Two Strangers Improvise A Beautiful Performance On A Train Station Piano
It’s always amazing to witness an impromptu musical performance that seems to materialise as if by magic. It can make an otherwise mundane journey into a special event. French train company SNCF hoped to spark these performances by moving a portable piano from station to station. It would give passengers a chance to play.
They called the piano “a vous de jouer” or “your turn to play”. However, no one could have expected the performance this piano would create at a station in Paris.
Two complete strangers performed a beautiful duet, all while barely exchanging a word. The first to sit down at the piano is Gerard Pla Daró from Spain. He plays beautifully and soon draws a crowd of waiting commuters. After he finishes his first number, the crowd bursts into loud and enthusiastic applause.
He smiles and acknowledges the crowd before starting to play Una Mattina, a famous tune by Ludovico Einaudi. As he does, a second passenger is standing close by, watching his performance. After a little while, the second passenger, Nassim Zaouche, joins him at the piano, and a beautiful duet is born. The video below shows Gerard playing just before Nassim joins him.
As the duet continues, they switch positions at the keys. Considering they have never met, the way they manage to play in such beautiful unison is nothing short of spectacular. These men don’t know each other and may well speak different languages. But that’s the strength of music; it joins us together and makes strangers into friends.
It’s a beautiful improvisation, and unsurprisingly, before long, there is a big crowd around the piano, and all of them have their phones out recording the performance. The music swells and seems to fill the station. That’s an impressive feat, considering how large a space it is. In the video below, watch another impromptu public piano performance from this very talented older lady – who loves to play Ragtime!
When the performance ends, the two men exchange a hug and smile to acknowledge the crowd’s reaction. The video was uploaded to YouTube, and since then, it has been viewed a staggering 83 million times! It also has nearly a million likes which must make it one of YouTube’s most popular videos. It’s such a shame it’s a random event, and we will never see these two talented men play for us again.