Country Seat

[the_scott_meister]

Here in the U.S. the piano tech pros call it a lid. The fly-lid is the front piece that flips up to reveal the music desk. I've seen people open the lid without flipping the fly-lid first. Now that is just crazy. I never allowed anything but stacks of music on mine (when it was operational - but will be again), except for my wife's ugly cat when I wasn't around to give him the boot.

I read that Liszt was once asked to play a piece during a salon concert that he'd only played once before, forty-some-odd years earlier. And he played it perfectly from memory. Now that is phenomenal. I tend to play mostly from memory myself, because my sight-reading skill suck big time. Suppose I should probably work on that.

[Tor]

I haven't come across that Liszt memory story, though I have heard from reputable sources that one of his favourite tricks was to take a messy orchestral manuscript he'd never seen and sight read it on the piano - while offering a running commentary on the piece. To top it off, said manuscript would be put on the stand upside down. Sight reading ability to rival that memory.

Tor

[the_scott_meister]

Liszt was widely credited with being one of the best sightreaders who ever lived. Victor Borge was very good also. But when he (Vic) had a piece of music upside down, he's play it backwards. Anyway, the account of Liszt' memory is as follows: "As for Liszt's repertoire, he played everything. Once he had gone through something, he never forgot it. Amy Fay (American pianist), in the 1870's gives a delicious account of Liszt being reminded of a silly but difficult piece by Herz he had last played forty years previously. Liszt sat down and rattled it off." Harold Schonberg, The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, pg. 168.