Friday, 8 June 2007

Café Lumiere’s new piano and the return of father


On Wednesday two exciting things happened: my father came out of hospital and the new piano arrived in the café’s Sussex branch. My father recently went to hospital with a blood problem which caused him to be very out of breath and feel tired. After a transfusion and a few days of rest he is now close to full strength again. A cause for the problem is not yet known and he is having tests in the next few days to ascertain how we can avoid the same thing happening again. The main thing is that he is back at home and well again.

A new piano also arrived this week. My brother and younger sister, who are very able musicians have been struggling on with our old piano for some time. Whilst it has been in the family for 50 years it is need of a rebuild – which costs more than to buy a working second hand piano. For that reason, we have bought another piano. It is a Berry piano made in about 1930 and rebuilt in about 1960. The case was restored again in 1990 or so. Consequently, it is a very smart addition to the café.

We were lucky, as we were able to get it for just over £500 of which I contributed £440. I think it is money well spent, and the sound is much better than that which we had become accustomed to.


(NB, this is not the actual piano but it bares a close resemblance - a photograph of the genuine article will appear within the week - when I can photograph it).

3 comments:

AndNowInStereo said...

It's good to hear that your father's better. I hope they find out what was wrong.

I don't know much about musical instruments, but you have to respect the skills of the people who make, tune and restore pianos if they're still good after that long! Do you play yourself?

Moto Fitzroi said...

Yes, I play the piano the myself. Owing to the amount of study I do and other jobs, I have not been able to give the piano as much attention as I would like.
Still, I can play a number rags and I could brush up my skills such that I could play a sonata or two. I passed grade 5 on the piano, but would need to do a theory exam before progressing further than that.
Do you play? Dantares told me that he once played the violin, but he very modest about his achievements in that direction.

AndNowInStereo said...

No, I don't play the piano. I was always terrible at school and never had proper lessons. The only instrument I've ever tried is the bass guitar, and I'm very out of practice with that.