Europe 2013: Birthday Edition

September 5, 2013

The original plan for today (which is, coincidentally, my birthday) was to be on the bike, riding for Switzerland. But that all changed when I got onto this cello wheeze.

As I mentioned yesterday, Herr Schachner said he had a couple of cellos he wanted me to check out today at 3, and I was quite curious to see what he would find. He latched onto my preference for something older, and that was enough of a hook. So I stayed around, and spent the day wandering from luthier to music shop to luthier in Vienna. Not a bad way to spend a day, really.

I started early, and was in fact on the way well before 10. Although this sounds clever, it was actually a problem: the first place I wanted to visit (Musikhaus Tauschcenter), it turned out, wasn't open until 12:30, and I got that at 10:45. So I had some time to kill. It was indeed a store that mostly sold guitars, but there was a cello in the window, and clearly I needed to come back and see what they had. I was hoping to find that rare, underpriced, underappreciated gem.

So, I decided to see if I could find the other luthier's shop on my list, which was one Reutterner, pretty close to the Musikhaus. One of the "joys" of Europe is that the addresses are typically sequential. In the US, they're based on cross-street, at least on the west coast, so it's pretty easy to know more or less where an address should be. In Europe, if you only know the street and the number, it can be quite a long walk.

In this case, I was looking for 85a, and completely missed it. On one side of the street, I was looking at 79, and on the other, 56. Normally they're pretty closely related, and you'd expect 85 and 84 to be on opposite sides of the street, within a house or two of each other. I had to double back, and finally found it: a large complex with five or six different buildings, each with five or six floors, and multiple rooms on each floor. All I had was "85a/104," and it took me a little while to find the directory: 2nd building, 4th floor (that is, ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor, etc., so we would call it the 5th floor). I heaved myself up the stairs, and got to the door. Just the name, no hours, no other sign I was in the right place except for a poster for an event that didn't seem to have anything directly to do with Geigenbau Reutterner.

I tentatively turned the knob, and was surprised to find the door unlocked. I poked my head in, and yes, I was definitely in the right place. I wish I'd asked her if I could take a picture, the shop was so lovely: a big window on the far wall backlit a number of violins hanging over a long table with in-progress instruments on it. A beautiful dark cello stood to one side. After a bit of conversation, it turned out that the beautiful cello was the only one she had, and it was a bit out of my price range (like, six times out of my price range), so we had a pleasant if brief conversation, and I excused myself. The cello, as she said, was from 1817 or so, and no doubt played like a dream. I didn't even bother asking if I could try it.

I have a feeling that I don't really know enough to tell the difference between a decent cello and a great one. I fear it would be wasted on me. Conversely, I also fear I would be utterly spoiled for the cellos I could actually afford, so better to avoid the whole thing either way.

In any case, she recommended a fellow luthier across town, and said she knew she had a few cellos in stock. I should check there. So (after a bit of a rest, since it was hot out, and I was foolishly wearing long pants) I headed for Henriette Lersch's shop.

Frau Lersch was indeed there, and did indeed have cellos in stock, but the only one in my price range definitely didn't have a pleasing tone to me. I've discovered after all this that I am very particular about the voice of the cello I want. I thanked her, and bade her farewell, to head back to the now-open Musikhaus.

Another trip on the U-bahn, and I was at the Musikhaus. An interesting shop, clearly catering to the more-casual musician, it nevertheless had four or five consignment cellos on hand, and some new instruments. I tried either most or all of the consignment cellos, and one of the new. The consignments were fine, but nothing special. The new one, made in Germany by Gewa had a horrible tinny metal-guitar sound to it, and I barely had to do more than tune it up to know it was firmly on the "avoid" list. This is not a commentary on Gewa cellos in general, but at least this one had a really jarring brassy sound.

So, I bade yet another shop owner farewell, and headed out. At this point, it was well past 2, and I was supposed to meet Herr Schachner at 3. It was with, I must say, a certain amount of excited anticipation that I was looking forward to this visit. I really liked talking to him, and was curious to see what he'd dug up for me -- would it be an amazing cello that I just couldn't live without, despite being at or above my price point?

He asked me to come back ten minutes later, and when I returned, he showed me into his music room. This was a room with vaulted ceilings and instruments everywhere. The "instruments everywhere" look is big in violin shops in Vienna these days.

The first cello he showed me was fairly pretty, with a mellow but still too high tone. The second one was gorgeous, with a very dark finish, and a number of large repairs (which I think makes the thing more interesting), although its tone pleased me even less. He said its price was almost 150% of my limit, so the choice was really pretty easy. I thanked him for his time (I'm getting much better at using the formal-you form, and my pleasantries are coming along nicely), and left the shop with a little bit of regret. I'd been quietly hoping that he'd show me the cello that I'd just fall in love with, and price be damned (although I was hoping more for the love part, and less for the price part). Alas, no.

So now, I had a choice to make. I knew that Ramsaier had two cellos I was interested in, possibly enough to even purchase. Did I go back there, or call the whole thing a bust, and head for home? Calling it a bust would be a lot simpler: no shipping to figure out, no worrying I'd made the wrong choice for my comparatively momentous purchase, nothing to do but go home and pack for the morning's ride out of Vienna.

On the other hand, I was thinking pretty seriously about one of the two, and I thought it would be one of those things I would likely regret if I didn't do it. I wasn't thinking this at the time, but I definitely am now: whoever said, "It isn't the things I've done that I regret, it's the things I didn't do," had it spot-on. This trip has pretty much been me saying, "Screw it, I'm only going to be here once," and this was another such occasion.

I made my way back to Ramsaier, and spent the next 45 minutes switching back and forth between the two cellos, and switching between different bows, until I was competely confused as to what I actually wanted. Both cellos sounded good, for different reasons. The one that I preferred visually had a brighter tone, but still with a pleasant, non-brassy voice. The one that I preferred aurally had a fuller tone, and actually was prettier than I'd thought yesterday. Plus, the better-tone instrument was cheaper by a notable margin.

After my forty-five minutes of indecision, I decided that I should trust my first impressions, and I bought the fuller-toned cello. I also picked the bow that was clearly the winner among the three carbon-fiber models I was playing with, and I selected a new case in a racy deep-red faux carbon fiber finish. It weighs about a third of my case at home. It's also missing a pocket for my endpin stop, and a pocket for music, but I can look past these faults. It includes shoulder straps, so I can wear the cello like a backpack, which may actually come into play at some point (but not on the motorcycle, not on this trip).

By the time I'd paid for it, and we'd worked out the tax-free paperwork (since the cello isn't staying in the EU, I get the tax back on the cello, bow, and case -- and 19% is nothing to sneeze at), it was nearly 5:45. I hoofed it up to the DHL store, deeply hoping I could get it shipped out tonight, but no such luck. The guy said I could leave it there and come back in the morning, but if it had to wait until tomorrow, there was no way I was not going to show it off to the Neunteufels, and probably to my parents via Skype. Apparently most of the possibilities for the day had already passed us by, although I'm not at all sure why this should be the case.

So, it was a tired Ian who doubled back a few times trying to figure out the most efficient way to get home, shiny new cello case in tow (seriously, it shows every fingerprint). Toting the cello apparently gave me immediate "Vienna resident" cred, and I was asked by a possibly Spanish couple how to get to a certain street I'd never heard of. Fortunately, they had it marked on a map, and I was better oriented than they were, so I was able to point them in the right direction.

Reinhart and Marta gave me a lovely little birthday party, with a Sachertorte (a delicious chocolate cake with some kind of fruit jam in it, either Johannisbeeren or raspberry), and we did indeed have a Skype call with my parents, where I got to do a slow-pan of the camera to the new cello sitting in its case. Cori called to wish me happy birthday as well.

It has, overall, been a pretty good day.

And now the plan for tomorrow is to get to the violin shop the moment they're open (they're giving me a cello-case-sized box, which should make shipping easier and hopefully cheaper than using whatever generic box the DHL folks have lying around), and the DHL store mere moments later. Get it all packed up and shipped (you don't even want to know what shipping will cost -- buying another ticket on the plane is quite possibly cheaper, but no way am I going to carry a cello with me for the next two weeks). Actually, it looks like I may have trouble with customs if I ship the cello, and expect to get my taxes back: the instructions are pretty clear that I need to have the item, the receipt, and my passport. I'll have to ask tomorrow if it's possible to do the tax thing without having the product there with me. Possibly if I have the shipping receipts as well (to prove it's not staying in the EU, which is probably what they care about), that would work. We'll see.

Return to the Europe 2013 page

Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.