This event, held on Sunday last, is probably worth a report this time
for its musical activities, as some special rolls were cut for it and
we had some distinguished visitors.

The PPG from a low in the mid-1960s has gradually grown to around 350
and 80 or so were present at Wansfell College in Herts (about 12 miles
north of London) for the Annual General Meeting. The actual meeting is
always a bit of a formality but sometimes we manage to squeeze an
extra reminiscence out of Yvonne Hinde-Smith, surviving daughter of
London Duo-Art editor Reginald Reynolds, in her Vice-Presidential
address. (The President is none other than Peter Katin, who at one AGM
dinner told us some cracking stories about pianos.) On this occasion,
it being the Pianola Centenary-sort-of - it's being stretched here, as
the first Pianola wasn't sold in London until 1899 - she dwelt a bit
on Reynolds's Pianola promotion activities. He spared nothing in
trying to gain a sale and often accompanied an instrument to a
first-time buyer in order to give some tuition. He gave recitals,
using a 65/88n pushup like the one recently used for the Chicago
festival, all over the country - when in Aeolian Hall itself, these
were on the nine-foot Weber grand which, like Roger Dayton's in
Batavia IL, was itself a Duo-Art !

At the end of the meeting I reported briefly on the Chicago Festival,
giving due credit to Eric Bergstrom for his superb restoration of Jim
Edwards's pushup, and to Jim for lining up some very fine pianos for
us to play - and not forgetting the hiccup in the final concert after
some unknown member of the orchestra twiddled all the spoolbox levers
minutes before the performance so that Rex Lawson started the
Mendelssohn 1st concerto in 65-note mode ! Ouch !

Then followed a Centenary Entertainment, a kind of mock-Victorian
soiree with Pianola pushup (Denis Hall's - serial number 45905, Eric,
with old Gothic lettering on, curious) on a fruity Broadwood grand,
and singers. First, tuner-for-the-famous Bob Wilson performed for us a
special roll of a Sidney Smith piece which I _think_ was called
"Morning Dewdrops". Gottschalk with extra bells describes it.
Well-known tenor Ian Partridge who had been booked to appear was in
hospital with kidney stones so we had PPG Chairperson Margaret Davies
stand in with three well-known period songs, accompaniments assembled
onto one long-player by Rex and cut by Mike Boyd of Universal Music
Rolls. Rex on the pushup. Margaret is pretty good but the evening was
taken by Sylvia Clarke (of the Friends of the Pianola Institute who
were sharing the evening) who had a contralto voice to fill a
particularly large and absorbent opera house. This was a room about 20
feet (6.5m) square. Wow.

Then Wansfell provided a very good dinner - their first for an evening
function. As is customary, I provided background music with the
pushup, this time using a Clavinova digital piano. I rather favour
stomping John Farrell or some of the dreamy Southport "hotel piano"
medleys, but in the end you can't escape what the PPG prefer with
their food: the old standards, with a bit of a swing.

Finally, we had a surprise guest, "flown in specially" (though not at
the PPG's expense) - clarinettist Earl Scheelar from Berkeley CA, who
with his cornet (he says he can't fit a clarinet in front of a player
- though of course he could with a pushup) accompanied himself on the
pushup with three QRS standards, including Max Kortlander's
fortune-maker "Tell Me".

By this time the wine had flowed somewhat, so that a duet for two legs
(one each belonging to Mick Doswell and Paddy Handscombe) on the
pushup with the Clavinova set for ELECTRIC PIANO plus CHORUS (meaning
two, slightly mistuned), playing a Galop by Kowalski, was deemed high
culture. A great time was had, I suspect, by all.

Dan Wilson