My faithful old Circ 1920's Australian Beale piano, bold and upright.
My fingers were about 2 years of age when I first touched it's keys. Ahhhhhhh that vibration, that colourful sound, that bell-like ringing, calling me 'home' and I had only just arrived on this planet!... I had definitely made a friend for life.
Lost in the melodies and patterns that unfolded in my small hands for hours, I listened and listened and listened and then expressing all my dreams on these worn out keys, this old Beale gave more back to me than I could ever be promised. I played every morning, every evening, there wasn't a day I did not spend time with my faithful friend. Indulging in all those worlds it opened up to me.
There were many other instruments in the home, Xylophones, recorders, a pump organ and even button and piano accordions, and Guitars a plenty and all my older siblings would strum away proficiently with 'House of the Rising Sun' and Bob Dylan and Neil Young hits. I learned too, but, the Beale would call me back again and again.
When I was about 10, my father gave us small tape cassette recorders, so I would record myself playing my own tunes on my beloved Beale, the thing was, I was painfully shy and couldn't conceive playing them in front of anyone, I knew people throughout the house could hear me, but I never thought they really listened (but secretly hoped). So, knowing a recording might be heard by other people, I introduced each song as "a girl is going to play a song for us and this girl's name is 'Octavia'" Then no one would ever know it was really me.
I still have some of those old cassette tapes, with 'Octavia' written in texta on them. and I still play many of those tunes now, some are now fully fledged songs and pieces of work, they themselves also my faithful friends.
I have played many piano's in my life, but although my old Beale has been carted around the countryside, rolled end on end through narrow doorways, frozen in sheds in Armidale winters, traveled on bumpy trailers, had broken strings, has many ivories chipped, split, re-glued, replaced and now has key straps holding together by a moths breath, it is still like being home when I play it. I would never want it to be 'done up', I would never want it to change.
Now, 40 years later I go to write this blog about 'Octavia's Dream Piano's' I plan to turn to Google to get some actual information about the Beale piano in Australia so I can sound all knowledgable, after all, I have never really bothered, all I knew was it was the only piano manufactured in Australia and that it was made of Australian timber and had an iron frame and steel tuning pegs, which was best for the extreme Australian climate. So at this point I open another browser and Google 'Beale Piano'
Well I got an incredible shock!! because the first line stated that -
The Beale piano factory was established by Octavius Beale.
That took my breath away!!! and made my heart jump! I had never known that a man named Octavius had established it.!! I was just assuming it came from a factory somewhere near Sydney? I never thought it was named after anyone? I never thought for a minute about it's origins really. I was just a dreamy child that loved playing it and dreaming of it being alive and the name Octavia was just invented by my imagination. after all I am an eighth child. I still can not believe it! That's just too amazing!
Here is what I found-
-The Beale piano factory was established by Octavius Beale, an Irish born (1850) multi faceted personality. He married in 1875 to produce thirteen children. He was an accomplished linguist, a great traveller and a fellow of the London Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. He was also president of the New South Wales Chamber of Commerce and a trustee of the Australian Museum and the Bank of New South Wales (Westpac). In 1906 he conducted a Royal Commission into Patent and Proprietory Medicines (at his own expense). At eighty years of age, he died in a motoring accident.
Beale started his business career as an importer of German upright pianos. A few of these imported instruments survive, and are named 'Hapsburg Beale'. The Beale piano factory was established at 47 Trafalgar St Annandale, and grew to become the largest piano factory in the southern hemisphere in the early 1900's.-
How serendipitous is that????
Well, this was definitely an accidental discovery I am pleased to share here. Now I will show you some of my favorite photo's of piano's Octavia dreams of. and maybe, just maybe one day when I am back with my beloved Beale piano, I will not get it 'done up' but I may just give it some much needed love and give it a new coat HA!
Here is a video diary I made of meeting different piano's
Lissa-Käthe-Piano Diary 2008
Here I share with you my piece SOARING IMAGINATION
because it took my soaring Imagination to have imagined 'I' when with my piano, was always 'Octavia'
My beautiful friend Maricet wrote these words on hearing it.
Oh My Lissa ~ How lovely these imaginings do stream ~ and softer now they seem, so gentle they lie upon the heart strings. Yet the elation of the heart rises to sing where it fills the sky with blanketing clouds, adrift atop mountains so tall and proud. Then finally whispering in echoings, there in that place, where imaginations are freed to soar. With you, in this beautiful music tonight and there also in; The Land of Evermore. Maricet
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