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Carmi hurriedly handed over the money, then feverishly started to remove the rest of the plaster. Sluices of benzine, alcohol, vinegar and lemon juice failed to part plaster from wood, but 24 gallons of acetone finally did the trick. What emerged was an elaborately carved case, featuring a frieze of plump, drunken cherubs hauling their equally drunken queen across the piano face with most unmusical leers. Carmi dug out an old picture of the king's piano. It was the same.
Mission Accomplished. How had the piano found its way to North Africa in the first place? Presumably, some looting German soldiers had taken it along for their own troop entertainers. Still puzzling over the coincidences that had brought him the piano, Carmi set to work. Using the original, wafer-thin cypress wood sounding board as a guide, he painstakingly restored the piano, installed a new-action and strings. The job took three years. In 1953, he arrived in the U.S. to show off his transformed desert pal.
The piano's first recording was released this week (The Siena Pianoforte, Esoteric), and it sounds good enough, indeed, to be called King David's Harp. The record contains six little Scarlatti sonatas and one bigger one by Mozart (K. 333), elegantly played by rising Manhattan Pianist Charles Rosen. Although the piano's origin is closer to Mozart's day than Scarlatti's, the gem-pure Scarlatti pieces are more effectively unveiled. Through Pianist Rosen's subtle fingers—and the piano's remarkable characteristics—the piquant upper lines take on the diamond-point clarity of a harpsichord, while the sonatas' lower notes emerge with something like a modern piano's warmer, darker mass of tone. The total effect is a fusion of contrasting elements into a near-perfect whole.
Piano Tuner Carmi is now devoting his whole life to his beloved little piano, has nearly finished a book about it and has arranged for seven more records, each devoted to a different musical period, from Bach to Debussy. He knows the piano's story is not yet done, but he has amply fulfilled his grandfather's mission.