Pianola plays Moszkowski


I had recorded a snippet of the piano in the movie and inquired as to its origin in the Mechanical Music Digest. Many answers were posted but the finest came on 2008.05.15 and 5.17:

Pianola in TV Movie "An Englishman Abroad" By Paddy Handscombe

The scenes with the Pianola were filmed in an annex of the famous Caird Hall in Dundee's City Square. The Square and the Great Hall itself, inside and out, were swathed in Soviet banners to emulate Moscow. Dundee Council was apparently receptive to this as it then had the reputation of being one of the most left-wing in Britain.

I happened to be driving up to Aberdeen on a diving job and dropped in to meet up with Rex Lawson who had been contracted to provide the Pianola. I met the cast and crew and spent the late afternoon and evening watching the filming. Coral Browne played herself: she was a huge character -- very direct!

Guy Burgess was apparently a keen pianolist, having rolls sent from Harrods whenever possible. The Moskowski "Spanish Dance" suggested by Rex seemed a likely and appropriate piece. [Moritz Moszkowski "Spanish Dance Op 12 No 3", on Themodist T82556.]

Alan Bates couldn't get the hang of pedalling the Pianola convincingly while delivering his lines, so Rex somehow sat on the floor between his legs and pedalled and worked the tempo lever during the takes -- obviously with great success -- which caused a good deal of mirth!

The grapevine worketh, and an unexpected email from Rex Lawson reminds me that the player piano was indeed a very fine Schiedmayer Simplex [Schiedmayer & Söhne, Stuttgart] which is still in existence and lovingly cared for.

Caird Hall in Dundee's City Square was chosen especially because it is such a strange design, looking rather like a Soviet-style blockhouse. They also wanted snow, and Scotland seemed like a good idea. As it happened, despite much of the rest of Britain being covered in snow, Dundee was about the only place in the UK which didn't have any when they needed it, so they had to get in tons of salt. Yet I remember driving off to Aberdeen later that night and having to return to Dundee after a white-out at Broughty Ferry in which another car rear-ended mine, fortunately without damage.

Rex says that Alan Bates was the most conscientious actor he'd come across with regard to wanting to look right as he pedalled, and seemed to take particular care with every aspect of Guy Burgess' character.

I recall hearing somewhere that Burgess had rolls sent from Harrods. But Rex is not so sure that Burgess actually had a Pianola, and Coral Browne is no longer around to say. He thinks it possible that it was simply a dramatic idea from [screenplay author] Alan Bennett, emphasizing the strange Englishness of Burgess' exile. Funnily enough, Rex emailed Bennett's literary agent recently, asking about this, but so far has had no information.

Rex deliberately put a modern QRS roll and an Artona amongst the rolls on top of the player, knowing that they were wrong for the period. He's sure no-one noticed, but recalls he did it to amuse Ramsi Tick, [QRS President] if he ever saw it.

Patrick Handscombe
Wivenhoe, Essex, UK





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I supplied the Pianola and rolls for this film, and I just chanced upon this webpage. Paddy Handscombe's memories certainly tally with my own, and at that time I regularly supplied pianolas for BBC TV.

I remember that the whole country was under snow, except for Dundee, and I left London around 6 pm one evening, driving through the night, and arriving at the Caird Hall at 2 pm the next day, having almost failed to get through the Lake District, where the M6 motorway was down to one very snowy lane.

Alan Bates' realism was not limited to the pianola, though he was exceptionally keen to look natural, for which I certainly give him full marks. But the kitchen in the Moscow apartment set was very realistic, with real, rather dirty food. Bates ate some raw garlic, as I recall, since he wanted his mouth to feel like Guy Burgess' must have done.

Coral Browne mentions in the film that she took Alan Bates' inside leg measurements, and I did indeed have the opportunity to do likewise during the filming, as Paddy seems to remember with laudable clarity. But I think I recorded the music again, after the day's filming, synchronising it to the existing takes by means of headphones.

At the end of the week they struck the set, and I was able to help myself to Guy Burgess' bookcases, which did sterling service in south-east London for about twenty years.

The Schiedmayer Simplex is now in Hackney, in east London, and on what we in England call the first floor, meaning the second floor in most other countries of the world. It took a crane and a traffic jam to hoist it up there, so I doubt it will be used for filming in the near future!

I'm still curious to know whether the pianola was a genuine recollection or a dramatic conceit, and I emailed Alan Bennett's literary agent again, about a week ago. We shall see whether anything materialises.

There is a curious postscript to all this, which is that, a few years earlier, I believe I gave two lunchtime pianola concerts for MI6, the British overseas security service, at one of their main London offices. I didn't have to sign the official secrets act, but I still think I shouldn't give away the location. I was told it was the Property Services Agency, and only found out the truth many years later. Apparently "M" was to be seen standing at the back of the audience. There was some tradition of the pianola in those areas of government; Compton Mackenzie, who founded Gramophone Magazine, was a keen pianola player and one of the early MI6 agents, so even if Guy Burgess' pianola is apocryphal, it isn't perhaps so wide of the mark.

Rex Lawson,
London, UK

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