Word: carmi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Somehow, the troupe and its piano kept crossing Carmi's path-at Palermo, again in Naples. Finally, as he learned later, the British left it at Tel Aviv. A beekeeper found it, tried to use it as a hive. A chicken farmer tried to use it as an incubator, a butcher as a meat safe. Finally it was cast out into the street as useless. There Avner Carmi-by now out of the service and once more a piano tuner-again found what he called "my plaster piano pal." When he saw that the insides had been ripped...
...could not shake it off that easily: a few days later it turned up at his piano-repair shop. A music-loving plasterer had found it and handed Carmi an advance with orders to fix the instrument. Later, the plasterer changed his mind and demanded his money back. He demanded it vehemently. He pounded his fist on the piano. As he did so, the plaster casing cracked and the head and torso of a little wooden cherub came into view...
...Carmi hurriedly handed over the money, then feverishly started to remove the rest of the plaster. Sluices of benzine, alcohol, vinegar and lemon juice failed to part plaster from wood, but 24 gallons of acetone finally did the trick. What emerged was an elaborately carved case, featuring a frieze of plump, drunken cherubs hauling their equally drunken queen across the piano face with most unmusical leers. Carmi dug out an old picture of the king's piano. It was the same...
Mission Accomplished. How had the piano found its way to North Africa in the first place? Presumably, some looting German soldiers had taken it along for their own troop entertainers. Still puzzling over the coincidences that had brought him the piano, Carmi set to work. Using the original, wafer-thin cypress wood sounding board as a guide, he painstakingly restored the piano, installed a new-action and strings. The job took three years. In 1953, he arrived in the U.S. to show off his transformed desert...
Piano Tuner Carmi is now devoting his whole life to his beloved little piano, has nearly finished a book about it and has arranged for seven more records, each devoted to a different musical period, from Bach to Debussy. He knows the piano's story is not yet done, but he has amply fulfilled his grandfather's mission...