It does happen from time to time on this forum that one asks a more or less ignorant question and receives an answer surpassing one's wildest hopes... such has been the case here.

Many thanks, Member Pianola.

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Oho. I see we have something in common! 

So, Herr Oliver, ich freue mich, daß mein Antwort Ihr gut gefallen sei. Sind Sie dann Schlagzeuger aus MusikFabrik, oder Fotograf, oder vielleicht Gebärtiger?

Glad to be of assistance, squire. Are you the kettledrummer from the music factory, or a photograph, or indeed Santa Claus?

Cheers, Pianola

I wandered onto this thread in idle curiosity and have found it all very interesting, especially your long and fascinating explanation posted this morning, Pianola. Thank you for sharing your expertise here.

I can relate to that - my cousins and I loved my grandma's too.  Did you used to put your fingers on it as though you were playing it too?  I'm sure they were invented for children really. 

Now if you'd stuck with music as the pianola was telling you to, you could have put off adulthood for ever.

Or at the very least have delayed indefinitely the possibility of even qualifying for a mortgage.

Thank you for the hint, Morticia. Since we haven't met before, it seems a little forward to call you Mort straight away, besides which I have a dear musical friend in San Diego with exactly that name, and I might get confused!

It seems, therefore, like an opportune moment to start a new thread about player pianos. While I'm at it, I think I shall start two, one for reproducing pianos, under the general heading of Music Appreciation, and one for what I call pianolas (foot-operated player pianos), which will lie more happily under Making Music. I'll come back to this message and re-edit it with the details once I have set matters in motion.

I'm also inclined to start a thread for musical verse. Your poetry appreciation thread would not be right for what I have in mind, but since I'm a new boy, perhaps someone would let me know whether there is some small corner of your field which is already serving the purpose.

For example:

The critics' acclaim for Joyce Hatto
Had reached an impossible plateau,
  But her falling from grace
  Was quite clearly a case
Of her spouse over-egging the gateau.

And my second thoughts on the rather rash posting I made earlier to the 96 Crackpots thread:

"It's somewhat less essential to the welfare of the German nation
  "Than my treatise on plant germination;
"That's how I rate Werther,"
  Said Goethe.

There must be at least a few others who would enjoy sharing such dubious material!

Cheers, Pianola

I remember attending a performance of the same piece (together with the other two versions of Les Noces) in the Royal Festival Hall some years before that which had exactly the opposite effect. Having just dug out the programme I see, as I had thought, that it was indeed our very own 'pianola' who was playing on that occasion. A belated thank you for that, 'pianola' and also for introducing me to the music of Nancarrow at a concert in the Union Chapel, Islington a few years ago, an enthusiasm that has remained and grown. Thank you!

You are allowed to criticise, make fun and sling insults as well, you know! But thank you anyway.

The South Bank concert, George, was I guess for the English Bach Festival in about 1983, with John Carewe conducting. And the Union Chapel was a concert organised by Action Against Censorship, with some rather illustrious co-performers. I remember feeling suitably abashed. I got a free dinner out of that one.

Nancarrow is a very interesting case. I think that for music generally to succeed in concert, it has to be performed by human beings. When Denis and I put on concerts of reproducing pianos, we know from experience that they have to be very carefully presented, because let's face it, once you've seen the notes of a piano going up and down on their own for five minutes, then the novelty soon wears off, and a concert can end up rather like a gramophone recital. So we always encourage audiences to applaud, and people genuinely enjoy playing along. "Mr Paderewski would love it if you applauded after he plays his Minuet!" Well, it really doesn't make much difference to Mr Paderewski, be he in Arlington National Cemetery or back under Polish soil, but it does make a difference to the audience. Audiences need to applaud in order to keep the atmosphere going, and they will instinctively feel that a concert is going better if the level of applause is kept up.

Conlon came over to London in the '80s, and we hit it off immediately. He was very bright, and could be quite naughty. I remember sitting behind him at the Union Chapel, when some young composer's music was about to be played, and he turned round and whispered loudly, "Oh, no! This next piece lasts for TEN MINUTES!" That taught me that contemporary composers don't necessarily have to love all contemporary music on an equal basis. But his character somehow brought his own music to life when he was there, even if it was played on an automatic player piano. I'm sure that must have been true in his studio in Mexico City as well, though I could never afford to go. He obviously took great delight in watching people react to his compositions, and his enthusiasm and warmth were catching.

If you play his music on computer pianos, there is very little excitement, except the initial novelty of all the notes, and generally I think people are a little disappointed. I had feedback along those lines after Antheil's Ballet Mécanique was first staged with multiple Disklaviers - they handed out ear plugs in advance, which is a rather silly thing to do, because it builds up people's expectations to an unreasonable level. In any case, the Yamaha Disklavier can only play 16 notes simultaneously, and that isn't enough for either Antheil or Nancarrow, so it begins to sound thinner as notes are cut off early. Some pianists play some of the simpler Nancarrow studies, treating them like mountains to climb, and I've even seen a quartet of pianists, plus conductor, playing, with the most appalling earnestness, what should have been a whacky and brilliant study.

Conlon didn't write his studies to be difficult, because he didn't write them for pianists. You need a player piano, because then the false element of difficulty doesn't get in the way. Apart from the studies for two simultaneous player pianos, his music is relatively easy to pedal, since it calls only for terrace dynamics, and the speed of the roll doesn't generally vary. But I think audiences feel much happier with someone there pedalling, because the human contact in musical performance is central to our shared experiences. We need human performers to look at, be they conductors, opera singers or pianolists.

If you like Nancarrow, Paul Usher's Nancarrow Concerto is being performed in Paris, at the Cité de la Musique, in early October, with the Belgian group, Ictus. I shouldn't really be using this thread to publicise concerts, but if you're interested, send me a PM.

There's a German musician living in California, Trimpin, who gets Nancarrow to sound on a whole set of Dutch clogs which he has collected for the purpose, all with little beaters inside them, controlled by an Apple Mac. And Pierre Charial, from Paris, makes his own fantastic book music for street organs, and plays Ligeti and Ellington and Stravinsky and much, much more. All together, these would make a wonderful late night Prom, but so far I've not had much success in interesting the BBC in such matters. Are you reading this, auntie?

Cheers, Pianola