Kondensat der Jahre

In the local Austrian newspaper "der Standard" you will find an article about Bösendorfer.
When I read the article it evoked some ideas and reminiscenses to be put down during the subway ride.
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Here they are:
When I was working for Bösendorfer twenty years ago, Yamaha was „the enemy“. Not really an enemy because the biggest competitor was Steinway and Yamaha was just arriving at the high level range. But it seemed that they would be offering pianos of very high standards just at two thirds of the price of a Bösendorfer.
I remember the special Yamaha in Paris that was prepared to an excellent performance.
The first really wonderful grand piano I experienced was a Yamaha grand at the Sheraton in Singapore. That was already in 1983.
I remember the fear of Bösendorfer colleagues that Yamaha would take over in the Eighties and would remove the unwanted competition. We could not be more wrong. Even today some Bösendorfer people would think of moving the production site while Mitsuru Umemura, big boss of Yamaha, claims the value of Bösendorfer to depend on the location of production site including some of the specific methods used in Austria that are different from practically all other upper class grand pianos.
He also states two other facts. First, Sales in the high level range are not as affected by the financial crisis as are sales in the mid range. This fact could often be verified in the past of Bösendorfer a company that has lasted over two world wars.
Secondly, it is all a matter of sales.
I would consider this as the problem number one. It is the matter of the sales people. I was lucky to have met the General Manager of Bösendorfer, Dr. Rädler, during his active period. I could observe his methods to control sales. This also included traveling once a year all over the world, knowing practically every sales representative and being in touch with the leading concert hall managers and sometimes politicians.
When I was export manager (also concerning Japan for five years) I never sold less than 100 pianos per year - to Japan, apart from other countries. And this was a very rewarding work. I only had to talk about music, about Vienna, about some composers, sometimes about differences in voicing. Another job was to watch the correctness of the Japanese interpreters who would often translate the price falsely. They could not imagine that a large special Bösendorfer would cost 21.000.000 Yen. They would believe it to be an error on my behalf and talked of 2.100.000 Yen. I learned to deal with Japanese numbers very quickly, then.
This anecdote typed detail leads us to the main point. There are people – not only Japanese – that will buy a Bösendorfer only from a specific type of person. The person should not be servile, she should be able to be deliver a feeling to the potential buyer that they are exceptional in such a way that they deserve a Bösendorfer. (Not only once I was asked to visit a customer in order to sign the sales contract. The act was considered a special act of honor with great importance for the customer.)
A Bösendorfer you buy for eternity. My own grand piano will soon be 100 years old. It has been the great concert grand in the most famous music hall in the world, the Wiener Musikverein, Goldener Saal - for about nine years. It knows all the great pieces so I don’t have to practice them anymore. The concert grand is a partner, a responsive partner.
There are some potential buyers whom you will convince by the warmth of the tune, by the specialties of the treble section which might not be as bright as that of a Steinway but sounds much more pure and compatible to a singer’s voice.
You should not try to sell a Bösendorfer to a person that prefers the New York Steinway to the Hamburg Steinway for jazz music. This guy knows exactly what he wants. You might rather try to sell him a second piano for his wife or his children.
But the main point that has been left out throughout the last fifteen years seems to be the fact the manager of Bösendorfer really has to leave his desk and has to learn to meet his customers. People who want to buy a Bösendorfer want to buy it from a very high level person. There are other implications to that: in the year 1988 no Bösendorfer sales man was hired who spoke less than four languages.