standard 88. The extra notes were originally added so that pianists could play Busoni’s
arrangements of Bach’s organ works.
One of the earliest and most important pianists to be associated with Bösendorfer was
Franz Liszt who found that Bösendorfer and Bechstein pianos were the only instruments
capable of withstanding his tremendously powerful playing. Still today Bösendorfer is
known as a piano that will withstand the rigours of concert halls and tours.
The Bösendorfer sound is darker and richer than the purer but less full sound of the
Steinway, due in part to the extra bass notes which resonate when the other strings are
struck.
Bösendorfer produces a more affordable ‘Conservatory Series’ of pianos in which the
cases and frames are of satin finish rather than polished finish and the pianos are loop
strung rather than single strung. Bösendorfer has also developed a computer that can be
fitted to most Bösendorfer pianos to enable the direct recording of a piano performance.
BRAHMS
Life
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) is one of the four great romantic composers for piano, the
others being Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.
Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany but spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria. He
was a virtuoso pianist and is recognised as the greatest symphonic composer after
Beethoven. Brahms’s piano works are much-loved; classical in form and structure, they
have a rich emotional palette and an original style.
Brahms adapted his lyrical and romantic idiom to classical structures that attach great
importance to motivic development. Because of his preference for and extensive use of
the sonata and variation forms he was thought by Wagner to be an insignificant tributary
of music although his ability was acknowledged. Brahms’s music is absolute and he
avoided the use of descriptive titles but at the same time his music is very imaginative.
Brahms is particularly satisfying in that he combines a classical foundation with a richly
romantic emotional overlay.
Brahms’s style of writing for the piano is original and individual. He uses the lower
register of the piano with pedal and full sonority. He uses block chords in the middle of
the keyboard, octaves, thirds and sixths, and generally cultivates an awkwardness and
difficulty in his piano writing with a view to creating original sonorities. He also uses
cross rhythms and syncopation to create novel effects.
Brahms was greatly influenced by and absorbed Bach’s counterpoint and Beethoven’s
classical forms.