View Single Post
  #47933  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2018, 8:27 PM
odinthor's Avatar
odinthor odinthor is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 1,323
One of my numerous vices is that I collect sheet music, mainly from the era 1900-1930. Here's the first page of my online inventory: https://web.csulb.edu/~odinthor/music.html (subsequent pages are linked to at the bottom of each page).

I ran across this on eBay:



eBay

Mildly interesting!--because the composer Percy Wenrich is a prominent figure in the music of that era (numerous rags--my main interest in sheet music--songs such as Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet and When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose, etc.). More interesting was when I looked closer and saw that this waltz was published (in 1909) in . . . Los Angeles.


detail of the above

The W.K. Brehm Music Company was at 426 South Broadway, in the Broadway Central Building.


odinthor collection; http://web.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal7.html


Here is the Broadway Central Building in the course of construction (mid-right):


odinthor collection; http://web.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal8.html

Wenrich having this obscure piece published way out west rather than in New York, the old-fashioned (if amiable!) nature of the cover art for that era, and my overactive nay fevered imagination all suggest that this was a commissioned piece to be sold exclusively at some local soda fountain as a come-on to bring in customers. This come-on sounds whimsical to modern ears; but home piano was a big thing before radio and TV.
Reply With Quote