San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1924-03-02
Betty Broadway
Goes A-visiting
Betty Hears Fritz
Kreisler Play at the
w althall Music
Company.

DlQ you ever near al ALI
pico? No? Well, Betty
Broadway had not either I'M
til last week when she drop
ped into the Walthall Music
Company. She wanted to
get a closer look at the love-
ly grand pianos she saw
through the window, but
when she got into the store
she heard exquisite strains
of rapturous music coming
from the back Of the build
ing, and she asked who was
the great artist who was
playing, and where was he?
John Meitzen, manager of
the music department, told
her that it was Fritz Kreis-
Ter playing his immortal
Caprice Viennois in the Am
pico room. Betty was thrill
led to her finger-tips at
hearing this greatest of vio-
linists play the piano, and
she wanted to take a peep
at him. Why, she hadn't
ever known that Kreisler
played any other instrument
besides the violin! And here
she was actually going to
see him playing the piano!
But Mr.. Meitzen explained
that while it was really
Kreisler playing, the man
himself was thousands of
miles away. What Betty
was hearing was Kreisler's
recording which he had
made in the great Ampico
studio in New York.
While she listened, the
soulful music ceased and
then in a moment the rich
chords of Rachmaninoff's
Prelude in C Sharp Minor
began, and Mr.. Meitzen told
Betty that it was Rachman-
inoff himself playing his
prelude, although his body
was not there, and that only
his invisible fingers and soul
were present in his interpre-
tation of his popular compo-
sition, and that the record
ing was made in the Ampico
studios. Mr.. Meitzen played
ether pieces for Betty, clas-
steal, semi classical, and
popular, each played with
so much feeling and beauty
as to prove without a doubt
that only masters of tech
nique and of everything that
goes to make up great must
clans were at the keyboard.
So amazed and delighted was
Betty Broadway at her great eX-
perience that she asked Mr.. Nett
zen to tell her more about the
Ampico and he told her that in
appearance it is simply a piano
grand or upright-but that in its
case there is concealed the Won
derful invention which endows the
piano with the service of long
list of artists to play for its
fortunate owner. Mr.. MeltZen
told Betty that it is the ideal
musical instrument and that it
marks an epoch in musical prog
ress, placing within the reach of
those far distant, the JOY and
pleasure of hearing the master
pianists' interpretations of piano
forte classics. Mr.. Meitzen said
that the Ampico accomplishes
these marvellous achievements
without any effort on the part of
the listener, and without any
visible mechanical aids.
Mr.. Meitzen states that his
wonderful production is made
possible by means of recordings
iaken of the artists playing at
the Ampico Recording Studios in
New York. The artist sits at the
piano and plays. and Mr.. Meitzen
explained to Betty that by the
mysterious and wonderful ways of
science the whole beauty of his
performance is caught, imprison-
ed and translated, as it were,
into music roll. Mr.. Meitzen
told Betty that when this roll is
placed in the piano and the start
ing lever is touched,-the actual
performance of the artist is re-
peated with every detail of shad-
ing and touch, with all its origin.
al beauty unimpaired, to be heard
again and again. at the bidding
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