Grieg Piano Concerto Percy Grainger piano roll; Andrew Davis conducts

The Last Night of the 1988 Promenade Concerts in London s Royal Albert Hall provided musiclovers with a unique novelty. Percy Grainger (18821961), one of the foremost exponents of the Grieg Piano Concerto, had made a pair of piano rolls of the work that were issued in 1921. For this Proms performance, a player piano was situated on the platform and operated by a technician sitting among the violins. The piano rolls were duly inserted into the piano s mechanism and Grainger s 1921 solo performance was then accompanied by the BBCSO under Andrew Davis s baton, much to the delight of the Last Night Prommers.