<HTML>In a message dated 03/31/2003 7:51:43 PM Central St= andard Time, Phil Ford writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT= : 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Over the weekend I went to a concert by the San Francisco S= ymphony.  Jean-Philippe Collard was the piano soloist in the Poulenc co= ncerto.  The piano placement was a first for me.  The piano had be= en placed in the center of the orchestra with the tail up against the conduc= tor's podium and the keyboard away from the audience so that when the pianis= t was seated he was facing the conductor and the audience.  The top of = the piano had been removed. In terms of coordination between pianist and conductor this arrangement seem= s to make a lot more sense than the conventional arrangement. In this hall, from my usual seat in the first balcony, the piano sound was d= ramatically different than it is with the usual placement of piano center le= ft at front of stage, pianist in profile, and lid up.  The piano sounde= d much more part of the ensemble rather than like a separate voice detached = from the orchestra.  Also, the balance of the piano sound was altered.&= nbsp; The midrange and treble were more pronounced with the bass being less = dominant.  To my ears concert pianos often have an overdominant bass en= d.  That was not the case in this concert.  The pianist could stil= l get a powerful bass sound when he wanted, and he occasionally did, but for= 'normal' playing the piano sound had a better balance for my taste.  A= lso, for better or worse, you could not see the pianists hands, so your atte= ntion was not diverted by watching him play, and you could concentrate on li= stening to him play. I also thought it was refreshing to see both conductor and pianist using a s= core (and turning their own pages) rather than working from memory. Phil F </BLOCKQUOTE> Phil, I'm probably jumping in too soon here, without going to all of the reference= books.........but that never stopped me before!  Poulenc very likely s= pecified the stage arrangement in the musical score....a technique taken up = frequently in the second half or so of the 20th century and continuing with = some composers in the 21st.  In this way the effects that you mention c= an be more or less consistently delivered from performance to performance, t= hough the hall itself has perhaps a greater bearing on the results than with= the standard piano placement.  One of the primary reasons for doing th= is was to make the "solo" instrument more a member of the overall ensemble, = which allows for both soloistic AND ensemble-related playing from the solois= t--that is more difficult to do with the ordinary placement. Wish I could have heard that performance! Stan Ryberg Barrington IL Associate Member mailto:jstan40@aol.com</HTML>