Imperial Bösendorfer: Lara Downes

What does a Bach violin partita have to do with the largest piano range? The short answer is: Everything.

In 1900, the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni challenged the great Ludwig Bösendorfer to make a piano with 92 keys instead of 88. Busoni’s inspiration for the extended range was his vision of transcribing Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor for the piano. One may think it’s just a matter of sending a dentist to hunt for another elephant trunk and ebony wood to make four more keys but the issue was much more complex. Piano-makers stopped at 88 keys because of the limits of the human ear and the difficulty of creating a beautiful, musical tone in that range. Ludwig embraced the challenge and we now have the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand piano as well as Busoni’s fantastic piece.

The Imperial is not about the length but the range; the first Imperial Bösendorfer pianos were only 7' 4" yet are now 9' 6" (and, sadly, owned by Yamaha.) Other piano manufacturers, like Challen of London, tried to push the limits with Grand pianos over 10 feet long without much success – aside from creating a conversation piece. In a true meeting of the minds, the collaboration between Busoni and Bösendorfer made the video below possible. Just as the Pleyel is ideally suited to Chopin, the Imperial Bösendorfer and Bach were made for each other. Please enjoy critically acclaimed pianist Lara Downes’ modern update on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It was a pleasure to film this with her at Salle Pianos in San Francisco.