In the evening the first recital of our "mobile unit" took place in the cantine of the bank. It was performed like a so-called "concert-menu" for the board of the banks' region. This incentive idea was invented by Wolfgang when he jobbed as a waiter in the Maritim hotel in Wuerzburg. It consists of a alternating sequence of music pieces and dishes which is gently presented by a moderation of the pianist.
So at the beginning the host presents the pianist, who then explains the functionality of the concert-menu: First the audience gets a music-piece as an "amuse geule" for their ear, thus an "amuse oreil"! Right after the moderation they will listen! Then the first dish will be served and the guests eat and chat. After a while when the chief waiter begins to carry away the dishes the pianist begins with the moderation of the second piece. During this moderation people become silent again. Its function is also to give the feeling for the surrounding ("ambiente") and the theme of the congress or whatever meeting.Then at the sign of the restaurant chief that the service for the dish is completed the pianist just plays the next piece in an authentic recital athmosphere. After the applause the next dish is served. So after some changes between taste, listening and seeing the ambiente the senses of the audience enlarge to a huge "synestetic melting experience"!
After this first concert-menu I did Wolfgang asks the audience: "Let's make a bet: I bet that I bring this grand piano (WOW he is speeking about me!) from the first floor to the ground floor all alone?"
The people were astonished at maximum and thought Wolfgang was pulling their legs. But then he repeated: "Yes, for sure, I am serious! If you would like to wait for a few minutes I demonstrate how this works." Well, now people were murmuring how this could be possible.And they became curious what he would be doing next.....
Quickly the "pianoplan" was hauled from its corner and in a minute Wolfgang pushed me onto it with the help of three men. Then he "fastened my seat belt" and drove to the top of the first staircase, followed by the ladies and gentlemen.
But Wolfgang had no practise to let me down onto the diagonal position on the stairs - and I was nearly falling forward in an indesirable speed and gliding into the belt with all of my weight for about 10 cm. You should have heard the cry of the ladies when they thought I would fall down the stairs!
Wolfgang was sweating more for the downstairs direction than for the upstairs transport, not only for work but because I wasn't even assured that evening! This did not all work out so fast, be aware that we had only 6 days to make the whole setup.
After surpassing the two staircases and setting me up in the hall of the bank we recieved a warm applause. Nobody had ever seen a thing like that: A pianist himself transporting the grand-piano down the stairs in his tails right after the recital! It was exciting even for me because of the fact that people did not only hear my sound but also saw me in action being transported. That's not too easy, by the way my weight is 370 kg since I was born.....
The next day during the opening times of thebankWolfgang played between 9 and 10 a.m. and between 11 and 12 a.m. When there was a crowd of people he played a whole bunch of classical music!
ISDN
(64 KB/sec)
DSL (512
KB/sec)
Since Wolfgang had purchased me a bit on surprize he did not even have a roof to put me under. That's why I could remain in the hall of the bank for a couple of weeks beside the christmas tree and I gave a very good decoration even without playing...
In the meanwhile Wolfgang made some excursions with his
pianoplan to transport some upright pianos for his students.
On 17th December 1991 I was moved to the other side of the hall and we had to
give a little recital for the staff of the bank. They enjoyed it at least as
much as the board members.
Foto: CCC
The climax of that recital was again "The Virtuoso" with cartoons of Wilhelm Busch, the German poet who is said to have invented cartoons with text under them. Wolfgang had made an arrangement of Busch's pictures exactly matching to music by Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt. It's a 4 and a half minute laughter guarantee to perform this!
The next day I had my first press conference. The two local papers people were represented with their Photographers and journalists. Although we had been already on the ground floor we made an extra trip up the stairs for the press. The photographer was lucky to take a shot from my bottom side because this is more interesting for a photo than my black side on top. On the photo you see the wooden rods which hold together a pression from the strings of 20.000 kg. And the bright surface is my sound board, so to speak my loud-speaker. And being right on the stairs in an inclined position it became a fairly impressing shot! It was publishedin the two big papers in Wuerzburg and had a big resonance over years: People were always telling Wolfgang over the next years that they had seen this photo in the paper.
Foto: Heußner
