Berta Hopfner (5.5.1919 - 9.5.2010) Berta Hopfner, my maternal grandmother, was born on 5.May 1919 to the Gloeckner family in the "Sudeten Area" (today located in the Czech Republic). In winter 1946/47 she had to leave her home, together with her parents and her two children, and settled in Northern Bavaria where she rebuilt her life. Music was her help and consolation in many parts of her life: she often played piano, and from her small Lotto win in the 1970s she bought an electric home organ. She gave private piano lessons and taught many children the art of playing piano. In my family, she is the one with the strongest musicality: so I must have gotten my own inclination to music from her. When I was a child she supported me getting a Cello, and later she bought me the Yamaha Upright piano which had that very nice light touch keyboard and that third pedal in the middle, which muted the whole sound so our neighbors would not be bothered too much. Everytime I visited her, I had to play on the piano or on the organ an improvisation of her favorite music: From Antonin Dvorak's Symphony #9 "From the New World" the second movement (Largo). For her I created the rendition of this music below, to her 91st birthday. But she was not able to recover from the stroke she had a few weeks earlier - and she passed away silently on 9.May 2010. Dvorak: Symphony #9, "From the New World", 2nd movement (Largo)  Recording status: rehearsal. Duration: 9:37. Filesize: 8.2 MB Codec: Windows Media Audio 9.2, VBR Quality 90, 44 kHz, stereo 1-pass VBR, 162 kbps (vbr), 2 channels (stereo), 44.1 kHz, 16 bits/sample, wma, compression ratio: 0.117. This is the second revision of the recording since the last edit of the MIDI file on 21.10.1995. The first revision on 30.4.2010 was done to convert the original MIDI file version from 1995 to the latest samples with GPO4. In this second revision I reduced the overall volume to avoid one clipping incident and to keep at least 3dB away from the maximum possible level, to avoid distortion during replay. Made the initial brass entrance theme more distinct, by removing the legato impression. Removed one too loud pizz note, and enhanced one note of the solo violin. This rendition was created on 1.May 2010 and is specifically recorded to honor my beloved grandmother, Berta Hopfner: this music is her favorite piece, and everytime I visited her, I had to play it on her piano/organ. She is the one who gave me the gift of musicality. She was a piano teacher and taught many students. She was born on 5.5.1919, and now at almost 91 years old she is at very bad deteriorating health after her third stoke. I hope that this recording will cheer her up and revive her spirits. There is more information available about this recording, with access to other recordings of this music. Recorded: 2.May 2010