That was not all, yet. After a few hours of sleep Wolfgang
had a whole day of a doctors´ congress in Frankfurt where we should play Chopin
in between several times. A music therapy lady from Hamburg was coming, too and
we did a vocal music therapeutic improvisation with piano accompaniment in front
of the audience together. Nobody could know before if it worked out, but it did.
Back home Wolfgang just fell to bed!
The second fall
8th April Wolfgang was too nervous loading me and turned round on the ramp being too close to the edge. The ramp was coming up and I fell down sideways on the garden wall - what a strong pain in the side!
My side is torn open, the wood with its polyester furnish is bended away for some cm. In the first aid course my position might have been called "stabile side position" because Wolfgang would not have been able to lift me up again all alone. He called his friend Wolf in Leinach and he came just in time to get me into the hosue before the rain came down and wettened me.
Braunlage
At least the next recital in Braunlage was not in danger although I had got that wound. It was nearly invisible from a certain distance and fortunately did not affect the sound and the action.
to get this recital was caused by an extraordinary chain of events:
After he had come back from Milano after 3 and a half years there he looked for any kind of job to make his living. So he asked the director of the "food & beverage" department of the Maritim Hotel in Würzburg, Mr. Martin Aures.
Meanwhile he had made his career and was director of the Maritim Hotel in Braunlage and the contact to him was still present. So they came together for the following engagement.
There was another transport problem. The exterior stair to the terrace of the hotel hat sacked down into the earth with its first 5 stairs. The upper step was too high to have an acceptable incination going up there. So the technicians of the hotel got some big boards to make an improvised brigde. That brigde was dangerously shaking when we went over it. On our way back from the stage we tried to go down the marble stairs coming down from the concert hall into the lobby of the hotel.
But, at the bottom the ceiling was so low that we had to turn back! Another architect to shoot on the moon! At least another staircase behind the restaurant washigh enough so that we could go down there. Though we had to make a long distance on carpet which is tiring. Pianoplan can only go with the rubber chain over carpet. the rolls which permit a faster marching tempo need hard ground like marble.
In Braunlage the other recital was a Lied-recital with Petra Wolf-Perraudin.
A big surprise came along with that concert: An old class mate of Wolfgang was staying in this hotel with his family! What a joy to meet after 20 years! That was counted as the daily proof that the world is like a little village.
Ute
During the last period of time Wolfgang has neglected me quite a lot. That´s not fair not to practise and throw me on the garden wall! But this might have its reason. And it came out that he married Ute on 16th April in the town hall of Würzburg!
Big applause from Bösi Bösendorfer!
Shortly after the wedding Wolfgang flew to Lanzarote for the second recital in the "Jameos del agua". It was another success and he returned before schedule with a standby flight to see Ute.
Denis Mayne created a phantastic athmosphere during the wedding party presenting his show and playing around with the guests! It was specially risky to joggle right over Ute lying on the ground with three metal Tomahawks..... But he mastered that the same professional way as in the beginning when he made the whole people dance in 2 minutes with his waltz.
Friendship´s price
Another torture came for pianoplan and Wolfgang. They went to Austria to get a small Yamaha grand piano for his friend Evelyn Holzschuh from the area of Graz. Loading was no problem. But in the end they could not drive up to the 4th floor because the staircase of a new house was too low for pianoplan and a piano! So they had to put the piano on the ground of the basement and let it carry up by men of a spedition the next day. Thus the saving was gone right away!
Honey-Moon
A short trip as mini-honey-moon-trip Wolfgang told me: They went from Leinach to Kriens near Luzern to the piano store Soller. Having aome time left until the concert they took the cable car up to the 2000 m high mountain "Pilatus" and enjoyed the panoramic view for an hour. The recital was done on a big brother of mine, a 275 cm Bösendorfer. Next morning at 9 a.m. they were back in Leinach, what a stress!
On measure
Then I had my first recital in the art gallery of Würzburg. At the first stair-level there was a 90 ° right turn but handicapped with a sculpture standing in the corner right there on the staircase. We did our best to pass along but without even one cm space to the wall.
String-Ensemble
That Sunday Wolfgang was not there. On short term he had got the occasion to meet the old friends of the Eppendorf String Ensemble. Their first violinist Dr. med. Lutz Steinmüller had his 40th birthday. His wife had telephoned all members of that orchestra without lettin ghim know. With her help Wolfgang got hold of a grand piano in Hamburg. So then, during they were sitting around in a restaurant in Hamburg suddenly the whole ensemble was coming round the corner to congratulate Lutz. He still did not believe it when the grand piano came rolling round the corner on pianoplan. He was baffled!
After the setup with the piano and the orchestra Wolfgang played and conducted from the piano the Haydn-piano concerto which he had still present from the planned recital in Bratislava. The orchestra was playing so well (sight-reading!) that an amateur would rarley have noticed this fact.
The ensemble had been formed during the medical studies and consisted of half medicine students half music students. For their rehearsal week-ends they had rented houses with swimming-pool and sauna in the "Lüneburger Heide" south from Hamburg and had developped a very good friendship.
That grand piano caome into the living-room of Lutz´s family the same evening and made him happy.
