Welte in the finca's music salon

I have been concerned with self-playing musical instruments for over four decades. My greatest love are the reproducing instruments from Welte & Söhne with the "original artists' rolls". The interpretations by the pianists and composers that they recorded at the start of the 20th century are particularly close to my heart.

Not just the reproduction of pianists' interpretations from the period that are virtually true to the original and have remained preserved until this day are extremely impressive. The fact that the pianists were also able to hear themselves play for the first time thanks to the recordings, is also exciting.

I acquired my first Welte instrument in 1977, an Ibach-Welte-Grand Piano. This was completely destroyed, as fate would have it, together with the original Welte rolls in a fire in a country residence near Bonn on the Rhine in the 1990s.

I had the idea of building a finca from a small "Sala de Música" at the end of the 90s. The centerpiece was an original grand piano from that time, played by a Welte-Mignon plush-up player (vorsetzer). In terms of acoustics, the premises were intended to correspond to those of your "own home" and also a small concert hall.

This idea became a reality in 2012. Alongside live concerts, the historic Welte-Mignon recordings and their authentic reproduction have been the focus of the musical events at Finca Pescador.