LesJessop

A lot of beautiful instruments, that's for certain. I'm intrigued by the very large instrument: is it one of the rare "contra-basses" that have a range going down to C1 or even lower ?

This might not be too helpful for your query, but I have a Bass concertina made by Andrew Norman. It is an English, not an Anglo, and I would suggest you could come and hear it / play it but for the fact you live in the US and I'm in England ! I know that some people don't like 'hybrid' concertinas (with accordion reeds), and that is what Andrew makes, but I'd already got one of his Baritone instruments and I'm perfectly happy with that, and with the Bass. The Bass has 43 buttons and, unlike a lot of older instruments it is not Single Action. There was not a very long wait between putting in an order and getting the instrument - I think it was just over a year.

Maybe somebody has a habit of leaving "notes" in the fridge for their four flat-mates (or four-flat mates?).

Whinham's Reel took me back to when I was learning to play the Northumbrian Small Pipes in the early 1980s: it is a very popular tune in the pipers' repertoire. Strangely enough, I don't think I've ever played it on the concertina, but will, soon ! Robert Whinham (1814-1893) was an itinerant fiddler in Northumberland. Anybody wanting to find out more about him and to explore a lot of his tunes (he wrote a lot of good ones) might want to find a copy of "Remember Me, the Fiddle Music of Robert Whinham" by Graham Dixon (1995).

I've sent a P.M.

My mistake: looking again at 'The Scottish Violinist' I see it is ascribed to Parazotti there.

It's a tune by J. Scott Skinner. It was printed in the book 'The Scottish Violinist' - along with a lot of other very good tunes, but ones often not easy to play! His recording was included on the Topic L.P. 'The Strathspey King'. The recording, and the an image of a manuscript of the tune, also feature on the Scott Skinner website of Aberdeen University.

Geoff - I've sent you a p.m. about an instrument I have that you might want

I have an ex-Salvation Army Treble English Lachenal in Bb. I bought it about 30 years ago to play along in sessions with Northumbrian pipes, which are usually Bb instruments. The person selling it had several Bb concertinas, including a Bass, which had all apparently come from the same band. But, not long after buying it I totally drifted away from involvement with Northumbrian pipe music, and have hardly played the concertina since.

Very well done in finding Cyril Tawney's comments: I'd trawled the internet last night and was stumped about the musician. Finally I had some notion that they ran out of money so Philip Green played on the soundtrack himself ... I'm not sad to be proved wrong !

Having watched the film last night, I was going to make a post on the music, but you've beat me to it. The film isn't great but the music is very fine, orchestral with concertina as a lead instrument. Looking at the little information there is on the internet, the composer was an accordion player, and (given the whole thing was made on a shoestring budget) I wondered if he played the concertina too ?? Or, as you suggest, it could have been Alf Edwards. For those unfortunate people who don't have the joys of Talking Pictures TV, I see that there are DVDs of the film available on the internet.

I get the feeling from the discussion on this post that there is a market for G-bass English Concertinas: maybe a small market, for dozens rather than hundreds of instruments. Perhaps some of the makers might like to think about coming up with a specification and a guide price, and see how many customers step forward to provide orders for new instruments.

I have an ex- Salvation Army treble Lachenal EC, it is a B-flat instrument (i.e. the buttons all sound one tone lower than on a 'regular'). I bought it from a Northumbrian Piper about 30 years ago: he had acquired a suite of several EC including a bass [a big regret in my life, I didn't buy the bass !!]. So, if the bass was also a B-flat instrument, it would sound F when you press the G button ... which means you wouldn't have to replace the G-sharp with F reeds, but you would need to transpose every note up when playing in a concert-pitch session.

I've sent you a p.m. about the duet instrument

I've sent you a p.m. about these

I still have it and you're welcome to have it free of charge. If you send me a P.M. with your address I'll send it to you.

If no copy has turned up, I have one that I'd happily part with. I got it when it first came out, tried (and failed) to play the tunes with arrangements and put the book in a cupboard. If I haven't tried again in 26 years I probably never will. Just let me know where to send it and I'll drop it in the post.