I'm going to Vienna next weekend and will be there 6 days. Would like to find a piano I can use (rent by the hour is fine) at least a couple of evenings while there, assuming I'm not stuck with my work colleagues every evening. Can anyone point me to a resource? I've got an old friend from my opera days who is at one of the music conservatories there but am not getting a response (maybe on vacation). I've emailed a couple of churches but no reply yet. Concert coming up in April and I really don't want to be pianoless for an entire week just now. Thanks.

We might say that's a nice problem to have! But I know it isn't really.

The first thing I'd do in that situation -- maybe not sufficient but at least a start, and sometimes sufficient -- is to check hotels. Usually I'd be staying in one (Will you be?), and I'd try to make it a priority to be at a hotel where at least some practicing would be possible. Ideally there's a separate room with a piano in it, like a ballroom or something, and then usually you can arrange for quite a bit of time. Or, more often there might be a piano in some fairly isolated corridor or off to the side of the lobby, or in the restaurant/bar.....whatever, I'm almost always to find some hotel where a decent amount of practice is possible, and usually every day although the times of day might need to be specific and limited. Even if there's just a piano in a very public area, you can usually still arrange something. In such a case, we're more limited in what kind of practice we can do, but on the other hand, it functions as sort of a tryout for performing! And of course it becomes an exercise in working on the softer end of our dynamic range.

I always find out and arrange about the piano situation in advance by phone (usually with a manager, which is what they usually tell me I need to do), because if you don't, when you get there and ask about it they might just say "No." If I inquire and discuss it in advance, it's almost always yes. It seems they just don't like to be taken by surprise on something like this. And if you do inquire in advance, of course let them know that you're a serious pianist and that you're preparing for a concert.

Good luck, and of course we hope you'll have a great time.

thanks, Ill give it a try!

Great get!

And I wrote all that other stuff for nothing....

Most cities have somewhere where you can hire practice studios on an hourly basis. I've used similar services before when I occasionally go to London for the weekend.

Mark C, thanks for the suggestion about the hotel. I don't have a hotel choice, must stay where I'm allowed to by the US DoE and that's the Marriot right next to the CTBTO headquarters. But they might have a piano. I have in fact used hotel pianos in the past - sometimes they are, in addition to being PSO's also rather POS's but any port in a storm. I'll contact them tomorrow and see if they might have one. Debrucey, I've used practice rental studios in some places I've visited (most convenient near Moscone in SFO) but they always seem limited to business hours and I will be tied up working until 5 or 6 pm each day. In fact that's the rub with the Bosendorfer suggestion above (I looked into it).....but I've asked Bos. if they could suggest a resource that has evening possibilities. Sigh. I know it sounds like an enviable problem to have but Vienna in mid-January is not my cup of tea and I have so much travel coming up in the next few months that every trip is now more of a chore than a joy. On the other hand, I'm far more likely to find a piano in Vienna than I am in some of my other upcoming destinations so it could be worse!

Funny even if you don't know what's a PSO, which I don't.

It is.....?

PSO: "Piano Shaped Object", indicating a piano that is so lousy that it does not qualify as a viable musical instrument.

A polite insider way of saying it is a POS.

Universities usually have piano practice room. I know my local university has about 2-3 practice rooms that are open to the public.

(Thanks, Rocket!)

Actually I've thought that most pianos in hotels have been remarkably satisfactory.
Sometimes even good.

You might try Stingl. They're a Fazioli dealer (yes, they sell other brands as well) and they provided a friend with a piano recently on a holiday trip.

Stingle. I'll try them, Stores, thanks! And Mark C - yes, I've found really mixed results for hotel pianos. At a resort in Tucson the best I can say is that 86 of the key worked, and the two that didn't, alas, were important but at that point I was working on memory so was able to tolerate the lack. Another, in San Diego, was nice and fully functional if a bit out of tune. Yet another, in the city's primary performance hall in Butte Montana, was spectacular but the best so far was in a Baptist Church near the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Big church with 3 or 4 grands available. They offered the 9' in the sancutary but I was fine with the little 6' in one of the choir rehearsal halls.

Wow, just wow!

(Hey folks, look who's here!)

what?

He's shown up a few times sparsely over the past couple months.

HorseMom, he used to be a frequent poster here.

Yes -- that's all.
(It's nothing about what we were talking about!)

The thing I said was what he liked to say about posts that he thought were beyond ridiculous, which often were mine.

Hi HorseMom,

While in Vienna don’t miss out on the Lipizzan ballet ...

“The Spanish Riding School in Vienna with its famous Lipizzan ballet can be experienced live in the baroque ambiance of the Imperial Palace. Admire riding skills of the highest order – from pirouettes to caprioles.”

Why not try out the Grand Piano at the Vienna State Opera? ... perhaps that would be pushing your luck.

LOL, btb, I wish I could see the Lipizzaners but I'm not going to have any time for recreational activities while there. If I had any money I might stay and take a couple of days' leave, but since I'm traveling on your tax dollar, it's just fly there, do the work, then fly home. But my evenings should be my own, and I need to practice! Unfortunately I will probably have to endure at least two business dinners so will only get 2 or 3 practice opportunities at best. Depserate to keep those because a week after I get home, I'm off to Latin America and I'm pretty sure I won't find a piano in the locations I'll be.

Vienna State Grand Opera is, I'm told, easy access to what our location will be, but I don't need anything that grandiose, I just need 88 keys that work and reasonable light, somewhere that I won't be disturbing anyone. Even when well-played, listening to one part of a chamber ensemble must sound like there's a lot missing A colleague tells me there is actually a piano in a practice room in the UN complex that I might be able to use, since the agency I'm visiting is in a building on that campus. Hoping something pans out. Bosendorfer says they don't know of any pianos available after hours (in other words, 'we don't offer any and we can't be bothered to make suggestions') and the first of the churches replied with "we don't have a piano." I assume then that they also don't have a choir.....

Orange Soda King: Was "Heels Down" also an equestrian?

cafe central has a nice bosie right in the middle. if you're good perhaps they'll let you play on it...

I imagine Adolf Schulz-Evler's Concert Arabesques on J Strauss's Blue Danube would go down well there....

HorseMom,

I was just putting two and two together in suggesting the horse show in Vienna ... but your interesting riposte
(including dreadful dinner parties)...
reminded me of the time I went with a high-power ministerial delegation hitting 3 continents in a brief 19 December days ... as it happened we had 3 days
in Rome (which for an architect is heaven) .

I persuaded the DG to excuse me from the posh midday dinner ... noticing that the the DG would like to have joined me as I raced down the Spanish Steps and homed in on the Roman Forum ... by closing my eyes I could dream of Julius Caesar doing his “et tu, Brute" (largely with the Bard’s pitch)
... but, with my romantic twist, I could imagine a rowdy Colosseum and those poor Christians falling prey to the lions ... the circus floor however, had collapsed with the years and I was looking at the lower-level cages housing the wild beasts.

The surroundings beefed up my understanding of Roman architecture ... the brick-lined framework to the Colosseum triggered a sudden awareness of the genius
of Roman structure ... the Romans had invented what we know as “shuttering” ... using a lining of brickwork into which the earliest concrete was poured ...
enabling the marvels of huge structures such as the Colosseum and the Aquaducts.

Excuse the sidetrack ... perhaps you could duck that posh dinner and venture to the Opera House.

There won't be any posh dinners, LOL! Working dinners, yes. We don't do "posh," we are scientists, and what's more, geophysicists. Those are quite the photos, Entheo and Bennevis. Yes, I play well enough in general that they wouldn't throw me off that Boesendorfer, but I'm working on note-learning and slow metronome practice for my quarter of a piano quartet, which is not what customers would want to listen to without the strings (even if I had it all learned)! But it looks like I might be getting access to the 9' in the VIC center at the UN complex. A colleague at the CTBTO (actually an old contact from Edinburgh) is trying to secure me access. So I think I'm good now. BTB - yes, I also enjoyed the Roman Forum and Colosseum. Most of my stays in Italy have been in the south (Napoli, Catania) but on one of my work visits there, my folks flew over when I was finished with the research and we toured around a bit up in Rome and Firenze. FWIW, in case anyone else is in need of a piano in Vienna, I have heard back from the Amadeus academy and they pointed me to a website:

http://www.klaviergalerie.at/jart/prj3/klaviergalerie/main.jart?rel=en

which is a place that practice rooms (that include pianos) can be booked for 2.5 Eur per hour. I like THAT.

horsemom, a visit to cafe central if only for the desserts is reason enough...



my wife and i cycled from passau to vienna along the danube a couple years ago. here's proof that you can get very close to the bosie...

Yes the Klaviergalerie people are the same folks that you may know as the owners of Wendl & Lung - now Feurich pianos.

Ernest Bittner is the principal owner. Very nice young man.

For cakes Aida is really good, but don't eat too much cake just before playing...

Don't worry, Chopin Addict - I don't eat sweets But I'll mention them to my colleagues, I think one or two of them has a sweet tooth and would probably go nuts in one of these pastry shops!

Entheo --- Looks like some people's dream come true - close to a Bosie AND all those pastries I got to stay in the Willard in D.C. a few months ago - 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue - I asked if I couldn't just stay next door but that went nowhere. The hotel was magnificent with the most opulent lobby and a fantastic bar - with some 20 or 25 kinds of single malt. I'll go for that any day over a pastry! Fantastic well-aged Ardbeg by the fireplace for me!

I just need 88 keys that work and reasonable light, somewhere that I won't be disturbing anyone.

Indeed, that's all I need. But if I can actually use the Bosie at the VIC then why not?