Why have public displays of piano playing become so compelling? At railway stations, shopping centres and airports, an instrument usually associated with concert halls bursts into everyday life. In the space of a few moments, shoppers and passengers become an audience – and once a recording of the performance is posted online, this encounter can reach thousands or even millions of people.
TikTok pianists such as @umutpiano (Umut Cetin) skilfully exploit the tension between high-art virtuosity and ordinary public spaces. This 21-year-old from Frankfurt offers a particularly striking example of the format’s viral appeal. As shoppers and commuters gather around him, their reactions become part of the performance and help give his videos their sense of immediacy. His account has attracted approximately 63,600 followers and 10.4 million likes across 246 videos.
This viral appeal mirrors the high-society “hype” of 19th composers and pianists; viewers are not simply watching a technical display, but witnessing a deliberate musical interruption of the mundane. In both the 19th-century salon and the 21st Instagram feed, the thrill lies in the proximity to talent when one least expects it.
Channel 4’s The Piano, currently in its fourth series, has successfully turned the same idea into a TV show. New and self-taught players perform in large train stations while presenter Claudia Winkleman hears their stories. Pop singer-pianist Mika and a guest mentor listen from a nearby observation room and choose one player for the final concert. It is both a talent search and an engaging exploration of the many reasons people make music.
Virtuosity, vulnerability and reinterpretation
The Piano does this in a gentle and inclusive way. In the first episode of the new series in Birmingham New Street station, classical pianist Tiffany Poon brings a concern for technique, interpretation and emotional expression to her role as guest mentor. At Liverpool Lime Street where the second episode takes place, Jamie Cullum approaches the performers from the perspective of a jazz-pop pianist and improviser.
Impressing Poon in the first episode, amateur pianist Ollie’s performance of Chopin’s Ballade No.2 in F major, Op. 38 illustrates the dialogue between technical command and individual expression. In the following episode, 19-year-old Calien’s arrangement of a traditional Scottish bagpipe tune highlights creative reinterpretation.
The 19th century virtuosos were similarly expected to do more than reproduce a score: they improvised, embellished and transformed familiar material according to their own artistic personalities.
As a musicologist, I study music in early 19th century Russia and the development of the nocturne – a reflective “night piece” usually characterised by a singing melody above a flowing accompaniment.
Frédéric Chopin and Claude Debussy are famous for their nocturnes but a lesser-known Irish composer called John Field was instrumental in establishing the genre, making them fashionable during the 1810s and 1820s. These gentle pieces of music were well suited to the intimate atmosphere of the aristocratic salon, where the compositions circulated and acquired wider social meaning.
Drawing people into music
A later episode of The Piano features Paul, a pianist from Glasgow who has lost the use of his right hand following brain tumour surgery. He movingly performs Alexander Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand, demonstrating how intimacy and poetic expression can transcend technical limitations.
Composed after Scriabin injured his right hand, this work belongs to the tradition of the piano nocturne established by Field, whose lyrical style also rejected empty virtuosity in favour of expressive, melodious lines. Spanning two centuries, the nocturne continues to immerse listeners in a deeply personal musical world.
Sometimes contestants in The Piano perform their own compositions, like a piece about the Grand Canyon performed by Chris in episode one. This also points to an important 19th-century salon trait: the presentation of new music. Salons allowed composers to test works in front of responsive listeners, just as today a busy railway station exposes unfamiliar music to people who were not expecting a concert.
In his nocturnes, Field eschewed overt virtuosic brilliance in favour of lyrical melodies that seemed almost to sing on the piano, immersing listeners in moments of quiet contemplation.
Contemporary accounts describe how the audience would fall silent while he played, absorbed by an intimacy that transformed the piano from an instrument of display to one of reflection. Much like the audience of The Piano, visitors to 19th-century salons understood that unforgettable performances were shaped in equal measure by artistic individuality and technical mastery.
Public piano performances today bring the player close to the crowd. There is no stage, dress code or need to know the work. There is just a pianist and a choice: keep walking, or stop and listen.
In a 19th-century salon, musical reputations travelled through invitations, conversation, print and society gossip. Today, a phone camera and an algorithm can carry a performance around the world before the station crowd has dispersed. The technology and scale have changed, but the emotional transaction remains strikingly similar. One person’s passion for music becomes an affecting, shared experience.
Stacy Olive Jarvis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.