Paris

Every now and then, I come across a book that takes me completely by surprise.  The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by T.E. Carhart is just such a book. It brings magic for both armchair traveller and piano lover.

Subtitled The Hidden World of a Paris atelier, and opened more in curiosity than intent, a riff across two or three pages had me hooked. At the time of writing, the author was an American living in Paris, and his eye is much as his ear must be.  He coaxes out subtle imagery wherever he turns.

The book opens with the discovery of an intriguing piano shop where all questions about buying a piano are fastidiously ignored by the shop’s owner, who politely but inevitably disposes of Carhart’s queries about the possibility of buying a piano with a shrug and apology that “nothing is suitable”.

Then one day, a younger man comes forward; just maybe, it might be possible for the author to go through to the back of the shop to see some of the pianos.  Then a piano-owning neighbour recommends him and the dance moves on a step or two further. This is the cue the atelier has been waiting for.

As he explores the world of second-hand uprights, grands, harpsichords and all manner of pianos in Luc’s atelier, where they are lovingly restored and sent off again to a new home, we learn of their history, quirks, and sometimes of their former owners’ secret lives.

There are Pleyel Grands, Knabes or Maison & Hamlins from the USA, once a lemonwood Gaveau, a Schimmel, Bechsteins, Bosendorfers, and of course, the Steinway holds it own.  Then there is excitement of a visit to the Fazioli factory, where a remarkable piano was developed in the 1970s.  (It is considered by many to be the finest piano made today.)

And as the days and weeks pass, the lives of the author, the atelier, and the pianos passing through the shop become gently entwined in a symphony of Left Bank sights and sounds evoked in language as clean as a properly tuned piano.

Carhart moves delicately from the smells a la boulangerie du coin to street sweepers cleaning out hidden alleys, and bateaus full of tourists passing down the Seine, pausing on one occasion to listen beneath a window to a “breathtaking performance of 33 variations of Beethoven.”

Then he wings it to another breath-stopping occasion when he and the atelier run holding an ancient piano between buildings, nearly dropping it in the rain.

In the course of this, Carhart develops an idée fixe: one of these gracious instruments must be found for his home - despite the lack of space, and the demands it will place upon him.

Eventually, he does find the baby grand of his dreams: “I listened to things with a ravenous ear, things I wouldn’t have noticed before, eager to imagine how others problems I was struggling with…  ”

Nonetheless, he continues to visit the shop; by now part of the little group who meet to share at the piano shop their views of music and pianos over coffee and, occasionally, vin ordinaire with charcuterie and baguettes.

Never mind that the book was written in 2001.  A classic like this will last as long as a good piano.  Invest in at least one copy of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank for yourself and perhaps in another for a piano-playing friend!

Buy this book here