My mother and father purchased a V. Berdux (No 19399) by Karl Lang while on active duty military service in Germany in the early 1960s. My parents were both avid musicians, my father the son of a high school music teacher, and my mother a classically trained opera singer. With 5 boys between the ages of 4 and newborn, they went looking for a piano. They found this piano - it was being sold by an aging professional classical pianist, who according to my mother, had purchased it brand new. 4 years later, my parents shipped it back to the U.S. after my father's assignment in Germany was over.
It has AN INCREDIBLE sound, despite the fact that it's moved at least 8 times, including an almost catastrophic moving accident when my dad fell asleep at the wheel and ran the moving truck off the freeway into the median on the way up from southern Cal to Utah... and survived the "use" of my parents' seven sons. I was the last of those seven, and spent 15 of my child and teenage years practicing on it. This thing got heavy family usage. I remember hours of listening to my mom play as she sang with my dad, practicing some piece to perform in Church or some other community program. Aside from the occasional hike, dinner time and family singing around the piano were the only real times our whole family did anything together - I'm sure there's a few out there who can relate. This piano served a sacred purpose in our family. I'm not gonna lie - there were a lot of times that it received cruel and uncalled-for punishment due to my frustration. ...kids. But I am SO glad that my parents saw potential and required me to practice. At some point along the way, I finally learned to love it. Since I was the one that put by far the most blood, sweat, and frustration into it (practicing and composing 2-3 hrs a day in high school), my mother placed it in my care. It has a new mother now... my wife Marissa... and 4 kids (ages 13 to 4) who take lessons, are coerced to practice daily, (the 4 year old boy bangs on it), and dance around the living room while dad plays either his own compositions or their other favorite pieces. It's one of our favorite times as parents, as they don't seem to fight during family music time. ...what a blessing a piano is.
Our piano is a V. Berdux (No 19399) by Karl Lang. V. Berdux (founded in 1871 by Valentin Berdux in Munich) was a small company with a giant reputation, and is still one of the manufacturers with the most patents in the field of piano action. Known as the Bavarian Steinway, Berdux built among the best ever German pianos. Valentin Berdux tirelessly developed piano technical improvement ideas. It is said that, even on his deathbed, he was spelling out piano improvements to his family. It's no surprise as to why Berdux instruments were characterized by technical innovations and features. This piano is special, not because of an ornate outer shell, but because it has AN INCREDIBLY STUNNING SOUND.
But to a few, it also has a sacred past, and hopefully a long and brilliant future. As I said, my mother played piano and had an incredible voice. My dad played a dozen instruments, and sang as well, so our home was immersed in music, of which this piano played the central part. My brothers all played. I was trained as a classical pianist on it, and was one of very few kids I knew who grew up with a great love and appreciation for classical music - thanks to my parents and this piano. I played everything from Bach to Liszt, Mozart to Debussy, and attained perfect pitch by sitting under its keyboard while my brother received lessons. I've composed...maybe, 75-100 pieces of music on it. I have no other non-living possession that comes close to it in meaning and importance. A great deal of my life has been spent at its keys. Any discipline I have attained was acquired on its bench struggling to discover and then perfect a piece of music. In her later years, my mother would ask me every Sunday to play Mozart's 21st concerto, Debussy's Clair de Lune, and Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. I played it as my family sang hymns for my father as he lay in his bed the day he passed away. What a blessed event. And I hope my kids and their kids will have the same opportunity to develop their character and whatever talent God has given them on the keys of this blessed instrument and be able to play for me when I am old and on my way out.
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YEAR 1930-1940
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MAKE V. Berdux
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SERIAL NUMBER 19399
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FINISH Black/Ebony
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CATEGORY CONTESTANT
