Princess Diana played Rachmaninov – who knew?
mainZsolt Bognar has alerted us to an obscure video showing Princess Diana playing a part of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto while on a tour of Australia with Prince Charles in 1988.
The film was part of an ITN news report. Before she leaves, Diana is given a kiss on the cheek by Professor Henri Touzeau, 79, of the Victorian College of the Arts school of music.
Watch and wonder.
The video has received just four thousand views over the past eight years.
So sweet. She is so missed. She was an object lesson on, and the genuine article of, British-bred class.
On a related topic:
There is a video on YouTube of Mike Tyson singing and playing the piano.
It is taken from the cinema classic “The Hangover”.
You gotta love Mike Tyson – “the people’s prince”.
Enjoy.
Do you mean the guy who laughs about mugging little old ladies when he was a teenager?
You can’t learn much from someone’s laughter, but you can learn something from someone’s stories. And Tyson has told and is still telling many interesting stories.
So I hate to break it to you, but he will be much more memorable than … many others. Mugging or no mugging.
Who is Mike Tyson?
Never heard of him.
Don’t forget his ear biting in the ring.
We will soon learn that Luis Suárez likes to blow the horn, too.
Fear and Lobing in Las Vegas….
Cute.
As her love, light spreads by itself having a pace at wehich time has ceased to prevent it from doing just that, however this isn’t something that’s been prevented from being there.
Eh?
“..after the…er….what-have-ya” (The Big Lebowski).
That reply is incomprehensible. Perhaps it were better to stick to dancing … 🙂
What? Says more about you!
@Nijinsky
It couldn’t have been expressed better.
She may have been like a candle in the wind, but her timeless unselfish love is still with us and will shine on for ever.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Norman. It is an historic moment and one that exhibits that even a Princess can indeed embrace the world’s most beautiful music.
“even a Princess”?
What does that mean?
How is this not a filmed assault in every sense of the word?
This video exemplifies the public hounding of Diana, as demonstrated by the very narration itself: “Then everyone decided it was the Princess’s turn, except perhaps the Princess…”
She didn’t want to play, it was against her will, the old man insisted nonetheless, and at the end of it all, “the princess looked for an escape”, but the lech draped his arm over her shoulders, and with that unwelcomed kiss on the cheek, and “awws” of the crowd, the professor publicly and openly sexually assaulted her.
“And the blushing princess almost ran for cover, clearly embarrassed”
And thus marked Diana’s life.
Oh, for goodness’ sake…
My thoughts too, and there is another video (1 million hits) which shows Prince Charles persuaded to play the cello before the Princess had her turn on piano. See https://youtu.be/jNKRPpQqeEw
So it’s not just Diana.
And not just 4,000 hits.
@mary
As to this incident — I think you’re right!
Yes, I’m sure this poor, underprivileged, persecuted victim would prefer to have been shopping in Asprey’s.
Okay but so what? Personally I don’t enjoy seeing her pushed around and embarrassed.
Nice satire!
Her lessons clearly hadn’t made much of an impression. She showed little or no interest in the genre.
She was thought to like opera, particularly Verdi. And I have seen this clip several times since the trip to Australia — I suspect your supplier’s video is not the only one and that various ones have had many more views than just the one. I just checked You Tube and the top one has had over a million views.
I am sure any amateur can play Rach. 2
Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks for sharing!
Disingenuous comment by Mr. Labrecht
There is another YouTube video of this recording with 1 Million views:
https://youtu.be/jNKRPpQqeEw
That was adorable.
anytime i hear about her, i always think of karl lagerfeld’s comment on dead diana as being very attractive but not having much in the brains department.
Dear old Mr. Lagerfeld, in the meantime, had brains but was ugly on the outside and on the inside.
That’s how she was portrayed. Think Charles had a lot to do with that.
Using another link, we find one with over 1.1m views :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKRPpQqeEw
She was very embarrassed. What a jerk he was.
Thanks to Lokman for mentioning Prine Charles’s cello playing. It’s like hearing of Prince Albert’s piano playing when Mendelssohn visited Queen Victoria.
I find this rather sad.
You can sense the hardly bearable male-chauvinist dominance she was continually exposed to – including that shameless commentator.
A shy deer was forced to display something very intimate and personal.
Disgusting how that old guy uses the opportunity to give her a kiss – quite understandable she ran off immediately.
Poor Diana should have sought solace in great music instead of in the arms of other men.