From Aub we drove directly to Bregenz at the three corner angle of the lake of Konstanz to visit a friend. I liked very much a little excursion up the mountain "Pfaender" beside Bregenz with a phantastic panoramic view over the lake:
From there we went to Luzern in Switzerland. The weather was so bad that we dropped the plans to play in the historic center maybe even with me and headed on to Milano. Wolfgang was also sleeping in the van. So I did not have to be afraid at night. The foam matress was placed on the box for the legs and the piano bench. A sort of sleeping level for the artist in the middle of the loading space of the van.
In Milano Wolfgang tried in vain to get an official permit to play in the middle of the "Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele" the huge covered historic shopping mall in the very center. At least Wolfgang succeeded to watch two performances at the Scala, "Iphigenie en Tauride" and "La Traviata" of Verdi. The soprano Tiziana Fabbriccini sang so touching that he was reminded of the great days of Maria Callas.
Meanwhile Wolfgang tried to get a ticket for a business friend from a man of the administration of the Scala - and got it! This super service of Wolfgang really made him have a job at the hotel of this man later on.
Wolfgang knew a lot of people at the Scala because he had worked here as a pianist at the ballet between 1987 and 1989 two times with a three months contract as "maestro collaboratorio di palcoscenico". So he also presented me in the van to some of his best friends from the Scala. Especially I liked the doorkeeper Donato who had helped Wolfgang to get in touch with the Scala people at the very beginning in December 1985.
On Friday 3rd April 1992 he arrived back home quite exhausted after a drive from 1 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and just took time to check the mail and do some essential things. In the afternoon he unloaded me from the van into the house for the first time all alone.
Leinach scenes
Some days later a funny friend came visiting us: Nikolai Korschunow from Munich was in Würzburg and slept in our house. The two men were talking a lot and were playing me. Especially Nikolai did some of his endless improvisations. Although he is a guitarist he had studied composition before and liked these original modulation improvisations.
Five days after our visit to Milano an old friend from Milano came, too: Marco Valeri passed by on the way to his mother in Frankfurt. He did not want to miss the occasion to get Wolfgang playing on me. He is appasionate of music and always visits the big opera houses when he is travelling for his job selling Italian handbags. When Wolfgang lived in Milano 1986 he had rented a room from Marco partly paying for it by giving piano lessons to Marcos son Danilo.
They were sitting at the table with coffee and cake, talked about earlier times, listened to some music pieces and then Marco went on to Frankfurt. Just two days later Danilo passed by in Würzburg and could show Wolfgang his progress playing me. He had really worked a lot since the times at Milano and has studied several musical subjects at the University of Bologna as part of a so-called "studio generale" (general study).
Wolfgang helped out the family of a student in Würzburg with the transport of their upright piano over four floors. The family saved costs by doing the move to Karlsruhe by themselves and would never have managed the piano without this help.
Another time the chief of a spedition came by to know more about pianoplan. They drove up and down the stairs in the garden with and without piano. After Wolfgang's demonstration the interested chief could drive. The demonstration was successful and they bought a new pianoplan. Whoever from the transportaiton business has ever seen that one single person can drive a piano up and down the stairs all alone will easily calculate that after a short time of one or two years this investition will fully pay off. Though a few situations might not be mastered by this machine the health saving effect of the machin for all other jobs it can do will be a great benefit for the transport company.
Middle of April Wolfgang brought me a "rain coat" made by the company Noor in Gruensfeld/Germany after some mesurements. With that I can be transported outside at any weather without getting wet.
Do you know what it means for a concert grand piano to get wet? Well, it depends where I would get wet. A few drips on the furnish would not do any harm. But if liquid comes to the nails which hold the tension of the strings it can destroy the instrument like in the music academy of Wuerzburg where you can see signs like that in the practising rooms:
"It is absolutely forbidden to put any food or drinks on the instruments. Last semester some instruments had to be trashed because there was irreparable damage to them."
So be careful when you offer a drink to a pianist. Do not put it on the piano!
I got the rain coat for a planned tournee with the american Jazz pianist John Cale. But before Wolfgang neglected me a bit. For a "spring show" from easter to witnesses he played and gave classes on a Yamaha discpiano in a cude pavillon. He played two and more hours a day and did not have much energy left to play on me. It was O.K. for me to have some rest, too.
Finally a tournee
Easter monday Wolfgang loads me in the van and drives to Hannover with me on Tuesday. Unloading was easy and get into the hall, too, all ground level. But then the stage was at least one meter high. A narrow aluminium ramp leaded onto the stage which was used for normal stage setup. It carries about 500 kg. Pianoplan and I together weigh 620 kg, though! We give it a try. The ramp is bending very very much, but does just not break, its tolerances were fully used. We were lucky!
On top of the stage the technical director of the tournee is getting some training for his "pianoplan license" He would learn to drive with it for a quarter of an hour and would have to use this knowledge for a tournee through 9 cities. And he was really talented because he did a great job with me.
John Cale is getting out of me notes in all imaginable "colours", sort of style from classic to Jazz. One thing really disturbed me. In these Jazz recital halls people were allowed to smoke and the smoke was absorbed a lot in the filth of my hammers. Back home Wolfgang suffered a lot from that stinking odour.
When Wolfgang came to take me home in Cologne he brought a very nice girl with him, his former piano student Irmelin Sloman. She has studied singing in the Cologne music academy. They liked to listen to the concert and had enjoyed a pizza before. After the recital they loaded me on our van. Poor pianoplan. One of the tournee helpers had broken the electrical input for the battery loading device....
We "jetted" from Cologne to Wuerzburg from midnight to 3.15 p.m., a very good average speed for a grand piano over 300 km.
Wolfgang has a lot of things to do, finish a mailing, a date at the photographer, in between a party "dance into may" from 30 April to 1st May. So I could only get in the house one day after returning. And only in the evening I am put on my feet......
friends
On Sunday the Leinach neighbours come for breakfast. Every three or four weeks they meet in one of the houses to exchange news and have fun together. If it hits Wolfgang I always have to work. After eating something the friends want to hear some music, already Berthold Brecht said in "Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthoefe": "First you have to give people bread, then talk about higher values....:"
