06/17/2026
Wolf Instrument Wednesdays: Celebrating 50 Years!
📆2007
After its initial trip to the shop in 2006, the huge Italian harpsichord from the Flint collection returned for a more thorough restoration. This gave them four musically solid antiques with which to celebrate the opening of an elaborately re-purposed 19th-century bank barn on their property. The rustic building looked much the same from outside, other than some very modern windows and doors, but was completely renovated inside. The central big room seated 100, with an adjacent recording booth and a museum-quality ventilation system.
The decision to perform (and record) all of Bach’s harpsichord concerti meant maximum usage for all four instruments and five players. It also meant ten days of tuning and maintenance; John Phillips was on hand to help with the latter, but Barbara did the tuning. To get four instruments in tune with each other on a schedule is a time management operation that she had learned all too well with the Labèques.
By mid-summer our Cristofori piano, owner Ted Good, and both of us were en route to the 50th convention of the Piano Technicians Guild. These events attract thousands of people involved with pianos in myriad ways, and this was a landmark occasion. In the previous year we had developed a Power Point presentation about the 1722 antique and delivered it in conjunction with Ted playing the piano and making some observations of his own. It consisted of two 1½-hour sessions, and was the primary “Historical” offering among hundreds of other entries at the week-long extravaganza.
At the final weekend banquet our little piano was placed up on the speakers’ platform in a huge ballroom. After opening remarks, Ted played a few minutes of Bach to the post-cocktail crowd. The room was dead silent, everyone could hear it, and all the “modern” people were moved.
Sadly, toward the end of the year we lost “Uncle” Albert Fuller. A friend, mentor, client and “influencer” for us and so many others, his passing was noted in prominent lengthy obits. He reminded all of us that everything we did was part of “our lives in music”.
