It is one of those long-awaited spring days, Roland, my friend and a Bösendorfer employee, is sitting silently behind the wheel of the car while I peer out the window. These buildings in downtown Vienna are passing us by – we are not far from Vienna’s Ringstrasse.
In search of a parking spot, we make already the third lap around the building that is the goal of today’s voyage of discovery. Just how much this building has already experienced can hardly be put into words, any more than one can enumerate just how many famous souls have entered and exited this building. Meanwhile, it is early afternoon. The sun is shining. After parking we head for the doors and enter another world: the Vienna Musikverein.
Many things involve time. Time that you have or don’t have, time passing, time standing still, or time you wish you could get back. The past is past and you can’t get it back. Only in music are things somewhat different. Thanks to sound recordings, manuscripts and scores it becomes possible to preserve some things. Nonetheless, it is impossible to experience Rachmaninow, Ravel or Gershwin live on the piano today, a pleasure not granted to those of us who were born later. Yet even that is not entirely true!
That spring day, we make the acquaintance of a very special technical achievement: the Disklavier Edition with Enspire PRO technology. When we entered the wonderful premises, we could not know the feeling with which we would leave the Bösendorfer Salon in the Musikverein. This is probably how most people feel who experience something entirely new. This is how people must have felt the first time a train came thundering at them on a big canvas.
The Bösendorfer Disklavier Enspire offers the pleasure of experiencing a completely self-playing grand piano, and this really feels as though an invisible presence were reaching into the keys. What’s truly special is that I can record my own playing, then I can step back from the piano in order to experience it live myself, exactly as I had played it, including the subtlest of dynamics. In addition, I can film myself playing on a phone or tablet, and likewise to play it back in sync with the piano – the wireless technology makes this possible. Hearing and seeing yourself – it’s impossible to analyse and optimise your playing any better than this. This is crowned with a silent function, which does not in the least affect my playing feeling and my possibilities of working out nuances - very impressive. This is made possible by the unique Quick-Escape-Mechanism, a special mechanical adjustment that stops the hammer head before it touches the string and does not alter the mechanical or acoustic properties of the instrument. So, with an easy conscience, I can still play, try or practice late at night, without disturbing anyone!
The incredibly comprehensive Bösendorfer archives we have to thank for the existence of recordings by great composers and pianists. This is why it’s possible to listen to a performance by Ravel and Gershwin, or Rachmaninov playing his probably best known composition of Prelude c sharp minor, within one’s own four walls. Not by playing back an audio file, but live on an acoustic piano! I see how the keys move, how the action works, the hammers striking the strings and the pedals pressing down gently, as though the ghost of the pianist were to return to the present. It’s invisible and mind-boggling, something truly special. There is no greater musical pleasure than experiencing a composer interpreting his own work, and with the incomparable sound of a Bösendorfer which has become so famous.
Disklavier Enspire, state-of-the-art technology, combined with Bösendorfer’s resonance case principle and its craftsmanship that has lasted for centuries. What once began as a spark with rolls and punch tapes, became the blazing flame of inspiration for the musicians and composers of tomorrow. That’s a future worth experiencing and feeling.
As we were leaving the Bösendorfer Salon later that day, I still had Liberace’s interpretation of Nino Rota’s “The Godfather” in my head. I notice neither the people on the street nor my good friend Roland who is strolling through the streets with me. We are enchanted by music that is accompanying us through this moment. We’re on our way to a nearby Viennese café, and while we’re practically floating on our way there, I think of Ludwig Bösendorfer, who recreated his own work time and again, consistently surpassed his own advancements and always reached for the most distant stars in the universe of music. Anyone who succeeds in combining progress with tradition has achieved something genuinely great. And I think it was exactly that thought that struck us like lightning and made us smile.
Bösendorfer Disklavier Edition - Enspire PRO
Through years of research, Yamaha has developed the Disklavier Enspire player technology, which not only delights with flawless reproduction, but also instantly records and plays back your piano playing. The easy-to-activate silent function guarantees the finest sensitivity, the best controllability of the action for an identical playing feel in the acoustic and silent modes.
Immerse yourself in our sound universe!