The Latin & Spanish Duo-Art and Pianola recital in London I mentioned
recently turned out pretty well.  For piano dynamics and crispness of
performance it ranked along with the best Duo-Art recitals there have
been in London, using Peter Davis's converted 88n pushup and the Purcell
Room's resident Steinway concert grand.

In recent years there has been a tendency for roll performances to sound
rather non-committal in this hall, but tonight there was plenty of piano
presence.  The Pianola Institute production team had to scratch around a
bit to find pieces with a Spanish or Latin-American element, sometimes a
title, sometimes a pianist, and sometimes Conlan Nancarrow who did after
all become a Mexican citizen.  But they ended up with a good programme
overall.

Some risks were taken with early rolls, whose editing can be mercilessly
exposed by the process of winding up the Duo-Art power for concert hall
performance.  The well-known performance by Granados of his Goyescas
introduction, "The Lady & The Nightingale", sounds idiosyncratic enough
on a small grand; here it sounded almost rough.

And the indulgence Rex Lawson & Denis Hall allowed themselves of playing
only the third London Duo-Art recording issued, Cervantes's Three Cuban
Dances, played by Adela Verne, shaved close to the London-based American
critic Jeremy Siepmann's verdict of "player-piano-itis" - namely, too
heavy and lifeless an accompaniment.  Not quite - but there was a hint of
it.

That this was not the fault of the concert setting-up procedure was
proven by an encore which employed the four-hand "The Carioca" --
well-known as a test roll for fast and soft playing.  Most of the other
rolls, of Hofmann, Arrau and Rubinstein, pushed the usual standards of
public Duo-Art demonstration to new heights with their clarity and power.

This first half overran, so the second half, using two pedal pushup
players, was slightly curtailed.  Rex played a special arrangement by
Chevillard on 65-note of Chabrier's "Espana", and you could not spot the
missing low notes at all.  Denis, very unusually for him, played
Stravinsky's Study for Pianola, then Rex gave us ten minutes of sampler
Nancarrow, which sounds just as manic on a Steinway as on the original
"prepared" Ampicos in Mexico City, and the two together played two
romping movements of Milhaud's "Scaramouche".

The problem with two-pianola music is that the better it is done, the
more it is like one-pianola music; and Rex and Denis are masters, which
sounds like no achievement at all.  In amongst all this, we had an
interlude with operatic coloratura mezzo-soprano Sylvia Clarke singing
Five Negro Songs by Montsalvatge with Rex accompanying on a specially-cut
roll.  She was enthusiastically received by the audience but there was
not time for an encore, alas.

I am often on the business end of recitals like this and it was a real
pleasure just to sit back and let others not only do all the work, but
triumph.  Perhaps I should do more of it.

Dan Wilson

 [ Are *pairs* of music rolls available (Primo & Secundo parts) for
 [ performance at two pianolas, or for piano and organ?  -- Robbie