of keys and has an extra pedal.  This innovative piano was used for an ABC recording of the complete set of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas by Gerard Willems in 1998-9.  (The Spouse bought me this recording as a present, it is brilliant!)  But as you can quickly infer from these piano designers respective websites, marketing a new design is no easy task, even when the piano has won awards as the Overs piano has, or has high-profile endorsement as the Stuart & Sons does.  At recent concert performances The Spouse and I have attended at the Melbourne Recital Centre, the pianos were always Steinways... Frank Delage, the central character whose thoughts readers share in The Voyage, is the inventor of a new piano, and the novel traces his return journey from his efforts to sell it in Europe.  He's not a very good businessman, and even less successful in marketing, and he has made only one rather dubious sale.  Vienna is too conservative to be interested in a new design, and only a fool, he is told, would have tried to market his bold new design there, in a place so mired in musical history.  He has, however, after a long time alone, captured the heart of Elisabeth, the daughter of a prominent Viennese patron of the arts, so perhaps it has not been an entirely wasted trip... However, it would be a mistake to approach this book as a conventional novel about the disappointments of a middle-aged man.  When I