Welcome to the Pianola Partnership’s website.
Here you will find news of the concerts and other activity undertaken by the partnership, as well as background information about the Pianola instrument and its great versatility.
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Partnership founder Michael Broadway appeared at St Paul's Cathedral on 29 January with Tim Wakerell, the Cathedral's much admired Sub Organist.
Included in the programme was Wagner's Siegfried Idyll arranged for Organ and Pianola.
Following Michael's appearance at King's Place in February 2011, the May/June edition of International Piano carried this review by Claire Jackson:
“Until Michael Broadway’s excellent recital at Kings Place, I blush to confess that I thought the pianola was purely a self-playing machine; a ubiquitous sight in countryside tea rooms. Percy Grainger and the Pianola – part of the Celebrating Grainger mini-series held to mark 50 years since the Australian composer’s death – quickly dispelled this misconception.
The pianola – or ‘playing piano’ – is described by the Grove Dictionary of Music as ‘a piano fitted with a self-playing mechanism, normally pneumatic, capable of playing from a perforated paper music roll’. Although the instrument can effectively play itself, by 1912, pianists would mark or perforate the roll as they performed. This meant that more notes could be included than a single pianist could play. It also meant that a performer’s style was immortalised on the piano roll; a pre-digital age coup.
A selection of piano rolls recorded by Percy Grainger were expertly presented by Broadway. The pianist delighted us with Grainger favourites – including the inevitable Shepherd’s Hey and toe-tapping In Dahomey ‘Cakewalk Smasher’.
Works by Grainger’s contemporaries were also present – Cyril Scott’s Lotus Land and two pieces by Josef Holbrooke: Rhapsodic Etude ‘Vaise Fantasie’ Op 42 No 9 and Javanese Pepper Dance. Hats off to Broadway – and artistic director Penelope Thwaites – for such a delightful and educational programme.”
Michael works with several musicians, composers and actors including:
Vaninne Parker, soprano
Vaninne Parker studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won major awards. She has sung for the English Music Theatre Ensemble, Scottish Opera and Kent Opera, where she was also a leading contributor to the company's education programme. Roles for this included Countess (Figaro), Alice (Falstaff), 2nd Lady (Magic Flute), Miss Jessel (Turn of the Screw), Lucy Lockit (Beggar's Opera), and Agrippina. Following a Wigmore recital debut, Vaninne has long enjoyed a wide variety of concert and oratorio commitments in London and the south-east, singing works as diverse as Charpentier's Te Deum, the Bach Passions and B Minor Mass, the Poulenc Gloria, Mozart's C Minor Mass and Britten's Ceremony of Carols. At the Millennium, she was a soloist in the world premier of Alan Bullard's Prime Meridian.
John studied composition, piano and cello at the Royal Academy of Music in
London where he won the Eric Coates composition prize. To pay the bills, John
also found work in films - as a pianist in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and
in an advert for Pot Noodles. Later, Sir Arthur Bliss's widow gave
him the job of cataloguing the great man's private music collection and provided
the surroundings for him to work on his own compositions. Freelance work for
the music publisher Novello followed. He's now a director of Gonzaga
Music.
Among his many creations are Sonatina, Nor’wester Caprice, Dark
Scenes of Winter, the ballet Little Boy Lost and a concerto for
trumpet, oboe and strings, Boreas. He was commissioned to write for
the 1981 St Ives Festival in Cornwall. Other work includes The Christmas
Card, Periwinkle Duo, Viente Divertissement, Babar the Elephant,
Manton Heights, The Christmas Express, Esthwaite Elegy, and for the pianola:
The Witches of Hawkshead - Tarantella Diabolica.
Michael Broadway and Bill Bingham at the
2002 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester.
© Anthony Seldon
These links will take you to YouTube recordings by Michael:
The first movement of Benjamin Dale's Piano Sonata in D minor.
Presto from Moritz Moszkowski's From Foreign Lands, Op. 23 - II. Italian.
There's more information on other pages of this website, or you can telephone the Partnership on 020 7254 6145.
Watch this space for news of music rolls and other items you will be able
to purchase through the Pianola Partnership.
(Website updated: 25 April 2012)
