Music festival is given upright piano

Today's Guardian reports a happy ending to the tale of the inverted Bösendorfer (above):

After the last one fell off the back of a lorry with a crash heard around the world of classical music, a very grand piano heading for a remote corner of Devon will be handled as delicately as a newborn babe. An £85,000 hand-built Bosendorfer Imperial Concert Grand is being presented by the firm to the eclectic Two Moors festival, a feast of classical music scattered among dozens of parish churches and halls across 1,000 square miles (2,590 sq km) of Exmoor and Dartmoor, where at many events soup and sandwiches are supplied to an audience turning up in hiking boots.

The piano will replace the Bosendorfer which the festival organisers bought second-hand at a London auction after fundraising for years. It made the journey safely to Devon, and was being unloaded at the home of festival founder Penny Adie, when it slipped, toppled sideways down a bank and landed upside down in splinters among the spring daffodils, with echoes of a slapstick movie. Mrs Adie captured the scene with her camera as the horrified delivery men literally tore their hair in anguish. It was "a Laurel and Hardy moment," she said at the time. "It made a noise like 10 honky-tonk pianos being hit by mallets."

The new piano should arrive tomorrow, delivered by the firm direct from the factory in Austria, in time for this year's festival, which starts on October 13. Mrs Adie called the firm's generosity staggering. "This is the most elite piano in the world - the generosity of Bosendorfer is colossal. Never in the company's history has it given a piano of this value to any individual or organisation." The destroyed piano was a saleroom bargain at £26,000, but even if the festival could have afforded a new one, it might have faced a long wait: only 400 are built in most years, often to order: owners have included José Carreras, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and a Tsar of Russia.

The 10-day Two Moors festival was founded in 2001 to boost the local economy in the aftermath of the last foot-and-mouth crisis. Now, with the Countess of Wessex as patron, it attracts up to 5,000 people to venues including Culbone, one of the smallest churches in Britain. The new piano will be played first by Tom Poster, who comes to the festival fresh from winning the Scottish international piano competition.

Now read how a grand piano hit a high note.
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New music for prepared piano

Words from G&R Removals, pictures from BBC News:

"We are G&R Removals - The Piano Movers, a family run business with a wealth of experience spanning over 30 years - the longest established piano carriers in the UK.


Since 1968 we have gained respect for our handling of all musical instruments throughout the UK and Europe.


We operate from a customs-approved, temperature controlled warehouse in west London with over 1100m² of floor space. Handling hundreds of pianos every week, with our ever modernising fleet of instrument vehicles, manned by experienced professional staff."


Now here is the full story from BBC News, who also supplied the pictures:

'A concert grand piano valued at £45,000 is thought to have been wrecked after falling off a removal lorry in Devon. The piano was being brought to the home of John and Penny Adie, the organisers of the Two Moors Festival, an annual music event on Dartmoor and Exmoor.

But disaster struck when it toppled over and fell 2.5m (8.2ft) before landing on a bank, causing extensive damage to the instrument. The moments before and after the fall were captured on camera by Mrs Adie, 54, who was hoping to record a highpoint for the festival. But joy turned to horror as she recorded how the piano toppled onto a bank.

Her husband John, 61, said: "It is unlikely ever to come back to us. The piano weighs half a tonne, has 10,000 moving parts and has fallen 2.5m onto the ground. How the hell do you guarantee that it will work again?" The festival had been raising funds for two years to buy the piano at auction in London earlier this year. It was to go into a concert hall at the Adies' home at Barkham, near South Molton, as a centrepiece for the upcoming spring festival.

The piano is now back in London where it is waiting for an independent assessment of the damage. The piano was insured, but only for the £26,000 they paid for it at auction in London rather than its likely replacement value of £45,000. Mr Adie said: "Bosendorfers are like the Stradivarius of the piano world. It's more than money that is the issue here. They are simply irreplaceable." Bosendorfers are made in Austria and are the piano of choice for many of the world's leading pianists.

Mr and Mrs Adie set up the Two Moors Festival in 2001 to help the area recover from the foot and mouth crisis. The two-year long campaign to raise the cash for the piano was spearheaded by Sophie, Duchess of Wessex, who is the event's patron. A spokesman for removals firm G&R said: "The matter is in the hands of the insurers. We have no further comment to make.'


Now take this path for the complete music for prepared piano.
News story and pictures from BBC News, website copy and truck photo from G&R Removals . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk