The history

Giovanni Racca was born in Monasterolo di Savignano (Cuneo) on July 29, 1843. In 1886, he moved to Bologna, where he created the "Piano Melodico" brand of mechanical instruments that same year. Racca first presented the new type of instrument, which operated on folded cardboard music books with tunes and was called player piano at the International Music Fair in Bologna in 1888. The invention of G. Racca was awarded a medal at the Bologna Exhibition in 1892, a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Liège in 1905, and an honorary diploma at the World Exhibition in Milan in 1906.

Indeed, the products of "Piano Melodico" were unique. Unlike contemporary mechanical instruments, the melodies were encoded on folded cardboard music books, not on pinned metal cylinders. This innovation greatly increased their musical reproduction capabilities. At first, "Piano Melodico" created musical devices with readers for forty-eight notes, and then the number of levers was increased to seventy-three. Giovanni Racca was no stranger to experiments: for example, he launched the Verdi model, an electric vertical version of the instrument with two additional apertures to enhance the expressiveness of sound.

To surprise the public, Racca constantly released new on folded cardboard music books with recordings of popular musical works. During the company's existence, about two thousand five hundred compositions were recorded, and the repertoire was huge: one could find encoded programmes of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, gavottes, tarantellas, oriental music, folk songs from Hungary, Poland, Spain, Scotland, Holland and Russia, arrangements of symphonic works, oratorios, arias from operas and operettas, and comic couplets.

The customers of Giovanni Racca were representatives of the European highest aristocracy. Princess Letizia and Prince Danilo of Montenegro, Queen Elena of Italy and Albania, Duchess Maria Letizia Bonaparte of Aosta, and Queen Mother Margherita of Savoy all owned mechanical musical instruments. But it was not all the time that player pianos were permanently displayed in the halls of aristocratic palaces: when Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, was preparing an expedition to the North Pole, he ordered that an instrument created in the workshop of Racca should be installed on board his ship, the Stella Polare (Polar Star). In 1906, the famous Italian poet and classical philologist Giovanni Pascoli also acquired a player piano.

Giovanni Racca died on May 18, 1902, in Bologna, but his company continued to operate until 1927, under the management of his son Giuseppe. The younger son of Giovanni Racca, Carrado, moved to Rome, where he became a famous theatre and film actor.
"Piano Melodico" was closed in 1927, due to the gradual decline in interest in player pianos. Nevertheless Giovanni Racca is still remembered in Italy, where a square in the town of Longiano in the Emilia-Romagna region was named after the inventor.