While August Förster pianos are not plentiful in the US, they have been sold here long enough to be known for their consistently high quality and dark, rich tone. This kind of consistent, identifiable tone does not come by chance, but rather from generations of consistent work and dedication. I met up in Löbau Germany with Bert Neidhardt who has been the US distributor for August Förster for something like 40 years. Löbau is deep inside what had been the DDR, or East Germany and has not, at least to my eyes, thrived under the DDR or reunification. But I have always admired the Förster piano and was really looking forward to visiting. I was not disappointed. You can find my photos of the August Förster factory here on Flickr

Just got back from a quick tour of 3 German manufacturers; Bluthner, Steingraeber and Schimmel. I’ve been wanting to visit these makers (and others) and took advantage of my son’s school break and a (relatively) cheap fare from Delta to fly from JFK to Berlin, rent a car, and spend 4 days driving through cold, damp, gloomy northern Europe. We spent Tuesday morning doing a driving tour of Berlin before driving to Leipzig. Berlin is a fascinating city due primarily to its history, not its current incarnation. While it certainly has its sights, it has more than its share of drab, built-in-a-hurry, post war architecture. I did show my son the wall, drive through the former East part and have a lunch of a Donner. Then on to the autobahn for the 2 hour drive to Leipzig, where we stayed the first night in a typical, small, hotel-restaurant and slept