When Ludwig II, Bavaria's mad king, wished to honor his friend Wilhelm Richard Wagner on his sist birthday in 1864, he thought a piano would make a nice gift. But something really original in the way of a piano! He commissioned Carl Bechstein, who had been in the trade in Berlin for just eleven years, to make one. Today, visitors to Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth are always shown the large square desk, with drawers, built-in ink-stands and space for a beerstein, which turns out to have a piano inside it. And in...
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