Austrian piano manufacturer.

Ludwig Bösendorfer trained at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute, then worked at his father Ignaz's piano manufacturing firm (Bösendorfer), taking over the company in 1859 and directing it until selling it to Carl Hutterstrasser in 1909. It was Ludwig who brought the company's pianos to the peak of their international fame, patenting an improved action, and retaining the artisan system of manufacture, resisting mass-production methods.

Ludwig was a familiar, distinctive, top-hatted figure in Viennese society, and a patron of the city's musical life. He was made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1870, and a member of its governing body from 1878. He was a member of the committee of the Wiener Tonkünstler Verein at its inception in 1879, and later an honorary member. The Bösendorfer Piano Competition, which he initiated in 1889, continued annually until 1944, and since 1949 takes place every other year.

Bösendorfer and Schenker

During the academic year 1888/89, Ludwig Bösendorfer paid half of Schenker's fees at the Vienna Conservatory. At about the same time, on the recommendation of Schenker's teacher Ernst Ludwig, he made a Bösendorfer piano available to him for his studies; the earliest known letter in Schenker's hand dates from 1889/90, is addressed to Ludwig Bösendorfer, and asks for its replacement by a superior instrument (GdM Briefe, [1]; Federhofer, 6). (By the 1910s and 1920s, Schenker had a Blüthner grand in his music room.)

In his diary for March 10, 1914, Schenker offers an amusing portrayal of Ludwig: On the way back [from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Archive], encountered Mr. Bösendorfer. The conversation with him gave rise to quite curious, amusing moments. So, for example, the elderly gentleman, merely because two days earlier he had read my name in Die Zeit in connection with Beethoven, wanted to impress upon me that he had mastered the entire secondary literature and possessed the most important books in his library "even if he doesn't read them." And in order to reinforce in me his familiarity with the secondary literature, this characteristically Viennese upright gentleman gave his opinion: Was it not true that the last things written about Beethoven were those by Ambros and Helm? Now that's what I call a point of view, and knowledge of Beethoven! -- Nevertheless, I seized the favorable opportunity that presented itself to recount to him the affair of Lafite and Marchet [with whom Schenker had had a recent disagreement], whereupon with genuine Viennese falsehood he opined: "Marchet surely knows nothing of all this; the blame lies with Lafite and Habida.

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