May I introduce myself, my name is Bösi Bösendorfer. I am a concert grand piano. Well, we Bösendorfer pianos always had some special features.... One of my ancestors won a competition among Vienna piano builders and he was the only one to resist the power of Franz Liszt and did not break down under him.
In ourselves is the Vienna music culture and love for the craftsmanship of piano builders. In my special case they accidently must have built in some fun to travel as well as the ability to write. From birth on I was integrated in the rental park of the company and based at a huge spedition in Lichtenfels in north of Bavaria to do my service as rental piano on the festivals of whole Germany. In the halls of this company there are 10.000 (in words: ten thousand!) pianos side by side, endless halls....
Many piano factories keep their production on stock here and make it distribute directly to all the piano stores of the entire continent. A certain area is reserved for the rental pianos of Bösendorfer whch are brought to the festivals and recitals. - So I was transported several times a month for years and well-known pianists played on me. There is a lot to "suffer".....! But I was getting used to that work and got a lot of patience what type of sounds the pianists wanted to get out of me.
This was goin on week by week, month by month, several years long. But suddenly my secretary in the spedition got a strange telefax from the Bösendorfer company: "The pianist Wolfgang Ellenberger herewith is authorized to take our rental piano Bösendorfer model 225, opus no. 38.517 for a recital in Würzburg from 3rd December 1991 on. You will get a separate information about the return of the piano."
Wow! What was that? Since when pianist take me somewhere by themselves? Since when the end of a tour cannot be predicted? Well, let´s see what happens........
In fact, on 4th December 1991 a white van was coming on the court and they lifted me on the transport equipment "pianoplan". An employee of the spedition explains to the pianist how to use that powerful machine. Huups, that´s a shaking machine! And it is not very smooth when it starts going! And they even go up the stairs with me! Though this is going very steadily and there aren´t three men shouting around who should when lift or lower which angle. That´s fairly comfortable to drive up the stairs like that.
Then they load me into the van. The pianist tell me that we can be friends now because we would be working together from now on. In a quiet moment he tells me how this all could happen: He was one of the many thousands of pianists around. We know of the "flood" of pianists in the world...
He had always tried to get engagements sometimes standard and sometimes with original approaches. One time he had gone to the director of his bank. The hall of the bank had been totally restructured for months and the clients had some discomfort with it. So Wolfgang, my pianist, asked the bank director if he would like to give his clients a "sweety" after all of this stress, a recital in the hall of the bank!
And indeed, the director agreed to this proposition!
Several days before the recital, they had an appointment to make an ultimate
check for organisational things of this event. A small Seiler grand piano had
been booked from the store on the other side of the street opposite to the bank
so that everything would be easy.
For a different occasion Wolfgang had rented me from my friends in Vienna some days before to play a recital. That client in Frankfurt, a medical publisher, was so wealthy that Wolfgang planned to sell me to him for his series of recitals. So he knew about the price I would cost......
And this information did not let Wolfgang sleep any more! So before he went to that bank director he reflected a lot and did many telephone calls to gather information how to put together a "Mobile Unit" of a pianist and a piano as hand luggage to take his own piano to his concerts. This concept he wanted to present to the director. When he dressed that morning he thought if he should take his best shirt (which he used to wear for his concerts) or come along just normal. But he decided for the best shirt.
And this might have been the essental factor for the positive decision of the bank director. He followed Wolfgans argument that the piano (that´s me!) as part of the Mobile Unit would be an active capital (making money) and not only stand around in the living room as passive capital. Mr director was convinced by this presentation and made an unconventional banker decision to accept me, the piano, as a security for the financing.
From this moment on which brought a never expected quantity of possibilities to our pianist he had to organize quite a bit: In six days he had to find an appropriate transport vehicle with the right measures for a grand piano and even for the 290 cm long Bösendorfer Imperial model which Wolfgang targeted on on long term. Then he had to get the transport machine "pianoplan" which was on the market for a few years and made possible to even go over stairs with a piano. And more than that he had a two day event in Hamburg and had to get me and pianoplan from Lichtenfels.
There I am now in this van. The inside was still empty without any features and I was towed so that I was freely standing in the middle axis of the van. We made a visit at the carpentery of Ali Schreiner who worked at the spedition and handled his private shop at the same time. With his super know-how we planned how to arrange the whole interior of the van in the best way for the transport of pianos. Then we started off for Würzburg.
After a one and-a-half hours drive we arrived in the yard of the bank and the unexperienced pianist wanted to get me to the first floor with that transport machine. First they put a ramp from the edge of the van to a lower wooden box and after they had pulled me there with great effort the pulled me down onto the top of that machine pianoplan. Wolfgang had hired a helper because he did not want to be all alone the first time doing this. They "fastened the seat belts" and drove me up the stairs to the first floor, having a bit of shaking lacking the exercise. Once arrived I was set up on my legs, finally.
The next afternoon the piano tuner should be coming, Wolfgang told me it would be the best of Würzburg and presented me to his friend Peter. But I knew him already from the music festival of Bad Kissingen where he had worked with me. Peter got me tuned up very fine so that I was prepared for the recital.
