Bösendorfer (company)

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L. Bösendorfer Piano Factory GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1828
Seat Vienna
management Sabine Grubmüller
Branch Manufacture and wholesale of pianos
Website www.Boesendorfer.com

The Viennese piano factory Bösendorfer is a manufacturer of pianos . Bösendorfer grand pianos played a key role in the development of piano music in the 19th and 20th centuries.

history

Founder Ignaz Bösendorfer (1794-1859)
Son Ludwig Bösendorfer (1835–1919)
Franz Liszt gives a concert for Emperor Franz Joseph I on a Bösendorfer

19th century

The company was founded on July 25, 1828 in Vienna by Ignaz Bösendorfer , who had been an apprentice to Joseph Brodmann and who now took over his workshop. Within a very short time he acquired an excellent reputation for his neatly crafted and beautiful sounding instruments and in 1839 was the first piano maker ever to receive the title of kk court piano maker from the Kaiser . In 1858 he was appointed as the emperor's highly respected chamber supplier.

When he died in 1859, his only 24-year-old son Ludwig Bösendorfer took over the company. Since the titles of the court and chamber suppliers were related to the person, he had to submit another request to the emperor. He did not receive the title of imperial purveyor to the court until 1866, and that of his majesty's chamber supplier in 1869. With great skill he continued the company and the instruments were soon exported all over the world. Franz Liszt , the exceptional pianist, whose piano playing had ruined almost every piano up until then, played mainly on Bösendorfer pianos, as these instruments withstood his playing.

In 1870 the company moved into the existing factory building in Starhemberggasse (today's address Graf-Starhemberg-Gasse  14) in the 4th district of Vienna, Wieden . The factory was adapted for Bösendorfer between 1871 and 1873. In 1872, the first concert took place in the former riding school of the Palais Liechtenstein on Herrengasse , the Bösendorfer Hall with its legendary acoustics.

In 1900 the Imperial grand piano with an eight octave range (from subcontra-C to c5), which was built at the suggestion of Ferruccio Busoni , caused a sensation . With its 290 centimeters, the Imperial was the longest grand piano in series production until the model 308 from the Fazioli company and is still the only upright piano with 97 keys.

Founded in 1828, Bösendorfer is the longest-running piano manufacturer in the world.

20th century

At this time around the turn of the century, piano construction flourished, in which Bösendorfer played a major role. The instruments were technically mature, only the best material was used and the time factor was not yet the decisive factor in production.

Ludwig Bösendorfer, who remained childless, sold the company to his friend Carl Hutterstrasser in 1909. In 1913, despite numerous protests, the Bösendorfer Hall fell victim to building speculation. The building was torn down and, as if in mockery, the square in the center of Vienna remained vacant for many years.

The First World War brought a serious setback for the company, and Ludwig Bösendorfer died in 1919. Production started again slowly. In 1931 Carl Hutterstrasser's sons, Alexander and Wolfgang, joined the company, which became an OHG ( open trading company ).

The Second World War brought the next major setback, in 1944 the wood store burned after a bomb attack. When the first skilled workers returned from captivity after the war, the arduous new beginning began. Production could slowly be resumed and increased. During the years of the Soviet occupation, Steinway was able to conquer the market without a competitor, so to speak.

On the occasion of the company's 125th anniversary in 1953, Bösendorfer donated a golden finger ring as an award for the most important pianist. First winner of the Bösendorfer ring was Wilhelm Backhaus . After the wearer's death, the ring is passed on to a worthy successor who has been previously determined by him. On the occasion of the company's 150th anniversary in 1978, the ring was awarded to Paul Badura-Skoda .

In 1966, the Bösendorfer company became a stock corporation and 100% was taken over by the US company Kimball International in Jasper (Indiana) . This company dealt with wood processing in the broadest sense and also built pianos. With Kimball's commitment, production could be increased and many instruments exported all over the world, but serious management errors in the 1980s led to a significant loss of quality and, at the same time, sharply increasing prices for the instruments.

In 1973 most of the production was relocated to the new factory in Wiener Neustadt , and in 1983 a new Bösendorfer hall was inaugurated for concerts in the factory building on Wiener Wieden.

At the end of the 1990s, the quality of the instruments was again significantly increased to an appropriate level.

21st century

In 2001 the company received the state award and thus the right to use the federal coat of arms in business dealings. In 2002, Bösendorfer came back into Austrian hands and the company was taken over by the BAWAG group of companies. In 2003, Austrian Post issued a stamp to mark the company's 175th anniversary.

After the turmoil at BAWAG and its takeover by the US fund Cerberus , the traditional piano manufacturer was sold to the Japanese musical instrument manufacturer Yamaha in December 2007 . Yamaha, for its part one of the largest and most important piano manufacturers and currently producing its instruments in Japan, England (until autumn 2009) and Indonesia, has given Bösendorfer a guarantee for Austria as a location.

On May 19, 2010, the new selection center was opened at the Wiener Neustadt production site, where the instruments can also be tried out under concert hall conditions. At the same time, the administration and sales were moved from Vienna to Wiener Neustadt in order to achieve savings. While the old factory building in Wieden was thus given up, in Vienna the city salon in the music club building remains. Since October 2010 there has been a “Bösendorfer Hall” again in the Mozarthaus Vienna at Domgasse 5, near St. Stephen's Cathedral, where concerts are regularly held.

With the shutdown of the factory building on the Wieden in 2010, the street-side wing was placed under monument protection by the Federal Monuments Office (BDA) in the first instance . The three owners of the property at the time, however, successfully appealed: In November 2011 the Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture lifted the notice of protection . The BDA state curator responsible for Vienna, Friedrich Dahm, justified this to the news magazine profil in July 2012 with the fact that the BDA's decision mainly focused on the cultural and historical value of the sounding name Bösendorfer, while the factory has the architectural status "certainly not a monument" be. This was also the reason for the revocation of the monument protection notice. The BDA President Barbara Neubauer also thought the lifting of the protection was right. The property has "no monument quality" and is only a "classic memorial plaque". At the beginning of 2012, the property was acquired by Real-Treuhand, a subsidiary of Raiffeisenlandesbank , who wanted to build a residential building with 80 rental and owner-occupied apartments and an underground car park on the 2711 square meter area from mid-2013. The buildings of the traditional Bösendorfer factory have been demolished since mid-July 2012.

In autumn 2013, Bösendorfer built the 50,000. Instrument. The number of units of the main competitor Steinway is more than ten times as high.

Piano wing

Models

Bösendorfer 214CS grand piano
Interior painting with notes in the lid of a Bösendorfer grand piano and the reflections of the cast frame and the strings

Grand piano models are currently being built in the following lengths: 155 cm, 170 cm, 185 cm, 200 cm and 214 cm (pitch range subcontra A – c5) with 88 keys each, 225 cm (pitch range subcontra F – c5) with 92 keys, 280 cm ( Pitch range subcontra A – c5) with 88 keys and 290 cm (pitch range subcontra C – c5) with 97 keys. The Conservatory Series (CS) includes the grand piano models (the number stands for the length of the grand piano in centimeters) 170 CS, 185 CS, 200 CS and 214 CS (pitch range subcontra A – c5) with 88 keys each.

Furthermore, two piano models with a height of 120 cm and 130 cm are built (pitch range subcontra A – c5) with 88 keys each. All Bösendorfer pianos are made in Austria - Wiener Neustadt.

particularities

In contrast to other manufacturers, Bösendorfer also includes the housing in the sound generation. The typical Bösendorfer sound is “vocal”, with strong basses. A good Bösendorfer is capable of many nuances of sound and is particularly suitable for chamber music and song accompaniment, both in the field of classical and jazz.

Up until the First World War, Bösendorfer also built grand pianos with a pin mechanism (Viennese mechanics), and at the end of the 19th century also with various types of jack mechanics (English mechanics).

The typical Bösendorfer sound is now available from various companies as a sample (in digitized form) for electronic music production.

Bösendorfer exhibition room
on the back of the Musikverein

Computer wing

First generation SE

In 1985 the prototype of a computer grand piano based on the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial was presented. This instrument was developed by the American engineer Wayne Stahnke in collaboration with John Amuedo from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the then owner of Bösendorfer, Kimball International, Inc. It was offered under license from Stahnke from 1986 as the Bösendorfer SE225, Bösendorfer SE275 and Bösendorfer SE290. The SE in the type designation stands for Stahnke Engineering, the number for the length of the wing in centimeters. A total of about 37 such instruments were made, about a third of them SE290. The instrument is equipped with infrared sensors that precisely record the hammer end speed of the 92 (SE225, SE275) or 97 (SE290) tones, the time at which a key is struck and released, and the position of the pedals.

The piano playing data determined in the process are transmitted to an external device, the so-called black box . This black box is connected to a PC , the data can be edited there with a special editor. The data saved or edited on the PC can also be played back on the sash via a mechanism controlled by magnetic coils. The black box also contains a MIDI - interface . The instrument is used as a compositional tool on the one hand, and as a reproduction piano on the other . For example, a pianist can play with himself four hands: He first plays one part, then lets it play through the computer and plays the second part. It is also possible that a pianist gives a concert somewhere in the world on the computer grand piano and the data is transferred to another computer grand piano at another location, where this grand piano then plays alone.

Second generation CEUS

After the SE had not been established for several years, Bösendorfer decided to develop a new system called CEUS with the Vienna company TVE and with the collaboration of the Vienna University of Technology . The acronym stands for Create Emotions with Unique Sound, the original name CEUSS for Computer Enhanced for Ultimate Super Sound . The first Bösendorfer CEUS grand was delivered to the Canadian music research center BRAMS in Montreal at the end of 2005 . Bösendorfer maintains the CEUS firmware regularly and makes it available for download on the website. The generated .boe files can be edited with the BOEdit editor . In 2010, CEUS 2.0 implemented a WLAN interface based on the IEEE 802.11n ( n-WLAN ) standard , which enables fast, wireless data transmission using MIMO antennas. In addition to the evolutionary stage of Wayne Stahnke's SE technology, SE2, and the YAMAHA Disklavier E3 PRO, which was developed by the British engineer Richard Shepherd together with Live Performance, Inc., it is currently the most complex and precise combined recording and reproduction system for acoustic grand pianos in professional use .

Bösendorfer disklavier E3

The Bösendorfer disklavier E3 grand piano, designed jointly by Yamaha and Bösendorfer for the entertainment sector and presented in 2010 in a model 200, has the retrofittable Yamaha Disklavier E3 reproduction system with an integrated recording function.

Broad spectrum of artists

Alfred Brendel - Salzburg 2009

Since the company was founded, a number of composers, pianists and other musicians have shown their love for Bösendorfer pianos. Starting with Franz Liszt , the company can refer to a long list of customers. Béla Bartók , for example, used a piano from the manufacturer. In his second piano concerto he also uses the additional notes up to the subcontra-F of some Bösendorfer models that are not available on grand pianos from other manufacturers.

The spectrum ranges from representatives of classical music such as Anton Bruckner and Wilhelm Backhaus to jazz and pop music , such as jazz pianist Oscar Peterson , who wrote a homage to Bösendorfer in his book A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson , or Representing rhythm and blues singer Lionel Richie . Frank Zappa , Georg Kreisler , Peter Gabriel played Bösendorfer grand pianos, and the singer and pianist Tori Amos is known for using a Bösendorfer at her live concerts. The songwriter Konstantin Wecker is also regularly on stage with his Bösendorfer grand piano. Since 2014, jazz pianist and composer Marialy Pacheco has also been a member of the illustrious circle of Bösendorf artists. The CD “Dedications: Schumann-Liszt. Costantino Catena plays the new Bösendorfer 280VC ”(2018) is dedicated to the Bösendorfer 280VC.

literature

  • Reinhard Engel, Marta Halpert : Luxury from Vienna 2. From designer lamps to concert grand pianos - traditional and modern from a master hand. Czernin, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7076-0142-0 .
  • Ingrid Haslinger: Customer - Kaiser. The story of the former imperial and royal purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .
  • Johannes Kunz : Bösendorfer. A living legend . Molden, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85485-080-8 .

Web links

Commons : Bösendorfer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Thomas Trenkler: Demolition in Vienna: Bösendorfer factory is history. In: Der Standard , July 6, 2012. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
  2. ↑ http://www.colinbattremovals.co.uk/top-10-best-piano-makers/
  3. ^ Entry on 175 years of Bösendorfer in the Austria Forum  (as a stamp illustration). Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  4. ↑ Bösendorfer is sold to Yamaha.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Vienna. ORF .at.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / wien.orf.at  
  5. ↑ Verena Kainrath: I see little future for Bösendorfer. In: The Standard . March 28, 2009. Retrieved March 28, 2009 .
  6. ↑ Bösendorfer announces the merger of production and sales. Press release in: APA-OTS, March 25, 2009. Accessed April 10, 2009.
  7. ↑ a b Demolition of the old Bösendorfer factory. In: wien.ORF.at. July 18, 2012. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
  8. ↑ Beginning of 2012: According to Der Standard in January, according to wien.ORF.at in March 2012.
  9. ^ RA Moog, TL Rhea: Evolution of the keyboard interface: The Bösendorfer 290 SE recording piano and the Moog multiply-touch-sensitive keyboards. (PDF file; 2.5 MB), In: Computer Music Journal. 14, 1990, pp. 52-60.
  10. ↑ W. Goebl, R. Bresin: Measurement and reproduction accuracy of computer-controlled grand pianos. In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 114 (4), 2003, pp. 2273-2283.
  11. ↑ CEUS Create Emotions with Unique Sound. ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Bösendorfer. 1, 2007, p. 18.
  12. ↑ DD Jackson: Bösendorfer CEUSS High Performance Player System: Smart Piano. ( Memento of April 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 1.5 MB), In: Down Beat. 9, 2007.
  13. ↑ J. Sauerzapf: BOEdit, the exclusive editing software for CEUS.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) In: Bösendorfer. 5, 2010, p. 16.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.boesendorfer.com
  14. ↑ Automatic piano - Bösendorfer is networked. In: elektronikJournal. 12, 2010, p. 45.
  15. ^ M. Cohen: CEUS System Networking. 2011.
  16. ^ T. Gibb: Rachmaninoff in Re-performance. Live with Zenph Studios in Raleigh, North Carolina . In: Positive Feedback Online. 44, 2009.
  17. ^ W. Stahnke: Live Performance LX, Live Performance SE. 2009. Live Performance, Inc.
  18. ↑ Yamaha DCFXE3PRO. Yamaha Corporation of America and Yamaha Corporation
  19. ^ J. Sauerzapf: Bösendorfer disklavier E3, the entertainer.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) In: Bösendorfer. 5, 2010, p. 17.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.boesendorfer.com
  20. ↑ product page disklavier E3 on the website of Yamaha Music Europe GmbH
  21. ^ O. Peterson: A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson. Continuum International Publishing Group, London 2003, ISBN 0-8264-6725-3 , ISBN 978-0-8264-6725-6 .
  22. ↑ Leo Szemeliker: The Bösendorfer piano. Der Standard , March 28, 2009, accessed March 28, 2009 .
  23. ^ "Dedications: Schumann-Liszt" (Camerata Tokyo CMCD-28356). Access date: August 18, 2018.