The instrument, especially the Imperial, is legendary. I have a few recordings by Oscar and Paul Bley.
Any others that are epically recorded with five star music and recording quality out there?
In classical music, the Austrian classical piano player Paul Badura-Skoka was fond of the Bonsendorfer. For his complete recording of the Mozart piano sonatas, he used a Bosendorfer and a Steinway. It is still one of of the best recordings of the Mozart piano works.
The complete works of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach has been recorded by Ana-Marija Markovina on a Bosendorfer Imperial. Her teacher was Paul Badura-Skoda.
One of the most famous live jazz recordings was played on a awfully tuned Bosendorfer: Keith Jarrettt - The Köln Concert. He was supposed to play a Bosendorfer Imperial but the opera staff messed up and placed the wrong Bosendorfer on stage.
If I am not mistaken the last recording of Hyperion Records by Stephen Hough of Beethoven Piano Concertos was performed on Bosendorfer.
Outstanding btw.
One of the most famous live jazz recordings was played on a awfully tuned Bosendorfer: Keith Jarrettt - The Köln Concert. He was supposed to play a Bosendorfer Imperial but the opera staff messed up and placed the wrong Bosendorfer on stage.
Even to untrained ears, this Bosendorfer was terribly tuned, yet beautifully flawed when Keith attacked the piano in concert. Indeed, the resulting recording can never be duplicated because of this.
Knowing how Jarrett was with these things, its quite possible to believe this recording came very close to not happening.
He once delayed the start of a concert for almost 2 hours in Buffalo one time because one key on the concert grand Steinway was off according to him.
The organizer of this concert, whom I know, later said their tuner could not hear the supposed issue, so he de-tuned and re-tuned the offending key.
Only have this album by Carol Rosenberger. I don't know whether her other albums were played on a Boesendorfer.
We have a 225, their Halb-Konzert, 7'4" often found in smaller concert venues. It has 92 keys, unlike the 97 keys of the Imperial Concert Grand. We picked it out in Vienna at the factory in 1985. They told us about Oscar Peterson who at first was not permitted to buy a Bosendorfer. In those days production was very limited after WWII and the management thought that jazz was not proper music to play on their instruments. Obviously, they changed their policy.
I believe that Steinway used to (maybe still does) have a policy that if you are a Steinway artist, you can't record on another brand of piano. You can play on a different piano in a concert. We had Steinway artist Jon Nakamatsu play our Boesendorfer a year ago at a home concert. He played the Rachmaninoff second piano concerto with his long time accompanist playing the piano version of the orchestral part on our second piano.