Grief Piano Concerto
By Dan Wilson
I shouldn't use up members' bandwidth laughing at literals, but the roll title "Grief Piano Concerto" (DrSallyK@aol's list) reminds me of the 1989 "Last Night of the Proms" when Percy Grainger's performance of the solo part of the Grieg concerto, taken from his piano-plus-orchestra arrangement on Duo-Art, was accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Davis. Peter Davis provided his Duo-Art pushup (converted from a Themodist 65/88n and preserving the pianola bass/treble divide at E/F, incidentally) and Rex Lawson acted as minder. This was the good old Albert Hall in London, with every seat taken - 7,000 people.
The way Rex does these things, he likes to give full service, so it seemed good public relations to allow "Percy" to give the tuning A for the second half of the concert. So he added a long perforation for the A and to be absolutely certain Percy didn't start straight off with that big two-handed crash, put in two "stop" perforations, one after the A and one immediately before the starting chord. (This is in the reroll position which concert instruments don't need - the pushup can even be programmed to play different sections of a roll at different speeds and use the reroll port for the change commands.) Having given the A, Percy could then be motored gently up to the start as the conductor came in and took his bow. Alas, in the tension of the moment, Rex forgot to motor Percy up to the starting gate until Davis raised his baton, with the result that the piano came in a quarter of a second late.
Ouch ! those of us watching the programme thought - is this going to be the Grief Piano Concerto ? Happily, though, there were no further hitches and the piece went wonderfully, just as it did when the roll had been used on Denis Condon's pushup in Sydney Opera House, Australia, two years earlier.
Just a bit of reminiscence - sorry.
Dan Wilson
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