Garrick is a good friend of Bosendorfer and graciously agreed, at an event at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC, to give a sampling from his upcoming all Scriabin recital. This was music making of the highest order, in the most wonderful, casual, engaging setting you can imagine.

Namm has come and gone. We did something completely different this year by not showing at NAMM in our customary large booth with nice lighting, Viennese coffee and champagne. Instead we hosted our dealers at the very nice Le Merigot in Santa Monica with the intention of giving them a relaxing break and a chance to talk with them (and take orders) in a more relaxed setting. The result was great..much less work, much less cost and much nicer all around experience. The problem is that my relatively new Canon G9 camera disappeared. Whether or not I just lost it or it was taken out of my room is unclear and,ultimately, not important. But it does mean that a lot of good photos are gone, gone, gone. We showed a revised CS and the new satin lacquer finish. Very well received.

There is a problem representing a maker while blogging. It means that I have to be rather circumspect both in regards to Bosendorfer and in regards to competitors. This is an insanely small industry and one tends to hear all kinds of rumblings. The rumblings that actually turn out to be true and of significance are rare.

I’m in Charleston SC right now (really great city!) and just heard Valentina Lisitsa play the Tchaikovsky 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic. Valentina is a big Bosendorfer fan, and the feeling is mutual. But our bank of concert pianos can’t completely keep up with the vast range of her performances, and we don’t have a piano near Charleston. So, imagine my surprise to see a shiny Yamaha CFIIIS on the stage. I’m rather partial to the CFIIIS, having managed the Yamaha US Artist Relations program for 10 years. Oh, and I also own one. I believe that the world needs more than one concert piano and Yamaha has worked very very hard to give the world one, with the resources to put it out where people can see (hear) it. You could call the world of concert pianos a zero sum game (any win for one is a loss for

June…November…not so bad, right? Of course, a lot has happened during this period, but some things can’t really be talked about…strategy, plans, that sort of thing. Here are a couple of items: North American Dealers meeting in Las Vegas in August – big success International Dealers Meeting in Vienna in September – big success Bottom dropping out of the economy in October.. – real crap Bosendorfer Piano channel on YouTube – cool in a nerdy kind of way. (www.youtube.com/bosendorferpianos) Finally I have a place for a lot of the video I’ve been shooting.

Why am I such a Bosendorfer geek? In a nutshell, everything I know about high end pianos I learned from Bosendorfer. Seeing my first Imperial at the University of Wisconsin/Madison at the ripe age of 20 set me on my path. From then on, there was nothing so dramatic, spectacular and, well, downright sexy as that piano. The extra keys, the shape of the rim, the construction detail, the sound, there was nothing like it, especially not the Steinway D’s scattered about the building. Later, to my utter amazement, I got the chance to work there. I was trained at the factory, did concert service throughout the US, and became the first US Service manager. yes, I are a technician …can you identify the world famous pianist on the right? Then, again later, after a stint with a major East coast Steinway dealer and 12 years at Yamaha, I had

I’ve owned a Reyburn Cyber Tuner for the last year. Pretty cool little device and very informative to let you know what is going on when one tunes a piano. I’m far from being one of those egg head electronic tuners that are so common at the conventions, but have gotten a little way into it. One observation: the standard tunings that come in these things stretch the octaves way too much for my ear. I think it  is really the drift in the country towards the loud, harsh sound you hear so often. I just don’t think the octaves on a concert grand should beat…it’s just not natural or musical. When I check my aural octaves to the standard tuning in the RCT, I’m flat by a very consistent, and very small amount. Must be my Viennese training. I took Ferdinand Braeu, the Bosendorfer technical director to see a

I worked for for Bosendorfer during the Kimball years.  That, in my opinion, was a much less logical combination than Bosendorfer and Yamaha and there were plenty of jokes (Kimball-dorfers, Bosen-balls). But, in fact, Kimball was a wonderful steward for Bosendorfer, probably a better steward of Bosendorfer than of their own brand. I believe that a large part of our US market presence today is due to the tremendous investment in Bosendorfer marketing that Kimball made 25 years ago. You can accuse me of smarmonisoty (I made part of that up) at this point, but I believe that Yamaha will be a similar steward (and I sincerely hope so for the sake of my career). There is an important aspect to the value proposition, beyond the simple profit and loss accounting, that just makes sense. Yamaha is deeply dedicated to the world of serious pianos and music making and has demonstrated that

I’ve been trying to come up with some examples of recordings where the non-Steinway piano is notated, AND it is a good representation of that makers sound. I have many Bosendorfer examples, mostly Garrick Ohlsson’s vast output. I have also found some bad examples, such as good piano sound but bad playing (no, not Garrick) and good playing but bad piano sound. In the case of Bosendorfer, if the right technician isn’t working on it, then it is not going to be a good representation of the Bosendorfer sound. I have found a recording of Garrick’s made on his rebuilt Mason & Hamlin (Prokofiev, Bartok, Webern, Barber) which, to my ear, does have a good representative Mason sound. Personally, I’m not crazy about the piano sound but I love the repertoire. I also recently acquired another recording that is the best of both…good piano playing and good piano sound. In this case,

Pending approval by the Yamaha board in late December. Then probably a couple months of closing. I’m not going to say much, except that I believe that Yamaha is purchasing Bosendorfer with the best of intentions for preserving an important name in the piano industry and helping them prosper. I believe they will be good stewards of the company.