Werner was truly a friend. If it had not been for his generous support
and encouragement, you would not have PMX to help tame the MusiXTeX
beast. From the very beginning he gently prodded me to make it better
and better. He patiently tested every incremental release on all of his
hundreds of sources. I'm still mystified how he could have detected
some of the bugs and incompatibilites. And he had an uncanny ability to
expose bugs that depended on 3- or 4-way interactions before coming to
light.
I had the pleasure of meeting him in person when he and his wife visited
the US several years ago, and stayed at my house for several days. He
had not brought his violin with him, so we never got to play together
any of Bach's violin pieces he loved so much. But at one point he sat
down at one of my harpsichords and before I knew it, we were jamming
away on 2 harpsichords on some swing tunes. He asked me many times when
I would be coming to Germany. If ever there was a lesson in why not to
procrastinate, this is it.
Rest in peace, my friend.
--Don Simons
