Heidelberg Piano

  Dear friends of piano music,   nothing, apart from playing the piano of course, keeps the mind as alive as reading aloud and telling stories. My kids and I like the stories of Petterson and Findus the Cat. This tomcat celebrates his birthday three times a year, and a pancake cake is always baked on the occasion. That sounds like a manageable effort, but of course it is already associated with the most astonishing turbulence. However, it is still no comparison to the effort that is usually made for a children's birthday party. A year ago we had a child's birthday with a total of 13 of these cute little monsters in our apartment, and even though we were three adults, it was a bit like I had to take my third state examination. On top of that, I vowed to take a first aid course for children as soon as possible. Of course, nothing came of it, because we know what came next ... Corona leads to absurd, surreal situations in our everyday life. One hears again and again that the po...

Dear friends of piano music, with children, as is so often the case, everything seems a little different. I am always a little gloomy in January anyway - Christmas is over, winter with its gray, mush of snow – monotony seems endless. It always helps a little to leave the Christmas tree standing - for Catholics the Christmas season lasts until the beginning of February anyway, and that's a good thing because January is, as already noted, a synonym for dreariness. On walks my children pity the colleagues of our little tree, as they have already been thrown carelessly on the street, although they really still had a lot of needles ... we also wonder whether the residents of the higher floors really bother to carry the trees all the stairs down (here in Heidelberg there are very seldom elevators ...) or whether they just throw them out of the window ... The sadness of this Corona January is increased significantly by the fact that the birthday parties are also omitted, especially my s...

Dear friends of piano music, The Beethoven year is over, so it's time to play Beethoven. Not because I have something against anniversaries and all the fuss, but simply because I think that every year should be a Beethoven year. But who is this Elise now? I recently read that the real Elise could actually have been a Therese, but I'm not a musicologist. If any of you should know, please write to me. Until then, I'll be content with what the music tells us about the young lady: She must have been quite shy and introverted, her look a little melancholy, but inclined to sudden outbursts of emotion that range from humor to despair. I think it's very personable. As we know, Beethoven was unmarried - a fate that he shared with many of his colleagues, because what did he have to offer a woman other than a free, idealistic spirit and completely disordered circumstances? So all that remains for him, the horror of all potential in-laws, is to fall in love with high-class daug...