Wre
ckage of a BCPA four-engined DC-6 has lain since 1953 in a redwood forest south of San Francisco airport. It should haunt Qantas.
The crash occurred because the Australian pilots of British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines had the despicable habit of flying a shortcut into the airport over mountaintops higher than those beneath the official flight path. BCPA was half-owned by the Australian government. After the crash, Qantas took over BCPA’s shell.
Among the 19 passengers and crew killed when the plane disintegrated and burst into flames was William Kapell, perhaps the greatest home-grown concert pianist the United States has produced. He was 31, an obsessive Manhattan Jew with a huge career left to play. In the 1960s, Qantas fought his widow Anna Lou through New York courts. She wanted significant compensation. The Australian government, which owned the airline and had deep pockets, thought otherwise. She got nothing.
Why do many of the greatest concert pianists die young? Is playing the piano at elite levels deadly? My 80,000-word literary novel The Hands of Pianists tries to answer such questions. Its narrator is a neurotic freelance writer desperate to prove that pianos kill. He has grappled with guilt for decades following an accident in which he severed his sister’s fingers. She had a promising keyboard career ahead of her.
The narrator’s quest takes him from Melbourne to Sydney via Geelong, then the south of France, London, Sussex, Prague and a tiny village south-east of the Czech capital.
His investigations centre on the violent deaths at 31 of three great pianists — Kapell, Australian Noel Mewton-Wood, and New Zealander Richard Farrell.
The Hands of Pianists is out on 4 March. Available online for $A25.95 (paperback) and $A8.95 (digital). Similar prices in other currencies.