Pianist Erik Wittner’s dream.
Many people first noticed Erik Wittner when a video appeared online, showing him playing piano at Chata pod Rysmi, the highest mountain hut in the High Tatras.
He always plays at the hut on the last day of October, just before the winter closure of the hiking trails. The tradition started in 2021.
One of his videos has almost 700,000 views. “It’s an experience for people,” laughs the pianist. People have already started to recognise him on the way up to the hut and asking if he is the pianist from the videos.
Detailed travel guide to the Tatras introduces you to the whole region around the Tatra mountains, including attractions on the Polish side.
How it started
When Erik Wittner hiked the trail to the Zbojnícka Chata hut some time ago and played the piano there, he was told that there is a piano at Chata pod Rysmi, too. It is there that the highest piano in Slovakia is located, at a height of 2,250 meters above sea level.
According to the pianist, it was always his dream to play such a piano.
On the morning of the last day of October three years ago, Wittner spontaneously decided to hike to Chata pod Rysmi, just before the trails closed. “Such ideas are the best. What a person plans long in advance may not turn out so well,” says Wittner.
At that time, he went to Chata pod Rysmi alone; he also climbed Rysy peak. Later at the hut when he started playing the piano, it was very well received.
“After a while, hut manager Viktor Beránek came to me. He tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘Boy, listen, we’ll put the piano out here for you and you’ll play us one more concert here’,” said Wittner, adding that six guys took the piano outside and he played a one-hour concert under the peak.
People also heard the iconic song from the Czechoslovak movie The Copper Tower, a 1970 cult movie that takes place in the High Tatras about the friendship among a group of climbers.
“It’s a must-see for those who go to the mountains, it’s a symbol of freedom. I hadn’t heard that song until then,” explained the 23-year-old pianist.
Iconic fairy-tale character
A year after the first concert, Wittner returned to the hut again, also just before the end of the summer season. He was better prepared, he also took his camera and slept in the hut.
When he thought about what he would play, the first things that came to mind were mountains and snow.
“I associate both with Perinbaba, who I’d seen about three or four times, and decided to play it there,” he described the idea. Perinbaba (The Feather Fairy) is a well-known Slovak Christmas fairy-tale.
People already recognise him; when he went to Rysy the second time, they asked him if he was the pianist. People also write him, asking when he will play at the hut again.
“The piano is special in that it brings people together, formality is lost,” he claims.
The pianist wants to play at the end of October this year as well.
©Prešov Korzár
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