Thursday, 28 November 2024

Pianos 92, 93 and 94

The expedition just noticed at reference 1 was piano productive.

First up, this ever so tasteful Casio keyboard, probably in the window of the kitchen showroom which also appears at reference 3: 'timeless elegance with a modern twist'. A Casio keyboard reimagined by Nicholas Antony, yours for something over £1,500. Which I dare say is just loose change for those who can afford to shop for kitchens at reference 4.

People who appear to specialise in kitchens for the salles d'apparat - a phrase I liked in Simenon - in the sort of overblown country houses which often star in television costume dramas about minor gentry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Second up, a small Steinway grand, snapped in the window of their showroom in Marylebone Lane. I failed to work out how to get rid of the reflections.

Third up, a public piano on the way to the Sidings at Waterloo, rather in the way of pianos I have previously come across at motorway service stations. See, for example, reference 5. This one was actually being played and I did not like to interrupt.

I associate to an exchange, possibly on the letters page of the Guardian, about the performance of sublime music - perhaps some of Bach's music for solo violin - in busy public spaces. Busking it. In one camp, you had the people who deplored the indifference of the average passer-by to such performances. In the other, you had the people who preferred to organise performances into special occasions in special places. Like going to church or going to a concert. Or even having a meal out. There was a proper time and place for such things. One needed to make a performance of the performance, as it were. I was very much in the second camp.

From where I associate to the rather extreme stunts to which busking acrobats have to resort to hold their crowds in places like the open space in front of St. Paul's church in Covent Garden. Which church I am not sure that I have ever been in. Which holding starts to take on some of the aspects of a regular performance, with the crowd arranged in an open square, children in front, behind a rope and with an organised collection at the end.

Then, pushing on into the Sidings, we were intrigued by this relic from 1906. What was the attached building built for? Could we track it down at ground level? Something for another day.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/zelinsky.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/piano-91.html.

Reference 3: https://www.siematic.com/.

Reference 4: https://nicholas-anthony.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/piano-90.html.

Group search key: pianosk.

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