction of mechanical music in Portugal. Local sources place the brand registry of ‘Aeolian’ and ‘Pianola’ in 1901, three years after their first commercial use (Portugal. Ministério das Obras Públicas Comércio e Industria 1903, p. 148). Established in Meriden, Connecticut, The Aeolian Company was represented in Portugal by G.J.C. Henriques (Portugal. Ministério das Obras Públicas Comércio e Industria 1903). Casa Favorita, a store owned by Santos Diniz, sold Hupfeld players at the beginning of the 20th century. Santos Diniz, a pioneer of Portuguese sound recordings, also traded in phonographic goods with the help of his son, Alberto. They were recording enthusiasts and developed some improvements to the gramophone until the untimely death of Alberto in 1903 (Losa Reference Losa2013, pp. 39–42). In 1901, Casa Favorita demonstrated a Hupfeld player piano, a ‘true marvel of the modern art and industry’ in its Lisbon premises (‘Piano Eléctrico’ 1901, p. 8). The article mentions a 76-note device (whose compass was either 72 or 73 notes) that could be played manually or mechanically using a hand-crank or an electrical motor. The demonstration included the overture to Tannhäuser, Invitation à la danse, by Weber, and Nocturne, by Döhler. The reviewer stated that

The store Neuparth & Carneiro demonstrated a Hupfeld Phonola in the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa in 1905 (M.O. 1905, p. 46). The Phonola is a 72-note freestanding push-up mechanism similar to a harmonium that was adaptable to any piano. The review of the Lisbon demonstration echoes the marketing strategies adopted by player piano manufacturers, presenting them as intuitive and easy to use, which allowed for the effortless reproduction of a varied repertoire (‘Piano Eléctrico’ 1901).

Player makers had included devices that allowed pianolists to manage aspects of performance like tempo and dynamics from an early stage. Therefore, player pianos were not a mere playback device. They promoted an active engagement with music, instead of inducing more passive forms of listening (Dolan Reference Dolan2009, p. 114). Moreover, the humanisation of player piano performance resonated with the Victorian pursuit of artistic expressivity through mechanical means. Since its beginning, ‘human–machine interactions were crucial in establishing a sophisticated performance practice around these push-up instruments’ as using the levers and pedals of the player piano required training and skill and impacted significantly on the performance (Ospina-Romero Reference Ospina-Romero2018, p. 220, Reference Ospina-Romero2019, p. 6). With the invention of devices that allowed greater control of tempo and dynamic, such as Aeolian's Metrostyle and Themodist, playing the player piano became more interactive and attractive to pianolists.

Nevertheless, some people saw mechanical music as incompatible with artistic accomplishments. The reviewer of the magazine Tiro e Sport sat in on a performance by students of the Conservatoire of Lisbon and reprimanded them for playing inartistically, comparing the performers with mechanical pianos:

Thus, despite the devices that allowed for an expressive performance of piano rolls, the machine metaphor was used to portray musicians, highlighting the incompatibility between mechanical music and its performers with the ideals of high art. Moreover, this illustrates the struggle that player pianos and pianolists carried out to validate musical performances over established perspectives on musicianship (Ospina-Romero Reference Ospina-Romero2018, p. 212). Nevertheless, player pianos retained the refined aspect of music-making, which contrasted with the association of the phonograph with ‘canned music’. This distinction resulted from the fact that music literacy remaining relatively isolated from hierarchies of taste and class (Gitelman Reference Gitelman, Rabinovitz and Geil2004, p. 206).

The report of the demonstration of the Phonola includes two images of the instrument, which is uncommon in the local press. It is played by a female pianolist, which shows the link between women and the parlour piano. Moreover, the review mentions the availability of c. 4.000 music rolls for the instrument, a factor that appealed to its prospective buyers. The representatives of the mechanism, Neuparth & Carneiro, invited the journalist and the coverage of the demonstration resorted to the tone and language of advertising. In a magazine for the higher social strata, the writer praises the Phonola and associates it with prestige.

Neuparth & Carneiro showed a Steinway-Welte piano in Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa in 1909. It consisted of a reproducing piano by Welte set up in a Steinway grand piano. Reproducing pianos were able to replicate a performance recorded in a specific roll.

Unlike ‘metronomic’ or ‘arranged’ rolls, whereby music editors traced and punched the master roll according to a work's sheet music, companies used ink to trace the performances at the reproducing piano (Holland and Ord-Hume Reference Holland, Ord-Hume and Macy2001). Then, the master roll was punched by hand, capturing the subtleties of the performance. This innovation places the reproducing piano closer to the phonograph and the gramophone, recording prominent pianists in great detail. Moreover, it reconfigures human intervention by shifting most aspects of musical production to the mechanism (Suisman Reference Suisman2010, p. 22).

M. Welte & Söhne developed the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano in 1904. In the Lisbon Steinway-Welte demonstration, the mechanism performed recordings by Teresa Carreño, Raoul Pugno, Ignacy Paderewski, Ferruccio Busoni and the Portuguese Viana da Mota (‘Música’ 1909, p. 3). Viana da Mota (1868–1948) was a Portuguese virtuoso who studied with Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow; he recorded pieces by Schubert and Liszt, and a few of his compositions for the Welte-Mignon in 1905 (Smith, Howe Reference Smith and Howe1994, p. 661). Viana da Mota returned to Lisbon during World War I and transformed the local musical panorama by promoting instrumental concerts in a capital dominated by the musical theatre, and heading the Conservatoire of Lisbon, where he reformed the curriculum.

Salão Mozart, the local representative for Aeolian, demonstrated the Pianola in the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa in 1914 (‘A pianóla da casa Aeolin’ 1914, p. 2). The device played with an orchestra conducted by Pedro Blanch (1877–1946) and accompanied a singer and a violinist:

The review highlights the flawless interaction between machines and humans, an advertising strategy used for player pianos since the early days of the technology (Ospina-Romero Reference Ospina-Romero2018, p. 212).

The wealthy politician, farmer, art collector and amateur musician José Relvas (1858–1929) bought a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano in 1925. Relvas was a music enthusiast and supported a large number of musical events in Lisbon and his country estate in Alpiarça. He also collected a significant quantity of instruments, including an Aeolian Orchestrelle, and owned a music library with a relevant collection of sheet music and music rolls. Given his musical inclinations, most rolls comprise Western art music, from Bach to Debussy and Busoni (Relvas Reference Relvas1926b). Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner dominated his collection. Moreover, Relvas wrote that the Welte-Mignon was,

The owner of Salão Beethoven, A. Pereira, the Welte-Mignon representative in Oporto, may have requested this document as part of a strategy for advertising the machine. Relvas also argues for the use of the reproducing piano as a teaching device in music schools.

Selling player pianos in Portugal

The main selling points for player pianos in Portugal were stores with a history of trading in pianos and sheet music. These places operated in the commercial districts of Portuguese cities where a large number of people circulated and window-shopped. Thus, stores that traded in pianos offered products associated with their mechanisation. Eduardo Neuparth (1784–1871) established the Salão Neuparth in the prestigious commercial district of Lisbon in the early 19th century. It sold pianos and printed music, which resonates with the policy of many music stores throughout Europe, inspired by the Parisian magasins de musique. Its successor, Neuparth & Carneiro, was run by Júlio, the grandson of Eduardo. Júlio was a violinist, composer and teacher (1863–1919) who organised demonstrations of Hupfeld player pianos. The firm was bought in 1923 by Valentim de Carvalho (1887–1957) and integrated into his business. Sassetti e C.ª established a store in the Lisbon area of Chiado in 1848, where it remained for the following 100 years. Founded by João Baptista Sassetti (1817–1889), it was a relevant publisher of sheet music and sold all sorts of instruments, with a particular focus on pianos. Later, its catalogue included player pianos by Hupfeld and the American Wilcox and White (Menano Reference Menano1924). Salão Mozart was established under the name Moniz & Fonseca in 1903 and traded in pianos, organs and sheet music. Also located in Chiado, it became the exclusive representative of Aeolian in Portugal. Many roll boxes in local collections feature its stamps, which may indicate their secure implementation in the local market. Later, Salão Mozart stopped selling instruments and became the local agent for Columbia Graphophone Company, working in the same facilities from 1926.

The venues trading in mechanical instruments contrast with stores dedicated to sound recordings. In Portugal, most phonographic retailers sold novelty products such as bicycles, typewriters and optical equipment (Losa and Belchior Reference Losa, Belchior, Gronow and Hofer2010, p. 7). Multinational companies such as The Gramophone Company Ltd or Pathé-Frères ran shops, albeit short-lived, to sell their goods. However, this changed in the 1920s, when local dealers like J. Heliodoro de Oliveira started to trade in pianos, player pianos, gramophones, sheet music, piano rolls and discs (Música: revista de arte 1924, p. 82). The local entrepreneur Valentim de Carvalho took this to another level. Carvalho may have worked behind the counter of the Sociedade Phonographica Portugueza, a company that belonged to the theatrical composer Carlos Calderon (1867–1945) and traded on sheet music and phonograms (Losa Reference Losa2013, p. 177).

Carvalho established his store in the downtown of Lisbon in 1914, soon becoming the local Hupfeld representative. He bought the Salão Neuparth and formed a commercial partnership with Brunswick Records, which facilitated the development of a Portuguese catalogue by that company (Losa Reference Losa2013). In 1929, Valentim de Carvalho published the magazine Eufonia, to advertise recorded music and wireless radio (Losa Reference Losa2013, p. 181). The company issued a small number of music rolls. Despite their unknown provenance and since Valentim de Carvalho imported many products, these were probably punched abroad. In Oporto, A. Pereira ran Salão Beethoven. The store traded on pianos and player mechanisms, especially the Welte-Mignon (José Relvas bought his instrument from them) and the American brand Janssen besides servicing these machines. Unfortunately, information about Salão Beethoven is scarce.

Advertising was fundamental to marketing player pianos. Companies circulated appealing images that featured prominent composers, the instrument, or everyday life situations in which the player piano was used (Roquer Reference Roquer2017, pp. 88–109). In some cases, advertisements represented domestic scenes in which a woman is playing alone or under a male gaze. They evoke ideas such as domesticity and submission and reinforce the association between women, the home and the piano (Roquer Reference Roquer2017). However, its mechanisation may have fed a masculine interest in an instrument then associated with the feminine (Dolan Reference Dolan2009, p. 114). This duality is problematic since the piano was part of the education of bourgeois children, male and female. However, Portuguese novels frequently depict women playing or singing ‘frivolous’, mostly operatic tunes, while men perform Beethoven or Chopin, repertoires higher placed in the hierarchy of taste. Therefore, women, depicted as hostages of sensitivity, were associated with ‘superfluous’ entertainment while men, portrayed as rational, concentrated on ‘serious’ art.

While foreign companies published sophisticated catalogues and visually appealing advertisements, the iconography concerning mechanical instruments in Portugal remains scarce. Most adverts for music stores list the products, which may include player pianos and rolls. However, they mention repertoire superficially while pictures are seldom published.

This strategy contrasts with phonography, where stores and recording companies advertised images of gramophones and phonographs. In many cases, repertoires were listed and promoted in periodicals. Selling recorded sound relied on images to emphasise novelty, while the advertisements for music stores tended to rely on their age-old prestige. Thus, a trusted name would be the dominant indicator of quality, which explains naming music stores that traded on pianos and mechanical instruments after prestigious European composers. This strategy reflects the cultural capital of art music in the music business, a trend that is also present in Brazil with Salão Beethoven, a venture I will address below.

Foreign companies relied upon the prestigious enthusiasts of mechanical instruments. The Aeolian Company used several monarchs to advertise their products, including Kaiser Wilhelm II and King D. Carlos I of Portugal:

Using the prestige of royal households poses relevant questions concerning domesticity. On the one hand, royal families embody a particular relationship between public and private lives. On the other hand, Kaiser Wilhelm II and King D. Carlos I were relatives of Queen Victoria. Thus, Victorian standards based on ideas such as privacy, respectability and domesticity were in place across the social spectrum. Advertisements using royalty became scarce after World War I as a consequence of the profound transformations in Europe.

Salão Mozart was an exception in the marketing panorama for mechanical pianos. In the 1920s, the store published an advertisement that depicted an elegantly dressed couple dancing to a Pianola played by an equally smartly dressed man. This piece highlights the 1910s and 1920s dance craze that used the player piano as a playback device. Then, ‘metronomic’ or ‘arranged’ rolls dominated the popular music market since tempo and dynamics reproduced at constant values made them ideal for dancing (Roquer Reference Roquer2017, p. 40).

Moreover, the Pianola ‘is the player piano that stands out from every other player for its unrivalled qualities’ (O Domingo ilustrado 1925b, p. 11). However, selling the original player could be tricky since ‘pianola’ designated all player pianos in several countries. Thus, the name of a brand often represented the technological device. This amalgamation also happened in Portugal with ‘grafonola’, a brand of the Columbia Graphophone Company that became synonymous with the gramophone. As a curiosity, Salão Mozart sold both Pianola and Grafonola, albeit in different periods. The appropriation of the term ‘pianola’ compelled Salão Mozart to publish notices to protect their brand and threaten its competitors. They ran an aggressive warning stating that ‘Pianola’ is a proprietary and exclusive brand name of The Aeolian Company Ltd and the Salão Mozart was its sole representative in Portugal (O Domingo ilustrado 1925a, p. 11).

The repertoire for mechanical pianos was wide-ranging and consisted of Western art compositions, well-known pieces from the stage, and, starting in the late 1920s, repertoires popularised by the cinema and the radio. Nevertheless, the musical theatre inspired a large number of the pieces associated with the new media as successful stage composers penned most film and radio music. Their compositions were published in different formats and articulated several media to increase profit in a competitive market. The overlap of repertoires between sheet music publishers, makers of music rolls and phonographic companies downplays direct competition between formats. Given the characteristics of the media, makers accommodated the musical pieces to maximise their potential. For example, music rolls based on sheet music accessible to amateur musicians contained virtuoso passages to enhance their appeal. Most Portuguese music stores that sold mechanical instruments and music rolls relied on imports. However, a local entrepreneur played an instrumental role in the business. His name was Abel Ferreira da Silva.

Abel Ferreira da Silva, maker of player pianos and music rolls

Portugal lacked production facilities for pianos but built player pianos and rolls on a small scale. Abel Ferreira da Silva, a businessman based in Oporto since c. 1907, credited himself as the sole Portuguese manufacturer of external and internal mechanisms for mechanical pianos and organs, as well as music rolls (‘Instrumentos portuguezes’ 1912, pp. 15–6). His business settled in the city centre of Oporto, where Abel also ran a deposit and a listening room. He built 65-note, 73-note and 88-note machines that featured mechanisms to control tempo and dynamics, emulating ‘all possible effects given by the human hand to present an individual performance’ (‘Instrumentos portuguezes’ 1912). Moreover, the factory:

Abel also mentions that his company built most components and outsourced metal castings to Oporto companies, highlighting the local implementation of his venture. Moreover, he serviced the machines of manufacturers such as Hupfeld and Aeolian.

Abel established a steam-powered roll factory in his Oporto facilities. Unfortunately, his roll catalogues are inaccessible. Nevertheless, local collections hold a significant number of pieces issued by the company run by Abel. Under the name Auto-Pianista, he published traditional Portuguese music, popular music and art music, segmented in two labels bearing distinct profiles: Invicta and Arte. Invicta concentrated on popular repertoires that were fashionable during the 1910s and 1920s, the heydays of the player piano, and a few popular Romantic pieces. The label issued music from or inspired by Portuguese and foreign cinema, the operetta and the revue theatre, pasodobles, cuplés, tangos, maxixes, sambas, one-steps, fox-trots, waltzes, marches, fados and Portuguese regional dances (such as the vira or the corridinho). Invicta captured the diversity of local art music by issuing pieces by Alexandre Rey Colaço (1854–1928), Victor Hussla (1857–99), Viana da Mota and Ruy Coelho (1889–1986). The label Arte focused on foreign art music, with the dominance of the Romantic period, issuing rolls by Chopin, Lehár, Leoncavallo, Liszt, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Moszkowski, Rodolphoe Berger, Schubert, and Wieniawski. Arte published a few hand-played rolls by Harold Bauer (1873–1951), Amadeus Nestler (1870–1964) and Gustav Bazarus. Abel also kept a label named Indústria Portugueza that published a small number of rolls and mixed Western art music and popular music. Thus, Indústria Portugueza may predate the segmentation of the repertoires reflected in Invicta and Arte. Abel also traded in Aeolian rolls while his company was active, at least until the mid-1930s. Thus, a local businessman played a fundamental role in building and repairing machines as well as publishing rolls in a small country where mechanical music was a luxury.

Repertoires and rolls in Portugal

The player piano was fundamental to setting in motion a large-scale transnational circulation of machines and repertoires (Ospina-Romero Reference Ospina-Romero2019, p. 37). This dissemination peaked in the 1910s and 1920s as roll manufacturers followed the fast-changing music scene that prized novelty. Moreover, mechanical music played an instrumental role in defining tastes in the interwar period, allowing ‘the development of modern popular music that became the core of the “middlebrow” or “middle-of-the-road taste”’ (Keillor Reference Keillor2006, p. 186).

A large number of rolls associated with revue theatre illustrates its dominance in the first half of the 20th century. Charismatic artists such as Maria Vitória (1888–1915), Estêvão Amarante (1894–1951), Laura Costa (1901–?) and Beatriz Costa (1907–1996) performed new pieces, especially the fado-canção, a song form with refrains that dominated the popular stage, cinema and phonographic industry for several decades. Composers like Vasco de Macedo (1879–1947), Alves Coelho (1882–1931), Venceslau Pinto (1883–1973), Carlos Calderon, Raúl Portela (1889–1942), Raúl Ferrão (1890–1953) and Frederico de Freitas (1902–80) penned these pieces. Despite having distinct profiles, they were successful musicians who worked for the theatre and the cinema and renewed its music; moreover, their works feature extensively in the collections of music rolls. Many rolls include songs from the 1920s, which marks the zenith of the popularity of the mechanical piano in Portugal.

The regular screening of sound films influenced the market for piano rolls as companies released songs from the movies. Invicta issued compositions from Portuguese films like A Severa, the first talkie shot in Portugal, and Bocage, and local collections feature pieces from foreign talkies. Portuguese catalogues included songs that did not feature in plays nor films and featured in the repertoire of prominent performers like António Menano (1895–1969), Berta Cardoso (1911–97), or Maria Alice (1904–96). For example, Fado da Traição was recorded by Maria Alice for Brunswick in 1929 and issued by Invicta. Maria Alice did not work in the theatre and was contacted by Valentim de Carvalho, whom she later married, to become a prominent recording artist. Thus, the phonographic industry became a fundamental supplier of repertoires as the spread of Portuguese radio in the late 1920s and 1930s diversified the pool of local artists. Moreover, rolls contained arrangements of French and American songs disseminated through recordings.

Instrumental art music formed a fundamental part of the player piano repertoire and embodied the cultural capital associated with high art as many rolls comprised solo pieces or reductions of orchestral works of the Western canon. Portuguese collections hold works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Grieg, Brahms, Ravel and Rachmaninov. They also comprise operatic selections, especially Verdi, Italian verismo, and Gounod, productions frequently staged in Teatro de São Carlos, the opera house in Lisbon. However, they also hold works by Wagner, a repertoire seldom performed, which shows the role played by the mechanical piano in performing pieces that were less accessible to the Portuguese.

Reconstructing the circulation of music rolls in Portugal raises methodological issues. Assembling this puzzle requires documents such as rolls held in public and private collections, music store invoices and catalogues from foreign companies. Many rolls containing Portuguese repertoires were produced abroad by publishers such as Rollos Victoria, The Aeolian Company, Hupfeld, QRS, L’Édition Musicale Perforée and Empeco. Given the affinities between Portugal and Spain, especially a market for cultural goods dominated by the local popular theatre, I will focus on the Portuguese pieces issued by Rollos Victoria, a firm whose rolls feature significantly in local collections. A company from Barcelona, Rollos Victoria was very active and published catalogues and supplements every two to three months, showing the importance of modern and renewable repertoires in the entertainment market (Roquer Reference Roquer2017, pp. 147–158). A picture of their factory shows the magnitude of the company, depicting many punching machines perforating large paper cylinders (Rollos Victoria Reference Rollos Victoria1924). They also created the labels Ideal and Best, the latter directed to South America (Ibid., p. 151).

The Portuguese repertoire issued by Rollos Victoria changed in a decade. In the late 1910s, the company published the most successful songs of the musical revues staged in Lisbon, such as O novo Mundo, O 31, Castelos no ar and Dominó as well as autonomous fados (Rollos Victoria ?Reference Rollos Victoria1919). Pieces by revue composers like Alves Coelho, Tomás Del Negro and Nicolino Milano (1876–1962) were paired with fados by the pianist Alexandre Rey-Colaço and Filipe Rosa de Carvalho (1892–1980), who would become a prominent organist. Later, Rollos Victoria issued two compositions by Rosa de Carvalho, the waltz N'hésitez pas and a pasodoble, Soldado Flamenco, which may indicate the popularity of the latter genre in Portugal (Rollos Victoria Reference Rollos Victoria1921). Best shared the Portuguese catalogue with the mother company, focusing on fado (Best ?Reference Best1920). Diana, a rival venture from Madrid, published some of these pieces, which may reflect their success (Diana ?Reference Diana1919).

In 1929, towards the end of the golden age of player pianos, Rollos Victoria printed a catalogue with new Portuguese pieces (Rollos Victoria Reference Rollos Victoria1929). Alves Coelho dominated the list, which included new fados by Luiz Filgueiras (1862–1929), Francisco Bahia (1861– 1931), António Menano, Raúl Portela and Júlio Neuparth. With the dance craze and the relevance of American genres, the company released tangos by Nicolino Milano (a Brazilian who worked in both sides of the Atlantic, penning successful plays), Raúl Ferrão and Cruz e Sousa. They also issued a ‘Portuguese Charleston’, a black-bottom and two fox-trots by Cruz e Sousa, a Navy officer who wrote a significant number of pieces inspired by North American styles and was a very successful composer for the popular stage and the talkies (Rollos Victoria Reference Rollos Victoria1929). His songs were issued as sheet music, piano rolls and sound recordings, making him a household name for many Portuguese amateur musicians in the late 1920s.

Brazil and Portugal share a language and established strong bonds in the entertainment market. Portuguese and Brazilian artists performed on both sides of the Atlantic and recorded and released their songs in both countries in the early 20th century. Brazil developed a player piano business as Salão Beethoven, in Rio de Janeiro, issued a large number of music rolls (Dias Reference Dias2013). Its brand, Pianauto, concentrated on local dances, such as the Brazilian tango (a term frequently used to mask the lowbrow Afro-Brazilian maxixe, legitimising it to ‘respectable’ audiences), the maxixe and the samba, genres that were appreciated in Portugal (Casa Beethoven Reference Casa Beethoven1914). Unexpectedly, local collections do not hold Brazilian rolls. The few selections of Brazilian pieces included in the accessible Portuguese collections are the maxixe Meu Xodó, probably Xodó by Marcello Tupynambá (1889–1953), and the samba O samba nasceu p'ra todos, by Lamartine Babo (1904–1963), published by Abel Ferreira da Silva.

The success of the player piano was dependent on the ready availability of varied rolls. From recorded rolls of sonatas by Beethoven to ‘metronomic’ rolls containing popular pieces, music dealers catered for a diverse audience. José Relvas prized Western art repertoires for his Welte-Mignon while other customers valued hits brought to them by the theatre and the cinema.

Conclusions

The satirical newspaper O Pirolito published a piece in which a prospective housemaid interviews her female employer:

• Do you have a pianola?

• No, but we have a gramophone.

• That will do. (‘Creada – Precisa-se’ 1931, p. 5)

From the early demonstrations of player pianos to their downfall, three decades had passed. Meanwhile, Portuguese musical culture accepted the player piano. Whether as playback devices for exciting dance music or educators in the high arts, these machines became part of local everyday life. Homes, theatres and cinemas bought player pianos and used them according to their needs. The first appeal of the mechanical piano relied on its ability to be easily adjusted to a piece of household furniture. Unlike the phonograph, which had to be camouflaged, player pianos added to an instrument that incarnated education and domesticity; they threaded the fine line between a Romantic indicator of cultural capital and a conveyor of automated musical performances.

The player piano was not an intermediary between the parlour piano and the phonograph. While phonography captures the sound waves of performance, the player piano reproduces pre-programmed information that could be unrelated to live performances. Moreover, these technologies embody contrasting aspects of modernity while reflecting a deeper trend for the mechanisation of everyday life. Pianolists developed skills to perform their music rolls while hand-played rolls and the reproducing piano added another layer of complexity to this process by reducing human intervention and overlapping with phonography.

The success of the player piano relied on the music rolls. The pervasiveness of the same repertoire in different contexts of everyday life evidences an articulation between theatrical impresarios, composers, instrument sellers, sheet music publishers, piano roll manufacturers and the early phonographic industry. However, the convergence is not straightforward, since the repertoire was adapted to enhance the qualities of each medium. Supplying the same pieces in distinct formats fed on the demand for repertoires the audiences had heard elsewhere. Moreover, the player piano retained part of the aura of the traditional piano, distancing itself from ‘canned music’. Despite some overlap, rolls had a significant proportion of pieces by famous instrumental music composers while sound recordings, despite the prestige associated with labels such as Victor's Red Seal, focused on opera.

Piano roll makers and the recording industry shared the coexistence between major international companies, like QRS and The Gramophone Company, with local firms, such as Invicta or Simplex. The multinational phonographic companies developed a Portuguese catalogue that was focused on popular music and outsold its international and more prestigious counterpart. The lack of record production facilities in Portugal forced small Portuguese record companies to develop partnerships with foreign firms. The music roll panorama is similar, with foreign companies such as QRS or Rollos Victoria holding a prominent position in the Portuguese market. Rollos Victoria, a giant on the Iberian Peninsula and a significant exporter, and Auto-Pianista produced a large number of rolls with Portuguese pieces. Furthermore, the large number of Classical and Romantic works that feature in local collections indicates that the piano had not lost its artistic aura in its entirety.

The player piano played a fundamental role in the mechanisation and automation of music in modern consumer culture. Then, advertisements associated mechanical music with prestige and sophistication, facilitating its incorporation into everyday life as it helped to develop a new habitus that became predominant in Portugal for a significant part of the 20th century. The accumulation and embodiment of cultural capital associated with piano playing merged with a new trend that privileged machine-driven music-making.

Portuguese, Brazilian, Spanish and French pieces dominated popular entertainment in the 1910s. In the interwar period, British and American genres, such as the fox-trot, the one-step and the tango, began to stand out. Moreover, the entertainment circuits of the Portuguese were changing rapidly after World War I. Clubs opened in the main cities to cater to the needs of the wealthy and hired jazz-bands. The musical revue incorporated new genres while the Parque Mayer was at the heart of this transformation. Cinemas opened in old theatres or new buildings as people went out to watch the latest films. Radio was taking its first steps, building upon the achievements of early phonography.

The player piano business of a small European country reflects these changes, which reveal the complicated relationship between transnational technologies, local repertoires, and the ways people incorporated them in everyday life. Because there were fewer roll manufacturers in Portugal than recording entrepreneurs, the country was more dependent on international catalogues. Nevertheless, some tendencies parallel larger countries: the increasing commodification of music, the growing importance of cinema and the spread of American repertoires. These aspects were crucial to the provision of both domestic and public entertainment in a period of intense cultural transformation through which interwar modernism and a new leisure culture emerged.