Paul Fisher & John Allen started the company in 1973, and worked together until John left for the USA in 1990 where he currently still works in the piano industry.

Paul Fisher began his career in the piano trade in London in 1967 where he trained in all aspects of the piano with a well-known, long established company. He left for South Africa in 1973 and has been resident in Cape Town ever since.

The business of Allen & Fisher Pianos; Piano World, is predominately that of major restoration, rebuilding, re-polishing, tuning and general servicing.

A fleet of good pianos is available for rental and quality selected secondhand pianos are available, from time to time, for purchase with full guarantees.

The business undertakes all aspects of piano servicing and repair work with very strong emphasis on reliability, thoroughness and great attention to detail. Unlike many piano businesses every technician at Piano World must be able to play the piano. A proper apprenticeship-training scheme is in operation and staff is trained along the lines of the course recommended by the Piano Technicians Guild.

Quality and dedication to detail is the lasting impression.

Our motto is, "Committed to an excellence of Service"

The following is an article by Roz Wrottesley that appeared
in The Cape Argus . . .

Mass production and modern technology have all but wiped out the old trades that called for skill of hand and eye, strength and dexterity, patience and dedication. But fortunately there are a few stubborn human beings who persist in doing things the old fashioned way.

With piano restoration work stretching from now until June 2007, Paul Fisher is not only surviving the age of technology, but making a huge contribution to the sound of music in South Africa.

This south-London-born immigrant is proud of the fact that he arrived here aged 21 in true settlers style with one suitcase and £300 and an overcoat. Now British piano owners send their instruments out here for him to work on.

He built up his business in the country from the remains R.Muller, the company that employed him and his former partner John Allen. John has since settled in Texas, but the name Allen & Fisher is still stenciled on the walls of what was once the Wynberg Hotel in Main Road, now Paul's workshop, from which he also sells and leases pianos.

Rooms are packed with numerous uprights and grands carefully shrouded in old blankets and yellowed curtains.

Some are being worked on by Paul's "hardworking, dedicated team":tuner/restorer Denzil Phillips, mean jazz player, Brandon Winks, who looks after the pianos at the Nico Malan, Dayle Scott-McCullagh, song writer and singer. "I insist that everyone who works here can play the piano." says Paul. "You wouldn't take your car to a mechanic who can't drive, now would you?" He is critical of the general public's ignorance about pianos, which relegated this sublime 300-year-old invention to the status of a useful article of furniture.

Most people subscribe to the view that any old banger will do for their child and that when he gets on a bit they will buy something better," says Paul. "Well that's like tying a child's hands and feet and throwing him into a swimming pool and saying I'll untie you when you can swim. A child needs to learn on an instrument that is responsive because playing the piano is 5% talent and 95% hard work.

"You ask people when they last had their piano tuned or serviced and they'll say airily 'Oh, we don't bother. No one plays it' "Even if you spend your life in bed you have to eat! A piano has to be cared for and maintained." Paul says 99% of the pianos he assesses for potential buyers are not worth restoring. "The halcyon days of the piano he says, "were between 1923 and 1939" They really got it right then, so today a good prewar piano fully rebuilt and restored is always a better investment than a new piano." Restoration can take up to three months and cost more than R70,000. Two of Paul's biggest jobs were a grand piano burnt in the British Embassy fire and a R1,5-million Steinway from the 1820s settlers monument that was also damaged by fire.

An apprenticeship in the piano trade is three years, but "you never stop learning and it takes at least 10 years to start to become proficient," he says. "But then your skills are so valuable, you are never allowed to retire. That's why people go on working into their 80s."