Bösendorfer (L. Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik
GmbH
(; ) is a type of Juridical person, legal entity in German-speaking countries. It is equivalent to a (Sàrl) in the Romandy, French-speaking region of Switzerland and to a (Sagl) in the Ticino, Italian-speaking region of Switzerland.
It is a ...
) is an Austrian
piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
manufacturer and, since 2008, a
wholly owned subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...
of
Yamaha Corporation
is a Japanese multinational musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer.
It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company.
The former motorcycle division was establishe ...
.
Bösendorfer is unusual in that it produces
97- and 92-
key models in addition to instruments with standard 88-key
keyboards.
History

Bösendorfer, one of the oldest piano manufacturers, was established in 1828 by
Ignaz Bösendorfer. It has a history of producing highly respected instruments.
In 1830, it was granted the status of official piano maker to the
Emperor of Austria
The emperor of Austria (, ) was the ruler of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The hereditary imperial title and office was proclaimed in 1804 by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorr ...
.
Ignaz's son
Ludwig Bösendorfer (1835–1919) assumed control in 1859, operating from new premises from 1860.
Between 1872 and its closure in 1913, the associated
Bösendorfer-Saal was one of the premier concert halls of Vienna.
In 1909,
Carl Hutterstrasser purchased the company and was succeeded by his sons Alexander and Wolfgang in 1931.
In 1966, the Jasper Corporation (later renamed
Kimball International
Kimball International, Inc. is an American company which consists of furniture brands: Kimball, National, Interwoven, Etc., David Edward, D'Style and Kimball Hospitality. It is the successor to W.W. Kimball and Company, the world's largest piano a ...
), parent company of Kimball Pianos, assumed control of Bösendorfer.
In 2001 Bösendorfer returned to Austrian hands, when the
BAWAG PSK Gruppe purchased it.
On 21 December 2007 BAWAG signed an agreement to sell 100% of Bösendorfer to
Yamaha Corporation
is a Japanese multinational musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer.
It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company.
The former motorcycle division was establishe ...
.
Bösendorfer continues to make handcrafted pianos in the same Vienna factory. Almost 300 of these premium pianos are made each year.
Characteristics
Bösendorfer pioneered the extension of the typical 88-key keyboard, creating the
Imperial Grand (Model 290), which has 97 keys (eight octaves).
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...
initially ordered this innovation in 1909 as part of a custom piano, as he wanted to transcribe an organ piece that extended to the C below the standard keyboard.
This innovation worked so well that this piano was added to regular product offerings and quickly became one of the world's most sought-after concert grands. Because of the 290's success, the extra strings were added to Bösendorfer's other line of instruments such as the 225 model, which has 92 keys. The extra keys, at the bass end of the keyboard, were originally hidden beneath a hinged panel mounted between the piano's conventional low A and the left-hand end-cheek to prevent their being struck accidentally during normal play; more recent models have omitted this device and simply have the upper surface of the extra natural keys finished in matte black instead of white to differentiate them from the standard 88.

The rim of a Bösendorfer grand piano is built quite differently from that of all other grands. Instead of veneers bent around a form, the rim is made in solid sections of spruce and jointed together. Spruce is better at transmitting sound than reflecting it. This is perhaps why Bösendorfers tend to have a more delicate treble and a bass that features the fundamental tone more than the higher harmonics.
There are also two other features of Bösendorfers that are shared with only a few other piano brands: one is a removable ''capo d'astro'' bar in the treble, which facilitates rebuilding of the instrument and, Bösendorfer says, provides greater acoustic separation from the plate, decreasing tonal absorption; the other is single-stringing, providing each string its own individual hitch pin on the plate instead of connecting it to a neighbouring string. This design may slightly improve tuning stability and is an advantage in case of string breakage.
The latest development in the Bösendorfer range is the CEUS digital grand piano reproducing system, which incorporates a computer-controlled mechanism that records a performance on a digital storage medium (magnetic disk or memory chips) and plays it back. The requisite equipment can be fitted to most Bösendorfer pianos to allow the direct recording of pieces while capturing all the
keyboard velocity data as a .boe file.
Bösendorfer uses a proprietary format to record key and pedal movements as a digital file.
Models
Bösendorfer makes eight models of grand piano from 155 cm to 290 cm in length (5'1" to 9'6") and two vertical pianos,120 cm and 130 cm in height (47" and 51"). The Imperial Grand is one of the world's largest pianos.
Each numerical Bösendorfer model directly corresponds to its length in centimeters. For example, a Model 170 is 170 centimeters long (approximately 5'7"). The following tables describes the current Bösendorfer models:
Grand pianos
Current Grand Piano Models
Upright pianos
Current Upright Piano Models
Conservatory Series
To appeal to a wider market, Bösendorfer designed the Conservatory Series for colleges and universities that could not afford Bösendorfer's standard black-model pianos. The production of the two CS Series pianos spends less time in "non-critical areas", cutting down costs of production and purchase, making them more affordable than standard models. The cases and frames are of satin finish, rather than polished and, initially, the pianos were loop-strung
rather than single-strung, but those practices have since been abandoned.
Special and Limited editions
Bösendorfer has produced a number of specially designed pianos named after famous composers such as
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...
,
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...
and
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
, as well as pianos designed for special occasions, such as Bösendorfer's 170th and 175th anniversaries.
SE reproducing piano
Under the ownership of Kimball, Bösendorfer built and sold a small number of Stahnke Edition automatic reproducing pianos based on 3 of the 'Imperial Line' models 225, 275 and 290.
The 'SE' designation was for Stahnke Engineering, whose founder,
Wayne Stahnke, invented the mechanism. These instruments were fitted with sensors, electronics and mechanical systems to record and play back piano performances extremely accurately through electro-mechanical actuation of the piano keys and pedals. These instruments were designed to work with either performances stored on cassette tapes as digital data, or with an attached MS-DOS IBM PC computer. Using the computer, the SE instruments could be used for recording, editing and playback. The SE system instruments were the first commercially available computer-controlled "
player piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...
" capable of accurately reproducing both the notes and intensity of a performer's playing. This system was not further developed or patented due to its high cost. Competitors soon introduced patented reproducing piano technologies such as the
Yamaha Disklavier in 1982.
The Bösendorfer SE instruments were used in a number of well-regarded commercially available audio recordings published on CD, where the performance was recorded on the SE system, but the piano was recorded playing back the performance later in a studio or hall, sometimes on a different instrument. Other audio recordings were produced using converted piano roll recordings from the early 20th century, including a two-disc series entitled 'A Window in Time' featuring performances by Rachmaninoff and produced by Wayne Stahnke.
Thirty-two SE pianos were produced by Bösendorfer between 1984 and 1987, including the 225SE, the 275SE, and the 290SE Imperial model pianos. In the 290 range, this included some 290 to 290SE conversions. One third of the production were 290SE models.
Most of these instruments are still in use as of 2024.
The research that went into the SE reproducing system later laid the foundation for the CEUS computerized reproducing piano system, though much of the resulting design was completely different.
Designer models
Bösendorfer produces a limited number of Artisan Models annually, each available for order only during the calendar year in which it was developed. An example of a designer model is the Bösendorfer
Swarovski
Swarovski (, ) is an Austrian producer of glass based in Wattens, Tyrol. It was founded in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski.
The company is split into three major industry areas: the Swarovski Crystal Business, which primarily produces crystal glas ...
Crystal Grand piano. Three of these special pianos were produced in 2003 in honour of Bösendorfer's 175th anniversary. Each piano's case is encrusted with 8000 crystals and layers of gold.
Three notable architects who have designed Bösendorfer piano models are
Theophil Freiherr von Hansen (1866),
Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956) was an Austrians, Austrian-Sudeten Germans, Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architect ...
(1909) and
Hans Hollein (1990). There were only two Hans Hollein 225 models produced in 1990; one can be found in the lounge of the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Orlando, Florida.
Bösendorfer artists

Among the earliest artists to be associated with Bösendorfer was
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
, who at least once opined that Bösendorfer and
Bechstein pianos were the only instruments capable of withstanding his tremendously powerful playing. The renowned twentieth-century American composer–conductor
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...
has also performed on a Bösendorfer. Another great pianist who championed Bösendorfer pianos was
Wilhelm Backhaus.
In his memoirs,
Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein Order of the British Empire, KBE OMRI (; 28 January 1887 – 20 December 1982) was a Polish Americans, Polish-American pianist. recounts having insisted on a Bechstein instead of the hall's Bösendorfer before a recital in Austria. After the performance, the then-head of the Bösendorfer company came backstage to meet this young artist who refused to play a piano highly cherished by his Russian namesake,
Anton Rubinstein; Rubinstein claims he thereafter always sought out Bösendorfers when in Austria.
In the late 1970s, following a concert performed in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, jazz pianist
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...
turned to his impresario,
Norman Granz
Norman Granz (August 6, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo and the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Gra ...
, with the words: "Dammit, Norman, where does this box go? I also gotta have such a thing!" Such was his reaction to playing a Bösendorfer 290.
Musician/comedian
Victor Borge
Børge Rosenbaum (; 3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000), known professionally as Victor Borge ( ), was a Danish and American actor, comedian, and pianist who achieved great popularity in radio and television in both North America and Europe. Hi ...
also played Bösendorfer pianos.
More recent examples of notable artists who have played the Bösendorfer include Russian pianist
Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter ( – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian classical pianist. He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time,Great Pianists of the 20th Century and has been praised for the "depth of his interpreta ...
claiming it had a preferable pianissimo sound and control, according to his own interview);
Hungarian pianist
András Schiff
Sir András Schiff (; born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor. He has received numerous awards and honours, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Music Bac ...
; Austrian pianist
Alfred Brendel; Italian pianist
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli; American
free jazz
Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...
pianist
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.
Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in comple ...
and American singer-songwriter
Tori Amos
Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full ...
;
German pianist
Wolfgang Rübsam; Austrian pianists
Friedrich Gulda,
Walter Klien and
Paul Badura-Skoda;
British pianists
Leon McCawley and
Mark Gasser.
Minimalist composer
Charlemagne Palestine
Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine (born August 15, 1947), known professionally as Charlemagne Palestine, is an American visual artist and musician. He has been described as being one of the founders of New York school of minimalist music, first initia ...
chose a nine-foot Bösendorfer as the vehicle on which to perform his 1974 composition ''Strumming Music''. Released as his first compact disc in 1991, it features in excess of 45 minutes of Palestine forcefully playing two notes in rapid alternation, slowly expanding into clusters, with the sustain pedal depressed throughout.
Jazz pianist
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd (jazz musician), Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also be ...
performed the solo improvisations (his
Köln Concert) at the Cologne Opera House in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
, Germany, on 24 January 1975 on a Bösendorfer and became a Steinway & Sons artist in 1981.
Recordings
Bösendorfer pianos have appeared on numerous records. Some examples are:
Classical (recordings made with historical Bösendorfer pianos)
* Wolfgang Brunner, Michael Schopper. Anton Bruckner. ''Piano Works''. Label: CPO. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (before 1835).
* Christoph Eggner. Anton Bruckner. ''Piano Pieces from the Kitzler-Studienbuch''. Label: Gramola.
* Christian Lambour. Schubert, Ries, Hummel, Kuhlau, Reinecke, Czerny. ''Almost Mozart: Fantasies after Mozart''. Label: Koch Schwann. Played on pianos by Bösendorfer (1846) and
Broadwood (1812).
* Hardy Rittner, Teunis van der Zwart. Johannes Brahms. ''Early Piano Works Vol. 2''. Label: Dabringhaus und Grimm (MDG). Played on an Ignaz Bösendorfer piano (1849–1850).
* Yves Saelens, Jan Vermeulen. Robert Franz. ''Lieder''. Label: Etcetera Records. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1851).
*
Isabelle Faust,
Alexander Melnikov, Teunis van der Zwart. Johannes Brahms. ''Horn Trio Op. 40, Violin Sonata Op. 78, Fantasies Op. 116''. Label: Harmonia Mundi. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1875).
* Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov. Albert Dietrich, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms. ''Violin Sonatas Op. 100 & 108''. Label: Harmonia Mundi. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1875).
* Alexander Melnikov. Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Igor Stravinsky. ''Four Pianos, Four Pieces''. Label: Harmonia Mundi. Played on pianos by Alois Graff (c. 1828–1835), Érard (1837), Bösendorfer (c. 1875) and Steinway (2014).
* Italian Piano Quartet. Johannes Brahms. ''Piano Quartets Op. 25, 26 & 60''. Label: Symphonia. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1880).
* Maria Milstein,
Jozef De Beenhouwer. Johannes Brahms. ''Hauskonzert bei Brahms - Mürzzuschlag, 23. August 1885''. Label: Brahms Museum Mürzzuschlag. Played on a Ludwig Bösendorfer piano (1882).
* Simona Eisinger, Zuzana Ferjenčíková. Sergei Rachmaninoff, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss. ''Seelenverwandt''. Label: Schwechtenstein-Records. Played on pianos by
Johann Baptist Streicher (1847),
Friedrich Ehrbar (1878) and Ludwig Bösendorfer (1893).
*
Simona Saturova, Markéta Cukrová, Vojtěch Spurný. Antonín Dvořák. ''Moravian Duets''. Label: Supraphon. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1879).
*
Radoslav Kvapil. Antonín Dvořák. ''Dvořák Piano Works''. Label: Alto. Played on the composer's own Bösendorfer piano (1879).
* Radoslav Kvapil. Antonín Dvořák. ''Dvořák Piano Works II''. Label: Alto. Played on the composer's own Bösendorfer piano (1879).
* Jan Michiels. Antonín Dvořák. ''Suite Op. 98, Poetische Stimmungsbilder Op. 85, Humoresken Op. 101''. Label: Eufoda. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1884).
* Jan Michiels. Johannes Brahms. ''Klavierstucke & Intermezzi Opus 116-119''. Label: Eufoda. Played on a Bösendorfer piano (1884).
* Sofja Gülbadamova. Ernst von Dohnányi. ''Suite in the olden style, Pastorale, Variations on a Hungarian folk song''. Label: Capriccio. Played on the composer's own Bösendorfer piano (1910).
Classical (recordings made with modern Bösendorfer pianos)
*
Malcolm Frager recorded ten compositions by
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...
on a Bösendorfer Imperial 290 piano for the TELARC label on August 3 and 4, 1978. This is one of the earlier, high-quality
digital recording
In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...
s of the Imperial. Sampling frequency conversion of Telarc's Soundstream digital master to the Compact Disc format was accomplished with the Studer SFC-16 sampling frequency converter. The digital data was not subject to any analog processing, thus preserving the integrity of the original digital master. Originally released as "Malcolm Frager Plays
Chopin", Telarc DG-10040 in 1979. Re-released with "Sonata, Op. 58" added in 1991 on Telarc CD-80280.
*
Aldo Ciccolini recorded his second traversal of the piano music of
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...
on a Bösendorfer; his first traversal was on a Steinway. Both are included in French EMI set 50999685824 2 5, offering record listeners an unusual opportunity for direct comparison of the two instruments.
*
Peter Hill recorded
Havergal Brian
William Havergal Brian (29 January 187628 November 1972) was an English composer, librettist, and church organist.
He is best known for having composed 32 symphonies—an unusually high number amongst his contemporaries—25 of them ...
's complete piano music on a Bösendorfer Imperial
[Cameo Classics catalogue entry for CC9016CD – ''Havergal Brian: The Complete Piano Music''](_blank)
/ref> at the Northern College of Music for Cameo Classics. John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon (27 January 1937 – 1 August 1989) was an English pianist and composer.
Biography Career
Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire; his family moved to Manchester when he was eight. He attended the M ...
highly praised the recordings in his review for Tempo.
* Gerhard Oppitz in 1989 recorded a complete traversal of the solo piano music of Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...
on an Imperial Grand.
* Awadagin Pratt more recently recorded Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, his own transcription of Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (German: �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the or ...
's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, and Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel on an Imperial Grand.
* Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter ( – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian classical pianist. He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time,Great Pianists of the 20th Century and has been praised for the "depth of his interpreta ...
recorded Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier on a Bösendorfer at Salzburg in two settings of 1972 and 1973.
* Maria Tipo played Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major K 467 on a Bösendorfer with Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg in 1989.
* Carol Rosenberger recorded music of Liszt, Griffes, Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...
, and Debussy
Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...
and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
's ''Appassionata'' and op. 111 sonatas on an Imperial Concert Grand.
* Moritz Rosenthal played a Bösendorfer for his celebrated series of recordings for His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...
.
* Terry Riley's 1986 minimalist piano piece written in Just intonation
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is a musical tuning, tuning system in which the space between notes' frequency, frequencies (called interval (music), intervals) is a natural number, whole number ratio, ratio. Intervals spaced in thi ...
, '' The Harp of New Albion'', was recorded on a Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano, specially tuned for Riley himself.
* Robert Silverman committed a complete Beethoven sonata cycle to computer hard drive on a Bösendorfer 290SE reproducing piano. John Atkinson of ''Stereophile
''Stereophile'' is a monthly American audiophile magazine which reviews high-end audio equipment, such as loudspeakers and amplifiers, and audio-related news.
History
''Stereophile'' was founded in 1962 by J. Gordon Holt. With the August 1 ...
'' magazine then recorded a similar piano at the Maestro Foundation recital hall in Santa Monica, California replaying the files;
John Atkinson: "Ludwig van Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas," ''Stereophile'', January 2001 the resulting CDs were issued as a 10-disc set.
*Robert Ekelund
Robert Burton Ekelund Jr. (September 20, 1940 – August 17, 2023) was an American economist.
Early life and education
Born on Galveston Island, Texas, Ekelund attended St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, earning his BBA in economics ...
– Two albums of piano pieces performed by economist and pianist Robert Ekelund, performed on the Murray N. and JoAnn B. Rothbard Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand Piano in the Mises Institute's Conservatory. Ekelund als
performed
Brahms Rhapsody Op. 79, No. 2; J.S. Bach, Gigue, French Suite No. 5 (G-major).
* Valentina Lisitsa Chopin's 24 Études D.V.D. track. Op. 10 and Op. 25 Études.
*Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
's Le Sacre du Printemps, The Firebird
''The Firebird'' (; ) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who c ...
and Petrushka played by Dag Achatz and Roland Pöntinen on BIS Records was played on a Bosendorfer Model 275
* Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka has recorded J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations for public domain release on the Internet by the Open Goldberg Variations project, an initiative sponsored in part by Bösendorfer. She played a C290 Imperial fitted with the CEUS system. Accompanying the recording—offered in MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...
, FLAC
FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...
, and 24-bit 44 K WAV formats—is a freshly made copy of the full score. Ishizaka also recorded Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time ''clavier'' referred to a variety of keyboard instruments, ...
on a Bösendorfer 280.
* Costantino Catena has recorded on new Bösendorfer VC280 the CD "Dedications—Schumann
Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...
-Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most pro ...
/ Costantino Catena plays the new Bösendorfer 280VC" for Camerata Tokyo
*Zoltán Kocsis
Zoltán Kocsis (; 30 May 1952 – 6 November 2016) was a Hungarian pianist, conducting, conductor and composer.
Biography
Studies
Born in Budapest, he began his musical studies at the age of five and continued them at the Béla Bartók Conser ...
recorded on Bösendorfer, together with conductor Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the complete work for piano and orchestra by Bela Bartok for Philips.
* Huang Tiange recorded on his Bösendorfer 225 Carl Czerny Op. 599 Complete in 2019.
Popular
* Bradley Joseph in his album ''Rapture
The Rapture is an Christian eschatology, eschatological position held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, joined with Chr ...
''.
*According to composer Jim Steinman
James Richard Steinman (November 1, 1947 – April 19, 2021) was an American composer, lyricist and record producer. He also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer. His work included songs in the adult contemporary, rock, dance, pop, mus ...
, Roy Bittan
Roy J. Bittan (born July 2, 1949) is an American musician best known as a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Professor", Bittan joined the E Street Band in 1974. He plays the piano, organ, accordion and synth ...
played a Bösendorfer on the Meat Loaf
Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947 – January 20, 2022), known professionally by his stage name Meat Loaf, was an American singer and actor. He was known for his powerful, wide-ranging voice and theatrical live shows. ...
album '' Bat Out of Hell'' in 1977, which was a deviation from Steinman's preference for Yamaha pianos.
*Singer/songwriter Tori Amos
Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full ...
has recorded and toured exclusively with Bösendorfers since 1993. She has been endorsing Bösendorfer since 1994.
*Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd (jazz musician), Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also be ...
in The Köln Concert
''The Concert'' (TKC) is a live solo double album by pianist Keith Jarrett recorded at the Cologne Opera#The opera house, Opera House in Cologne, Köln, West Germany, on 24 January 1975 and released on ECM Records later that year. It is the bes ...
.
*Matthew Bellamy
Matthew James Bellamy (born 9 June 1978) is an English singer, songwriter and producer. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and lyricist for the English rock band Muse (band), Muse. He is recognised for his eccentric stage persona, wid ...
of the rock band Muse
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...
has recently started using a Bösendorfer.
In popular culture
* A Bösendorfer, with artwork by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami
is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between High art, high and low arts. His wo ...
, is seen in the video for Drake
Drake may refer to:
Animals and creatures
* A male duck
* Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon
People and fictional characters
* Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...
's 2020 song " Toosie Slide".
* Dr. Evil plays a Bösendorfer Imperial piano in the ''Austin Powers
''Austin Powers'' is a series of American satirical spy comedy films created by Mike Myers, who stars as the British spy Austin Powers as well as his arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil. The series consists of '' International Man of Mystery'' (1997), ' ...
'' movies ('böse' means evil in German). While Mini-Me plays a "mini Bösendorfer Imperial" piano Notorious Owners of the Bösendorfer Imperial: Dr. Evil & Mini-Me
/ref>
General bibliography
* Fine, Larry (2007). ''2007–2008 Annual Supplement to The Piano Book''. Brookside Press and (electronic edition).
* Fine, Larry (2001). ''The Piano Book''. Brookside Press
* Kunz, Johannes (2002). ''Bösendorfer: A Living Legend''. Molden Publishing Co.
Citations
External links
*
BosendorferImperial.com
– site about the Imperial pianos, the CEUS system, with complete audio files of songs, images, etc.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosendorfer
Yamaha Corporation
Manufacturing companies established in 1828
Austrian brands
Luxury brands
Piano manufacturing companies of Austria
1828 establishments in the Austrian Empire
2008 mergers and acquisitions
Purveyors to the Imperial and Royal Court
Piano manufacturing companies