One day last spring a young (28) Manhattan musician named Fernando Valenti found himself stuck in a customs office in Peru. That big instrument he had with him, said the officials, was undeniably a piano, and therefore subject to import duty. It was not a piano, insisted Valenti; it was a harpsichord. Then and there, the oldtime mechanism of strings and quills was uncrated, and Valenti sat down to play while some 150 people listened. After an hour of music, officialdom was satisfied, and Valenti proceeded on his concert tour. "I have never...
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