Boingboing
At London’s St. Pancras railway station, Aurelien Froissart, a French TikTok pianist, found himself performing an impromptu duet. A woman carrying a violin requested Vivaldi’s “Summer,” and Froissart played along on the station’s public piano.
Froissart captioned the video, which now has nearly 51 million views, “This girl’s request turned into the best duet I ever had.”
The identity of the violinist was at first unknown but it has since been shared that she is Ugne Liepa Zuklyte, a a student at the Royal College of Music from Lithuania. She shares in her Instagram bio that her name, in Lithuanian, means fire. That sounds about right! Watch
THAT’S BEYOND AWESOME
Thanks for posting, Dr. Tar. Loved it!
How come they’re speaking English?
That was fabulous.
Even Antonio Vivaldi would be amazed.
Brad
“How come they’re speaking English?”
Because somebody whipped the Germans.
It is amazing what talented people can do…. Sometimes I regret that my only talent is swilling Bourbon.
FJB
Masterful performance, especially for being so impromptu. It’s touching to me to see Vivaldi live on and be appreciated in at least one more generation.
^^^^ IF VIVALDI LASTED SINCE THE BAROQUE PERIOD, I THINK HE’S GOOD FOREVER
“Masterful performance, especially for being so impromptu.”
Impromptu? NO! Awesome? Yes. I’m sick to death of the over sensationalizing of every freaken thing that occurs in a “Influencers” life.
This was obviously pre arranged. He’s French, She’s of some Nordic decent. Both awesomely talented. Neither one of their native tongues is English. No matter who the fuck won that war. Especially the French guy. Question, how many pianos have you ever seen at any airport or train station.
The performance spoke for itself. Why try and make a suspense movie out of it?
And Cmn¢¢guy, the reason their both speaking English is because that’s the official language of Instagram, even though this was recorded on Tik Tock. It still ends up on IG.
I did enjoy these two very talented people.
It’s amazing what is but human and never animal!
“Question, how many pianos have you ever seen at any airport or train station.”
Actually, they are all over Europe in airports, train stations and other various places. Search “piano cover public” and you find them.
CJ
That maybe, now convince me this was some by chance hook up. It wasn’t.
To make my flight or listen, hmmmm. Beautiful!!!!
Don’t want to spoil it by the uh err impromptu part.
Someone just happened to have 6 or 7 cameras mounted to the piano and in the venue. This was not pieced together from several people’s cell phones.
They have practiced this before. Nice fictional story.
Yes, quite beautiful, but no, likely not impromptu. She would have had a tuning session with the piano, beforehand. The likelyhood of them being in tune is rather low. Yes, she could have done some intonation repair on the fly to a certain extent… but a few cents off 440 and it would be a disaster.
Acoustic pianos are “stretched tuned” and she would need to know if the 440 is actually 440, and what the stretch is.
Yes, we know she has no frets, but she would still have to work out the nut frequencies, and the octaves.
Guitars have to do the same thing. You can tune the nut (open) strings and the guitar still sound like shit against a piano. Even taking into account stretched intonation of the guitar. Every individual instrument stretches in a different way. It’s a curve, but it’s not an absolute curve. Every piano is different, and every guitar and Boehm blocked keywork system behaves differently. On a sax, or clarinet, or even a trumpet, you’d use embouchure to fiddle with intonation problems. But the basic tuning would be worked out beforehand.
Turds in the punch bowl always float to the top. I think it was fantastic. A Lithuanian student in England probably speaks English, ya think?
I suggested “The Four Seasons” to Antonio.
Helped him write them, as well.
More like he helped me, but I’m too modest to say that …
Beautiful.
Just enjoy it, people. Sheesh.
I know zip about music but it sounded great. I am a bit perplexed though. Why would anybody carry around a piano in a mall?
My bad too much luggage for a mall.
totally about me.
71 years ago my father’s mother had a player piano. She grew up on an orphanage; her dad died in an industrial accident. My cousin Phil (another ol exJarhead; must be in the blood?) tricked me into playing Boogie Boogie. Nany came out with the stick she used to push cloths down in her washer; said “We don’t play “White Trash music on our piano!” Give me your hands. Held out palms ut. She said no! Turn ’em over. Then walked me.
Corporal punishment is an “Ol Family Tradition”. Doubt me Ask my kids; and grand kids!
I decided the piano was not for me.
NOT WALK WACK AS IN HIT ; HARD I MAY ADD!
Just beautiful! Thanks for posting, Dr. Tar.
I’m left handed. I can’t play anything but a radio. And my dominant eye is the Oculus Dexter. I’m here to tell you, you better understand intonation… or woe unto you. I lost half my wages on a piano tuned to 450. Or was it 425?