Toy pianos for serious play

Watts, more used to the standard classical repertoire, found the request surprising. But he listened closely to her proposal. "We're talking for about 15 minutes," Chen recalled recently, speaking by phone from New York, "when he suddenly said, 'Oh, so you're serious?' "

In the end, Watts agreed to listen to a CD she had made for him of her playing one of the 11 toy pianos she now owns. "I was nervous," Watts says. "She was going to graduate or not graduate based on what people thought of this."

He was won over, and so was the Indiana faculty. Now listeners in Los Angeles will have a chance to judge for themselves when Chen brings one of her toy pianos to Culver City for three recitals next Sunday as part of the Da Camera Society's Chamber Music in Historic Sites concert series.

Chen will perform five pieces for toy piano, including John Cage's seminal 1948 "Suite for Toy Piano," interspersed with Baroque-era piano works by Bach (Partita in D) and Rameau (selections from "Pièces de Clavecin") performed on a traditional concert grand.

One understands Watts' initial concern. Toy pianos have been around since the mid-19th century, but only recently have they begun to be seen as serious musical instruments. There are toy piano factories, festivals and competitions throughout the world. There's a toy piano website; there are blogs. The Library of Congress recently recognized the toy piano as an instrument, creating a special call number allowing toy piano scores to have their own shelf space.

What's more, the catalog of toy piano pieces seems to be growing. Chen commissioned two concertos for toy piano last year, and a major one already exists: Aaron Jay Kernis' ambitious 25-minute Concerto for Toy Piano, composed for a full symphony orchestra. Then there's George Crumb's 1970 "Ancient Voices of Children," which hauntingly employs a toy piano and shows signs of attaining the classic status of Cage's suite.

Odd tuning

Toy pianos are scaled-down -- way down -- replicas of full-size pianos. The smallest has one octave and fits in a backpack, but larger three-octave sizes, such as the Schoenhut "Louis XV" piano ("a perfect choice for any serious musician," notes the Schoenhut website), weigh 45 pounds.