MR. PARABLE’S PIANO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 451, 13 February 1948, Page 10

MR. PARABLE’S PIANO

EW ground has been broken by the NZBS in Mr. Parable’s Piano, a dramatic representation of the life story of a concert grand. Containing a concerto and songs specially written for the play, and excerpts from some of the world’s great piano music, Mr. Parable’s Piano is an unusual type of radio drama. The story begins in 1894, when Mr. Parable, a young apprentice at an English piano factory, forms a passionate desire to own a piano he is helping to make-a special instrument being built for the great virtuoso Louis Bernard. For 15 years, while Bernard and his piano are thrilling concert-goers, Mr. Parable has no hope of achieving his desire. Then when the pianist collapses and dies at one of his performances, his piano is sold to Ruby Rooker’s Singing Academy, where it is used for the next few years to pound out the accompaniments for a succession of scraggy sopranos and barking baritones. From there it passes to "The Minaret," a rowdy music hall of the 1920’s, and eventually, during the Second World War, Mr. Parable succeeds in buying the now scarred and battered instrument. The play relates through a ‘series of flashbacks not only the story of the piano’s life, but the life-stories of all the people who have been connected with it during its chequered career, heard through the lips of Mr. Parable himself as he talks to a soldier in the Army Camp to which he has finally donated his instrument. ‘The script of Mr. Parable’s Piano was written by Gale Pedrick, the special songs by Bessie Pollard, and the concerto (composed for the original BBC production) by Alan Paul. The play will be heard from 2YA at 9.32 p.m, on Sunday, February wee