Re: the alchemist dvd

[Elmer Elevator <bobmer.javanet@RCN.COM>]

Hi all --

I don't have the extensive book collection about GG that many of you folks
have, so I have to rely on a fuzzy memory of the distant past ... but wasn't
GG involved in a lengthy and acrimonious dispute with Steinway for many
years? Could this tape over the Steinway name have had something to do with
those troubles? Perhaps he still wanted to play a favorite Steinway, but
didn't want to give them a free plug on camera ... or perhaps, at a time
when he wasn't playing Steinways, a Steinway was the only available piano
for him at a particular hall or studio.

I was hoping a much more crisp answer would pop up, but the question still
seems to be a mystery.

Somehow -- and I could be wrong -- I don't think the answer is in
prohibitions of  advertising commercial advertising. Broadcasting an image
of the Steinway name on a paino may indeed qualify as a free ad (and
Steinway certainly isn't shy or modest about where they stick their name),
but to most TV producers I think it would register more as a desirable
symbol that "this is a real high-class production."

Elmer / Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Harding.Matthew <Matthew.Harding@CIC.GC.CA>
To: F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu <F_MINOR@email.rutgers.edu>
Date: Friday, March 21, 2003 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: the alchemist dvd


But I think perhaps the original question was not about the Alchemist
(Bruno's production), but about the small "bonus" track that accompanies
the DVD. This is where a short silent film of GG playing some cross-hand
passages is commented upon by Bruno. I believe he says it was an
analysis of GG performed by someone, who analyzed various pianists in
slow motion. It is very grainy and I believe dates from 1950. I can't
recall off hand if this is the case. Can anyone confirm?

If that was the case, perhaps other logic applies. But I do agree with
Jim Morrison that it sounds like common practice to mask out the piano
manufacturer. Perhaps it was simply that the television show or
production did not want to allow "advertising" from manufacturers, no
matter how slight. We have very strange laws with regards to that sort
of thing here in Canada (CBC hockey games where they are not allowed to
show fans waving banners that say TV network names on them!!).

Just a thought,
Matthew