During a performance, the artist should avoid turning the mental spotlight from the music
to his own well-being.
Under no circumstances should a mistake be allowed to ruin the remainder of a
performance. Mistakes loom much larger to the performer than they do to the listeners.
In the days leading to the performance do not always practice on the same piano.’
BLUTHNER
The Blüthner piano company was founded by Julius Blüthner in 1853 in Leipzig,
Germany. Early success occurred at exhibitions and conservatoriums and on the concert
stage. Further inventions and innovations led Blüthner to patent a ‘repetition action’ and,
in 1873, the aliquot scaling patent for grand pianos. This added a fourth, sympathetic
(‘aliquot’) string to each trichord group in the treble to enrich the piano’s weakest register
by enhancing the overtone spectrum of the instrument. The aliquot string runs parallel to
the normal strings, but is elevated where the hammer strikes so that it is not struck
directly, but vibrates in sympathy with the other strings. The string resonance also
slightly occurs when other harmonic notes are played.
By 1885 Blüthner was the largest European piano manufacturer but in 1905 was
surpassed by Bechstein. During World War II the Blüthner factory was ruined by target
bombing but it was later rebuilt and opened at the same location. The Blüthner family
continues their fifth generation piano building tradition.
The composers Wagner, Brahms, Johann Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Reger, Debussy, Bartók
and Shostakovitch, the pianist Wilhelm Kempff, and the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler,
all owned Blüthner pianos.
BOSENDORFER
The Bösendorfer piano company was established in Vienna in 1828 by Ignaz Bösendorfer
and is the oldest piano manufacturer still producing its own instruments today. It has
produced some of the finest instruments in the world. In 1830 it was granted the status of
official piano maker to the Emperor. Ignaz’s son Ludwig took over 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. The company passed
through various hands over the years before returning to Austrian hands in 2002.
Bösendorfer pioneered the extension of the typical 88 -key keyboard, creating the
Imperial Grand Model 290 which has 97 keys, and later the Model 225 which has 92
keys. The extra keys which are all 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 them being struck accidentally during normal playing. 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