{"id":51510,"date":"2025-01-10T12:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T11:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/26b5a784-a255-4450-9169-b5a6ab66d918"},"modified":"2025-01-10T13:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T12:09:19","slug":"ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"Ouch! Five terrible treatments of the piano"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Friday, 10 January 2025 at 11:26 AM<\/p>

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We present four truly unpleasant ways in which pianos have been treated over the years, which have been, alas, filmed for posterity. Here they are… sensitive souls should look away now.<\/p>

Laurel, Hardy and an unforgiving staircase<\/strong><\/h2>
In 1931\u2019s The Music Box<\/em>, Laurel and Hardy famously spend hours trying to get a piano up some very steep stairs, only to be met with a horribly ungrateful recipient:<\/p>

<\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Up, up and away<\/strong><\/h2> <p>The American desert. A large catapult. A piano on fire. And wheeeeeeee! What fun\u2026 for those who are easily pleased:<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embedwrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Piano on Fire Trebuchet Toss at Burning Man 2015\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6Rn8jBzsg9U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Lunch time<\/strong><\/h2> <p>Frightening footage from Japan, in the form of the 1977 horror film <em>Hausu<\/em>. One to bear in mind next time you sit down to have a little go at a Mozart sonata\u2026<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embedwrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"HOUSE (1977) Trailer - The Criterion Collection\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WQ_Yo06kIIA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sacrificed in the name of science<\/strong><\/h2> <p>Some of the world\u2019s greatest scientific brains attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the film below, these boffins set out to prove that force equals mass times acceleration – with the aid of a baby grand piano and a very tall building:<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MIT students destroy piano as part of tradition dating back to 1972\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4urnwg_PhMs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <div class=\"wp-block-group highlight-box is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"> <div class=\"wp-block-groupinner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Piano destruction as performance art<\/h2> <p>Pianist and composer Matthew Bourne got an unusual request from the regular London performance night Spatchcock back in 2016. Would he play an old upright piano – and, as part of the performance, would he mind progressively destroying it? Armed with tools from a nearby workshop, Matthew set about the task of a ‘demolition performance’. As you’ll hear, the performance ends with an ‘encore’ performed on another upright, elsewhere in the venue.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embedwrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MATTHEW BOURNE PIANO DEMOLITION PERFORMANCE, SPATCHCOCK, LONDON, MAY 15, 2010\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E1xci1CyeAY?list=PLULwFoDMnugSHJGhLfygzcFfn8JCWJxSm\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/who-invented-the-piano\/\">When was the piano invented and by whom?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/who-invented-the-piano-recital\/\">How Liszt invented the piano recital and became a 19th-century pin-up<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <\/div> <\/div> <div class=\"wp-block-group highlight-box is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"> <div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"\/> <\/div> <\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Friday, 10 January 2025 at 11:26 AM We present four truly unpleasant ways in which pianos have been treated over the years, which have been, alas, filmed for posterity. Here they are… sensitive souls should look away now. Laurel, Hardy and an unforgiving staircase In 1931\u2019s The Music Box, Laurel and Hardy famously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51511,"template":"","categories":[1,17],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/ouch-five-terrible-treatments-of-the-piano.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Friday, 10 January 2025 at 11:26 AM We present four truly unpleasant ways in which pianos have been treated over the years, which have been, alas, filmed for posterity. Here they are… sensitive souls should look away now. Laurel, Hardy and an unforgiving staircase In 1931\u2019s The Music Box, Laurel and Hardy famously…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/51510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}