by Karl Petersen (080511 MMDigest)
I have attached an audio file of a very bad recording of part of a piano roll. It is from the 1983 BBC TV movie, "An Englishman Abroad", with Alan Bates and Coral Browne. On the copy of the film I have, the piano plays at 39 minutes into the movie, starts abruptly and goes on for maybe another two bars. The piano roll has a wavy line up in the treble side and some spots down in the bass, but apparently no words. The piano key cover says Schiedmayer & Söhne, Stuttgart, and the roll is being pumped by Alan Bates who is playing British spy Guy Burgess.
I certainly do not know the tune, and it's probably very unimportant and not germane to anything in the film, but I would enjoy the satisfaction of discovering the name of it. Scotland doubled as Russia for the location, and it would be curious to see if anyone knows whose piano it is! Details at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085492/ are rather sketchy since they did not credit any music. Emma Thompson was not credited by imdb as even being in the film, and it was about her third film and her first speaking Shakespeare.
Karl Petersen
Washington, Illinois
11 May 2008 19:35:36 -0600 (MDT)
11 May 2008