I am moved to contribute on this subject, having just come away from
a recital by Michael Broadway (pianola) and Vannine Parker (soprano)
at the Musical Museum in Brentford, West London.

The house was full, but I couldn't help wondering how many visitors to
London would have liked a hint, somewhere in "Time Out" or one of the
other events magazines, that if you wanted to hear professionals
performing in a long-abandoned, 100-year-old style, here they were --
not just the instruments, but the music as well.  (Actually, to judge
from 1905 "78s", Ms Parker gave the songs a good deal less pungent a
vibrato than in the original, but that's to quibble.)

In the early 1900s accompanying on pianola must have been quite a
business, to judge from old accompaniment rolls in England, which turn
up in considerable numbers, sufficient for both Michael and I to have
complete sets for the Cesar Franck violin sonata's four movements, I
quite a lot of Beethoven and he a large number of songs.

Accompanying is nothing like the sinecure it looks.  As with Rex Lawson
and Denis Hall playing their two-pianola duets, the better you are at
it, the less of an event it becomes.  I've only ever tried it once, with
a professional lady violinist and the Franck sonata, which she knew
almost, but not quite, well enough, to play from memory.

I thought it was a major achievement, with no violin part marked on the
rolls, to have stayed in step with her right the way through.  Her
remark, as she lowered her instrument after the final triumphant trill,
was; "No bloody give and take, was there !"  (She knows me quite well
and there is no false politesse.)

Michael has his rolls marked up and, I would judge from this recital,
provides plenty of give and take when he accompanies the Franck sonata.
I said "100-year-old music" but it's unlikely that accompanying on
pianola was actually given such polish in those days.

He has his 65/88-note pushup on a grand (in this case a classic black
Bechstein of about 1906 with cabriole legs) and the singer moves to
where he can see her.  You can see him doing the classical pianola thing
-- where you want the beat to be exactly where you want it rather than
where the roll wants to put it -- accelerating through each bar and then
almost pausing completely at the start of the next before flicking
through it with the "Tempo" lever.  You would think this would distort
any continuo figure, but of course that is how classical music is
played anyway, with a near-hesitation at each bar end.  In accompani-
ment, the soloist determines when that flick is given.

The result is very nearly indistinguishable from skilled piano
accompaniment, but here Michael allowed himself to be betrayed
somewhat.  He has now done enough recitals with Vannine Parker for her
to be putting on pressure to widen the repertoire to include some of
her more usual pieces.  Since Michael has no roll perforator of his own
but must rely on the goodwill of others to produce a run of wholly
unsaleable pieces, this inexorably takes him off the pianola to a
second piano (actually in this case a Steinway Duo-Art grand) where he
performs more conventionally, with hands.

The difficulty is that he is an outstandingly proficient pianist and
the difference is audible.  I put a lot of it down to most of the
accompaniment rolls having been made before the introduction of
"Themodist", so that chords are played with an even pressure in each
note, rather than, as in life and most "themed" rolls, the topmost and
sometimes bottom-most notes being played both marginally before and
louder than the others.  This gives a slightly grey and lifeless effect
which can only be masked by playing extremely softly.  Michael perforce
played extremely softly.

However, not all the rolls were of this character.  We had a series
of Reynaldo Hahn songs, mostly with a running bass which worked really
well, a lot of Sullivan where finesse was less called for, some middle
1920s rolls of Roger Quilter songs which were "themed" and, a complete
triumph, a final "crossover" to 1920s pops.

The first of these was Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'", done in con-
cert style as befits a salon singer.  Now, swing and jazz call for a
quite different treatment of a piece.  You must observe the basic pulse,
even if you pull the bar about grotesquely.  Michael used not to
understand this, so that earlier recitals I've been to have been almost
embarrassing, to me, at least.

He once provided a pushup for a BBC programme on James P Johnson
"stride piano" rolls where I had (independently) been invited into the
studio.  The producer, in an experimental mood, invited him as the owner
to play a couple of rolls, which to be fair he would have known little
of.  At the end, the producer said: "I wouldn't have believed it
possible ! You're playing those like Chopin ! They're never played like
that !"

The lesson seems to have been learnt.  Customarily, pianolists playing
stride piano (and I rank myself a worst offender in this category) go
too fast, and for a moment Michael launched off too fast, before
catching Vannine's stern eye.  As soon as she opened her mouth, every-
thing fell into place; he became locked to her command and we were
treated to a superb treatment full of space and swing.  She even indi-
cated when the last note was to be played with a flick of her finger.
"S'Wonderful" followed, in similar style.  Gradually, the great show
tunes are shouldering up with Haydn and Bach ...

Why am I not commenting on Ms Parker's singing ?  I am tone-deaf when
it comes to the human voice; all of it sounds to me like tomcats.  It's
an "early musical instrument" that should remain early.  But I am guided
to say to you that she has depth, range, stability and sense and is paid
plenty by other people to perform, so must be worth hearing.

Anyway, if you want to hear how it should be done and can get at all
regularly to the Musical Museum, they do a (traditional) mailing-list
of events of this sort which rather naturally include others entirely
up the street of MMD.  The address is in the MMD resource list under
(GB) Museums.

Michael and Vannine also perform regularly in lunchtime concerts at
St George's, Beckenham (SE London, easy walking distance from the
Junction) but here the publicity trail peters out.  As with Rex Lawson's
many pianola events, roll playing doesn't support a PR manager, so
espionage has to be resorted to.

Dan Wilson, London