17th July 1992 I was loaded again. This time we had a really long trip to Hamburg, about 500 km long. Wolfgang arrived at 4 a.m. at his parents house and took a nap for a couple of hours. Then he had a comfortable breakfast with them.
Then we drove to the suburb of Hamburg called Wellingsbüttel where there was a historical "Torhaus" a house with a big gate or driveway going right through the middle of the house. In that place there were recitals performed in the hall.
Mrs Willer (jeweller)
was celebrating her 60th birthday and wanted to make a
beneficial recital for children who had been injured by the Tchernobyl
catastrophe. Saturday night there was a classical piano recital with great
program including the Brahms sonata op. 1 in C major and the four Schubert
Impromptus op. 90 and a Mozart Sonata KV 310 in a minor, this recital was
dedicated to the best friends of Mrs Willer.
Everybody was intensively invited not to make gifts for Mrs Willer but give
donations for these poor kids.
On Sunday morning the program was "classic light" more for children with easy Sonatines, little pieces and musical fun. The donations for this recital were forwarded to the kindergarden of Wellingsbüttel.
My "show" of being transportated by only one man was very interesting for the guests who were present long before the recital and having some drinks in the garden and enjoying wonderful sunny weather. One was even taking video shots of it. The gliding from the van onto the pianoplan was still hard work. Wolfgang was using a round metal bar under the slide to roll me over it. With this I got slight problems of balance and it was risky to get me over onto pianoplan.
Later in August Wolfgang discovered a nice trick: He mounted several units of furniture rolls under the slide and it was getting really easy to lide over just with one arm! If the ground would be a little inclined I would glide into the van all alone with only one push!
In the afternoon we visited Wolfgang piano professor, Conrad Hansen and his wife in Hamburg-Othmarschen to have a cup of tea. Wolfgang showed me to his professor and the 85-year-old pian legend was very amazed about the technical possibilities...
Bayreuth
We went on directly to Bayreuth right into the festival restaurant beside the famous "Festspielhaus". I just made publicity for my brethren from Bösendorfer and for Wolfgans concert services. A little wooden butler was standing beside me and holding some prospects on his hands so that people would take them.
That relaxed job of representation finished one week later when Wolfgang played on a big summer festivity in the Eremitage park in Bayreuth. That week-end castle of the Markgrave and his wife Wilhelmine is worth a visit and is surrounded by the oldest artificial park of Europe. 250 years ago all the huge trees, the basins and fountains and pavillons were created by man. Every first Sunday of August the eremitage staff is organizing a summer festivity which gets about 10.000 visitors.
We were due to make music at the entrance area for the fun of the passing people for a minimal fee of the organisation. We had accepted that just for fun. But right beside our place there was a children´s playground. O.K. that children are a bit vivid. But the moderator of the kid´s show used a microphone at full volume and shouted at the kids that they would get damaged ears! I would not call that animation!
So we moved to a better place (just a bit of work). Once we had setup there big clouds were coming up and after a shaking hour of music in fear of rain we had to avoid the risk of getting wet and I had to be loaded on the van again. The organizer did not really understand the situation: He argued we had played too short and forgot we came for only a sixth of a normal fee and took risk to damage 90.000 DM capital if water would get into my string holding system. I would have to throw myself away (only symbolically).
After this event we went to the "Jugendkulturzentrum" (youth cultural center) in the Äußere Badstraße. Over the year several local youth groups are working there. Especially during the Wagner festival "Das Treffen" is a unique meeting for young artists from all over the world and is in cooperation with the Wagner festival.
The about 350 participants are getting a contingent of tickets for the festival and already this is extraordinary! Usually you have to apply for tickets avery year and can get some every 10 (TEN!) years. As young musician participating this festival you just sign in, have a lot of fun, learn a lot and even get tickets for the Wagner festival! Go to that site and see how many different workshops are offered for the youth festival!
Of course during that meeting I was played by many young artists. Most of the time I was standing in the garage for bycicles in the economy high school where the meeting was hosted. In that garage the bed sheets were stored and given to the participants - not really a representative place.
But many good musicians came by and I was to play for German ministers! Those ladies and gentlemen were always getting a drink in the office of the organisation close to my place and the climax of their visit was a little concert played on me in the garage.
The most beautiful experience in Bayreuth was the "Social evening" when I was played on a wooden stage in the middle of the court for this open-air party. The stairs onto that stage were extremely steep so that Wolfgang had to reflect for a while how to manage that.
Suddenly he discovered a wooden "palette" for some beer brewery. He leaned it against the stairs so that the inclination was sufficiently lower and I could drive up the stage. The boards of the stage floor were bending quite a bit when I was setup. And then.....
...the last chairs were setup for the audience when we had the general rehearsal with the piano concerto of Haydn in D major. The orchestra was called the "Haydn-Spaß-Orchestra" (like big-fun-orchestra, a German word game including the name of the composer) and was formed in only two days from the participants of the meeting. There had been only one hour of rehearsal and now in the general rehearsal everything was going much better.
During the concert we were fully enthusiastic and the third movement, the "Rondo all´Ungherese" was very very dynamic! That was fun under the open sky and people were having their beer and talking!
Another time Wolfgang played the KV 488 concerto from Mozart with the maestro Frank Löhr on another piano of the festival.
Doctors piano course
Right after the entertaining days in Bayreuth we went to the fourth piano course for the doctors in Aub. It was over-booked with 13 participants. Three days of marathon-teaching for Wolfgang each day 13 lessons with 45 minutes.
Again Heidi Eckrich with her great talent, that time preparing for the "physicum" exam. Dr. Karl Otto Dörenberg played the Sonatine from Reger so beautifully that I felt like treated by a professional! Another doctress was always bringing fresh air with her: She used to sleep outside on the ground at any weather! Tough girl! She had found a nice meadow nearby to sleep.
There were now always more repeaters in the courses. The doc with his shortened ring finger was back, a general practicioner lady from the countryside near Hannover was back (she did 9 courses until 1998!). Another general practitioner, a silent type was learning a lot and later in December decided to buy a Steinway Grand with Wolfgang´s help.
That worked out with an impeccable service: They met in the Steingräber store in Bayreuth where three instruments of the planned type "Steinway B" were at disposition. One of them had just arrived from the factory. From them they choosed the most adequate one for the taste of this doc. Then they directly loaded the grand piano on Wolfgang´s van and drove it to the house of the client where he later got a house music recital. You bet that this was all included in the arrangement for a lower price than normal!
Another doc had an incredible sound balance! He made me sing and the others listened like under a magic ban. There were many pieces to play to each other. I was happy that the discussion about the "piano technique" had to step back and give priority to the music itself!
After the course we brought back the disclavier to Wolfgang´s student who had generously given it at disposition for the course. When driving it into the appartment Wolfgang had blocked a door from closing with his car key..... Later he left the appartment without taking the key bak in his hand. So he wanted to enter the car but it was locked. At least the back door was open. He had to unscrew the whole wall between loading room and drivers cabin to get his reserve key from his bag!
Street music
Now we started to Luzern in Switzerland where we arrived shortly after midnight. Next day the first International Street Music Festival should start. We setup at the Löwen-Center-Place and presented a 20-minute-program. A jury was sitting at the street-side and they should decide on the prizes. But we did not get further to the final round. Why?
Later we heard the argumentation that we had been too conventional and classic. WOW! These ladies and gentlemen thought it was standard to play professional classical music with a Bösendorfer concert grand piano in the street????? They thought it is conventional to ban a big group of audience in the middle of the traffic with a silent piece like the "moon-light-sonata" of Beethoven???
My opinion about that is very clear: Nobody should intend to organize a street music festival who has no idea what it is about! As a piano I have the freedom to say this!
dpa-photo
At the end of August we were back to Bayreuth and were making "model" for the photographer of the dpa (German press agency). We had taken the most beautiful place in phantastic sun weather in front of the sun temple of the Eremitage. The photo was offered to the dpa and had been accepted. During the next weeks and months we heard very often from friends in which newspapers we had appeared. That was good PR at little cost for our "Mobile Unit".
Development of Transportation
Back hom ein Leinach Wolfgang left me in front of the door covered by my new rain coat. This time it should protect me against the red dust he was enlargening the entrance door and making it higher. When he tried to press apart the two cement rods above the door he misused pianoplan as power to press upwards a metal bar placed between the double rod. But the cement rods were stronger and pianoplan bended its "arm" which would create an imbalance for grand pianos! So the poor guy had to make a lightning tour to Vercelli (between Milano and Torino in north Italy) and have it repaired by the manufacturer.
Ingenière Buscaiolo
The modest piano dealer from Vercelli was getting tired of always loading and unloading his rental grand piano always by hand. He was very talented technically and made a great gift to humanity: Through his invention of the pianoplan many heavy transports could be done without effort. All stuff like heavy furnitures, tresors, machines could be handled easily. Wolfgang had seen the prototypes which had been much shorter only for upright pianos.
When it worked with them the machine was enlarged also for grand pianos. For the extremely long Bösendorfer Imperial (290 cm) Wolfgang developped an additional platform to put on the pianoplan together with Ali Schreiner from Lichtenfels/Germany.
The occasion of being in north Italy he used to make a couple of days holiday in the Trento area. There is a mysterious lake "Lago Tovel" which gets red every 10 years about because of an alge species which goes up to the water surface with strong sun irradiation. From this lake there is starting a panoramic wandering route which passes several 3000 m high mountains revealing a phantastic view alternating at the right and at the left. Wolfgang enjoyed this path with his friend Diego and they slept in a block house on top of the mountain.
Near one mountain Wolfgang was ahead of the others and made some singing exercises. The echo was repeating three to four times and the others could hear italian arias in good sound quality over a long distance!
Again in Leinach the stairs were prepared with thick boards in perfect horizontal position together with Wolfgang´s student Günter Rosenberg who was carpenter. Finally my tour into the house was getting very easy. Also the door was high enough now to pass under it without being lowered from the pianoplan. Everything was worked out and the transport was quicker and easier now!
Right on 25th September we practised the new transportation quality and gave a recital in the Julius-Spital-Pavillon as a concert-menu for the sales team of the Vogel-Verlag (magazine publisher).
This pavillon was the former anatomy auditorium of Rudolph Virchow a famous scientist for cellular pathology. Later is was modified for recitals.
