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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
CHICAGO.
THE LATEST NEWS
FROM THE
THEATRE OF WAR.
F ast -
l^umors Fty'99
CHICAGO,
Sept. 20th, 1893.
EDITOR MUSIC TRADE REVIEW :
The piano men are still in a state of agitation,
uncertainty and expectation. The first, because
of thousands of ugly rumors affecting various
firms, members of the jury, and more than one
man in music trade journalism. I have heard
of more '' rods in pickle '' than would suffice for
four World's Fairs and all the people in the
trade. Every second man I meet had his porcu-
pine quills set hard and is sworn to avenge some
injury, fancied or real, as soon as the jury's
awards are announced. I hear that several of
our journalistic confreres are considerably at sea
in their efforts to be too fly, and they are natu-
rally numbered among those wno are in a state
of uncertainty, while the expectant ones com-
pass almost the entire outfit in the trade and its
correlative branches. Some are so from what
they hope to get, while others from what they
hope to escape. Not all can come out rewarded,
and most certainly not all will emerge un-
scathed. The ides of November will bring a
period of reckoning, and many an unpaid score
will be settled with compound interest. Suffice
it for the present that the esprit du corps of
Section I has not been maintained throughout,
and the morale has suffered or some one has
been wofully maligned. Come out when this
merry war is over and you will see many
ghastly remains of what were intended for
future monuments of enterprise and sagacity.
I hear that the friends of Checkering & Sons,
Hallet & Davis, Mason & Hainlin, and
the Sohmer Company expect them to be
placed in the first-class niche in the awards,
with grades therein apportioned in the order
named, while the friends of none of the remain-
ing ones will for a moment concede that they
can go below the second grade. Of course, this
is all surmise, as no one claims to know any-
thing positively, but if I was going to "call the
t u r n " I would play the combination named
to win as stated.
No new injunctions have been sought since
I last wrote, but several are still on tap, and I
learn are still held in abeyance pending the
hearing in the Chase Bros, case, which is set
for next Monday.
There is, however, a well-grounded reason
afloat that a checkmating scheme is on foot to
immediately ask for an order restraining the
Fair authorities from closing the Fair until the
piano awards are announced. This move is to
follow the instant the injunction of Chase Bros,
is dissolved, if it should be, and is designed to
forestall any other injunction of a similar pur-
port. But there are those, and they are not a
few, who count on the present injunction mak-
ing a stronger showing than appears on its
face.
Meantime, every species of advertising is
being worked by the camp followers, both oral
and written, and willing tools are found to
cater thereto for a consideration or the promise
of possible favors in the future.
John Boyd Thacher has got himself into hot
water by giving out an award to the house of
Besson, in the small goods department. Of
course, much was made of it, not only by
the concern interested, but by others, who
maintain that he had no right to give out any-
thing pertaining to Section I, in view of the in-
junction bearing on pianos.
Trade is looking up wonderfully and business
is settling down to the usual fall status ; but if
you ask any man down town for news, he in-
variably directs you to Section I, saying: All
there is of interest is centered therein.
Yours, etc.,
HARRY MANNING.
HOW TO SELECT
AND PURCHASE
_ A PIANO,
JHipts For Everybody.
BY JULIUS HAYDEN.
CHAPTER I.
{From a Recently Published Brochure.}
Dear reader, have you given the subject of
buying a piano, or the exchange of your old in-
strument for one of more modern character,
serious study ?
Are you not aware that the piano is the most
important article in almost every household,
that it costs considerably more than any other
thing in the boudoir, parlor or drawing room as
a general rule ?
Do you not know that it possesses an exceed-
ingly sensitive and complicated action mechan-
ism through which the human fingers operate
in the production of musical sounds and their
melodic and harmonic combinations ?
Are you not cognizant of the fact that the
combined action and keyboard mechanism of the
piano took centuries to perfect and that their
manufacture and adjustment in the instrument
call for considerable skill and judgment ?
Do you not know that the development of the
sounding board and general stringing system,
as evidenced in the Sohmer piano for instance,
is also the outcome of incalculable experiment,
money, and mechanical and scientific genius ?
If you have not been aware of the foregoing
facts know them now, and in addition know
that as the production of first-class pianos calls
for high mechanical skill, choice materials, fine
judgment in tone, production and expert super-
vision, the danger of rushing into the market
and picking up an inferior and dangerously bad
instrument is consequently increased.
Why?
Because if the production of thoroughly re-
liable and artistic pianos is such a difficult task
as most people do not seem to imagine, the
matter of purchasing a reliable instrument be-
comes all the more important.
Therefore look around yourself very cautiously
before buying.
I do not even wish that readers should rush
off hastily after perusing these lines and pur-
chase a Sohmer piano in preference to others,
because the writer has advised them to do so.
No ! that would be a surrender of independent
judgment. It would be un-American.
Meanwhile I advise readers to examine and
compare for themselves, confident that they will
be all the better impressed by the soundness
and fairness of the arguments presented here.
Again !
Do you not know that there is a large amount
of bugabooism in the superior (?) claims of
certain high-class firms ?
For instance, take up any two of the leading
pianos, putting them side by side for the pur-
pose of comparison, and you will find that con-
siderable difference of opinion prevails among
the best judges regarding the respective merits
of the two " makes." In that connection one
expert will favor the "Brown" and another
expert will favor the "Jones." What is the
logical basis of superiority, anyhow ?
Take your friend, Mrs. Green, for example!
Mrs. Green will remark with a simper of af-
fectation that she wouldn't have " any piano
but a 'Brown.'" Mrs. Green is extremely
rich, no doubt, and wants you to kuow that
she has paid a large share for the name on the
fall board of the instrument.
That is all right!
Your friend, Mrs. Green, has paid an exorbi-
tant price of her own free will, merely to be
" i n fashion," as she imagines it, but that is
her own business.
Then look at Mrs. Baker !
Mrs. Baker will tell you on the other hand
that her " G r a n d " is a "Jones," and that it
cost $1,200. "Money talks," but it does not
talk with any rational purpose in the latter
case, for poor Mrs. Baker has paid largely for
her personal pride. Yet Mrs. Green and Mrs.
Baker will not admit that either of their instru-
ments is inferior in any way.
In the meantime it is really better that Mrs.
Green and Mrs. Baker should have paid exorbi-
tant prices for their pianos than to run any
risks through investing in cheap and unreliable
" makes " with which the market is flooded.
Dear reader, you have the advantage !
You have the advantage of the imaginary
friends—Mrs. Green and Mrs. Baker—referred
to in learning some facts about the inconsist-
encies and absurdities of the claims set up by a
few piano manufacturers of a certain stamp.
You will perceive that much of the alleged supe-
riority in these instruments is a matter of price
simply.
What about Sohmer & Co ?
Sohmer & Co. pay no heed to the small fry,
their competition is necessarily with a few lead-
ing firms owing to the musical character of their
world renowned pianos.
Hence it is why they have been trying to
show the public a most important point, name-
ly, that a piano equal in most respects—and
superior in several—to the few recognized lead-
ers, can be had on terms within the reach of all.
Sohmer & Co. are a unique firm.
Sohmer & Co. are unique in one respect.
They are conscientious, they compete only with
first-class firms, but they are of the opinion that
to give the musical public the benefit of the
vast sums paid to the foreign artistes brought
hither to boom the " Brown & Jones " piano, is
a far more conscientious policy than the one
referred to.
The success of Sohmer & Co.
Their great success is an undoubted indication
that the mass of the musical public appreciate a
thoroughly reliable piano and are able to think
and act for themselves.
Meanwhile I am confident that Sohmer & Co.
are not opposed to legitimate exhibitions of
virtuosity and excellence in piano performance,
but they are opposed to the subsidy of genius
for the purpose of advertising pianos in most
respects inferior to the Sohmer.
I«et the reader carefully digest these points.