For 60 years, Denis Condon built a collection that was the envy of the world. On his death, Australia’s loss proved America’s gain.

Australia recently lost a major collection of musical instruments that arguably ranks as an important piece of the country’s musical heritage. With rapidly decreasing arts funding and philanthropy stretched to its limits, it took the vision and resources of an American University to preserve the collection.

During the 60 years that Denis Condon collected reproducing pianos and rolls it was not the collection per se that excited him but the music it played. The 7,500 rolls were recorded during the first 30 years of the 20th century by a cohort of the world’s greatest pianists as well as many composers playing their own works.

Legends of the keyboard – Cortot, Horowitz, Paderewski – and composers – Debussy, Mahler, Prokofiev, Fauré, Rachmaninov, Granados and Gershwin – to name a few, all endorsed the rolls as true reproductions of their interpretations. In an era when the sound from discs and cylinders was primitive, a well-adjusted reproducing piano brought hi-fi to the living room.

Ten instruments constituted Denis’s collection: two grands, four uprights and four vorsetzers – instruments with felt-covered wooden...