Oh dear...

[gradus]

With unforced errors making the News this week, I came across this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbRTRBY4D4

[Richard Tarleton]

What a trouper!

[MickyD]

Thank you for posting this, gradus, the best thing I've seen in ages!

[Stunsworth]

I didn’t realise Reginald Dixon was popular in Brazil.

What a wonderful way of dealing with the problem, far better than having a hissy fit.

[Bryn]

When Cafe OTO got rid of their decrepit previous piano and replaced it with a Yamaha C3, John Tilbury played a benefit to help pay for it. Unfortunately there was a problem getting 'half pedal'. Not ideal for the programme he was playing. He just had to soldier on a best he could. I phoned a piano technician friend the next day and he immediately identified it as a known problem with C3s. It was resolved soon afterwards. Just sent JT the URL for this wonderful clip.

[Petrushka]

Brilliant. Made my day.

[eighthobstruction]

....excellent....

[french frank]

What a trouper!

Entertaining to watch, unlike that one with Maria João Pires, with Chailly and the Concertgebouw, faced with playing a different concerto from the one she was expecting. I suffered with her, but again - what a trouper.

[peterthekeys]

Just seen this - priceless.

When I was at Huddersfield School of Music (now absorbed into Huddersfield University), in the 1970s, one of the piano lecturers was Ronald Newton - brilliant teacher, pianist and harpsichordist. A fellow student told me about an incident a few years earlier: Ron had been giving a harpsichord recital in Huddersfield Town Hall, and (apparently quite a frequent occurrence) the thing malfunctioned. Ron stopped playing, and started fiddling about inside the harpsichord. After about ten minutes, he fixed the problem; he then walked to the front of the stage, and said to the audience: "Now you start to realise why the piano superseded the harpsichord", and then carried on with the recital.

[MickyD]

I remember being in St James' Piccadilly back in the early 80s for a performance of a Beethoven piano concerto given by the very refined Lady Mary Verney and the Hanover Band. The orchestra stopped tuning, there was a pause, and on came Lady Verney in an elegant long dress to warm applause. She sat down at her Broadwood fortepiano, opened the score then froze. She left the stage quickly, then hurried back on again, sat down once more at the fortepiano, turned to the bemused audience and said, 'frightfully sorry, forgot my specs!'

[Dave2002]

Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for posting the link to that clip.

I once saw a pedal fall off a piano being played by Shura Cherkassky, but it was quickly fixed by someone from the audience who knew about these things. He didn’t keep playing during the repairs.

[LHC]

I saw a concert with Rachel Podger and the OAE at the QEH a few years ago. The first piece included an organ. As it started the organist played his first phrase only to be surprised that no sound was forthcoming. The other players stopped and looked at him. To rather amused applause from the audience, the organist nipped round the back of the organ, held up the electric plug for all to see, and then plugged it in. We then had to wait for Rachel to stop laughing before the performance could begin again.