A CHANGE TO THE PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMME
In place of a repeat of The Blue Tar Road, we will now be broadcasting this new Lyric Feature
Requiem for the Piano of the Future
Since the piano was invented 300 years ago its mechanism has changed remarkably little. Indeed, a piano tuner looking inside a piano today would see the same row of white felt hammers, strings and wooden parts as his counterpart of a century ago. But for a brief period in the Ireland of the 1960s that looked set to change. A pioneering Dutch piano company had set up a factory in Shannon to manufacture an innovative plastic and aluminium piano, light enough to be exported to the USA by air. It also made the very first ‘upright grand’ and the first-ever amplified pianos, which were bought by recording artists Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock.
This programme recalls the glory days of the revolutionary Lindner piano – an instrument which seemed destined to conquer the world piano market but which was eclipsed and ultimately rendered obsolete by the advent of the digital piano.
A Laura Haydon Production for RTÉ lyric fm