PIANO TUNER’S REVENGE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5156, 25 July 1927, Page 3

PIANO TUNER’S REVENGE

A MAN TO BE RESPECTED.

EXPERIENCE OF AN ARTIST. If you happen to be a pianist you should make a point of showing consideration to your tuner, for your fate may lie in his hands (writes Mark Hambourg in tihe May “London Magazine”). One such tuner who travelled with me took exception to something my manager had done, and to revenge himself, unknown to anyone lie filed a small bit off the tops of the hammers of my piano just before I went on the platform to play. I began my performance and practically no sound came from my instrument’! I sweated and pressed, and nearly burst myself in the effort, to get some tone out of the piano, but nothing would come out but a faint .tinkling. It was a dreadful experience, and the audience sat there in gathering amazement — such a display of energy on my part, and no result. A similar incident, they say, happened to a great piano virtuoso when ihe was touring Australia. Something for some reason or other upset the tuner, and while ostensibly tuning the piano for the evening’s performance he loaded each of the keys with four ounces of lead. They became so heavy as to be almost immovable, and the pianist, not understanding what could be wrong with the action of the piano, had to retire from the unequal contest, bleeding from every finger and exhausted. The concert had to be postponed, the public’s money refunded, and the tuner’s revepge was complete.