Making some use of the thousands of hours of piano music I have in my coffers I posted a shit ton of piano music to 8tracks.com, uploading alphabetically by last name of the performer. I’m up to Dinu Lipatti. To keep it legal there are rules. The one particular rule that inhabits this list is that you can only post 2 tracks from a CD and 2 tracks by the same performer. This makes sharing a 3 or 4 movement sonata or concerto pretty much off limits unless I take the low road and use recordings by different pianists for alternate movements.
My first paying piano gig in a long time occupied my time and mind last week. The concert is next week but a couple more rehearsals are afoot. It’s easy stuff, and a very low pressure event, making it a nice way for me to ease back in to this. It may lead to other things, or it may not.
Highlights from rehearsal #1 included a rare chance to play on a Wissner 9 foot concert grand. To say I “played” it is about half true. It was more like combat. The piano, built in the late 1800s (I think someone said 1889) splintered into pieces as I played it. The white tops of the keys (the so-called “ivories”) jumped off like popcorn. The rehearsal’s signature would be the stack of key tops piled on the the music stand.
The event organizer said I should be sure to keep the key tops on the piano, as numerous piano restorers have expressed interest in bringing the instrument back to glory. In fact the event kicks off a fund raiser which could raise money to do just that, and fortunately I will not be playing the decrepit Wissner at the actual concert.
The rehearsal was in a church. It was dark and at times the music in front of me was utterly shrouded in shadows, making it impossible to sightread even the simplest things. It would have been a perfect circumstance to use the Lenovo Horizon II, with its illuminated tablet interface, but transporting that mammoth platter would be tricky without a private vehicle. I do not think the Wissner piano’s music stand could have supported it anyway.
Wissner pianos come from interesting stock. I’m told that the design of Wissner’s innards were copied (stolen, rather) from Steinway, which sued for damages and won. The piano, then, is an ill-gotten Steinway at heart. It really sounds like a great piano which unfortunately languished in a cold, dark church for decades.
