> Werner Icking died on the night of February the 8th
I just heard this shocking news and like so many others,
i am stricken by grief. I guess we all have difficulty to
accept he is no longer there.
I felt privileged that he was part of my life. Not only
did he cherish the same interests with music and
cycling which made him a very good friend although
i have never met him, but his enthusiastic and skillful
attitude in music, offering help at any moment, was
heartwarmingly and i learned a lot from him in social
behaviour too.
Everybody will have different stories, but the binding
elements, i just read in the mailing-list, like his helpfulness,
his humor, his patience and his expertise were always there.
My contact with Werner started in 1997 when i started
a page dedicated to the La Folia-theme. He offered me
to typeset some sheet music. Showed me some examples
and what i really appreciated was that from the start he did
not tell me any time how i should handle things. Although
i often asked his advice in the past three and a half years
because i regarded him as a valuable expert both in music
and lay-out-techniques, he never had strong opinions about
the way things should be presented. His personal opinion
never prevailed, but he was always there to give suggestions.
In the past 3,5 year he managed to produce 76 fragments of
sheet music for the website. I usually sent those fragments
to his address (Farnweg 28 D-53721 Siegburg as mentioned in
the mailinglist) or to the FTP-site, always saying that
there was no hurry at all and that it could wait till the dark
winter-nights would arrive, but like clockwork within two days
he managed to send the sheet music ready for publishing.
Especially for difficult modern sheet music he always found
wonderful solutions. Often offering different lay-outs so i
could pick the best suitable in my view.
I consider Werner was not only a good friend because of
our common interests and his enthusiastic helpfulness
but especially because i could mail him at night (mon-wedn)
and i was absolutely sure that he would mail me back without
delay. In one or two lines he could give valuable advice, taking
things seriously but always with a smile.
I will miss him as all the others will and especially to his family,
my thoughts and condolence.
Paul Gabler, The Netherlands
