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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
12
H. Parsons, A. C. Cox, H. P. Mehlin, J. B.
Woodford, Fred. T. Steinway, C. C. Clay,
E. L. Bill, W. F. Tway, C. Kleber, G. W.
Peek, W. W. Chilten, Wm. F. Hasse, C. F.
Koester, J. Davenport, Malcolm Love, C.
H. Houghton, J. H. Hempsted, R. M.
Walters, H. D. Low, R. Ranft, L. von
Bernuth, F. Reidemeister, H. Ziegler,
Chas. H. Steinway, Ed. F. Droop, N.
Stetson, J. Hollyer, C. Fechteler, F. Kran-
ich, J. Evans, R. C. Kammerer.
MR. WILLIAM STKINWAY's ADDRESS.
ALFRED TKH.CK.
1,000 pianos per year produced in Chicago.
To-day our annual output is from 12,000 to
15,000. Now that we can obtain all the
expert help that we need, the grade of the
Chicago piano is tending upward, and there
are those in this city who are seeking just
as strongly for the highest excellence as our
worthy friends here.
"Perhaps we lack ability, but the con-
scientious desire to do that work is just as
good. The name of Chicago does not stand
quite so high on the same board of a piano
as New York, but, gentlemen, it is grow-
ing.
We are already invading your East-
ern territory, and it looks like carrying
coals to Newcastle, but there are those who
are eager to fire up for our coals.
"We do not forget what the East has
done for piano construction. By your sub-
lime patience, your courage, your great
ability, you have brought the piano from
an infantile stage to the perfection that
commands the admiration of the entire
civilized world."
H. E. Krehbiel, the well-known musical
critic, had to deal with a subject with which
he has been intimately associated for many
years—"Musical Criticism."
• Among those present were:
Geo. Nembach, Gov. Levi K. Fuller, J.
Seaver Page, Wm. E. Wheelock, St. Clair
McKelway, Wm. Steinway, C. M. Depew,
Robt. Proddow, J. W. Reed, A. H. Fischer,
S. Hazelton, A. Dolge, H. E. Krehbiel, H.
Kranich, Musical Courier, F. G. Smith,
Jr., J. W. Hawxhurst, M. A. Decker, W.
S. Weser, Jas. S. Gray, F. Ramaciotti, A.
Holmstrom, H. Johannson, H. C. Harney,
W. T. Sternenberg. J. Doll, R. Gross, C.
W. Held, F. M. Ehrhard, W. P. Wood, H.
W. Longstreet,
G. Herzberg, M. A.
Blumenberg, S. H. Rosenberg, W. Tonk,
A. S. Williams, J. A. Weser, Geo. De-
bevoise, H. T. Shriver, J. Hutton, Chas.
Jacob, L. N. Narbonne, C. F. Goepel,
Thos. Nelson, Jr., J. Kuehl, K. Fink, R.
W. Blake, G. O. Cole, H. Kranich, Jr., H.
W. Berry, W. H. Keller, J. C. Freund, G.
L. Cheney, C. B. Lawson, W. P. Daniel, G.
F. Kissam, E. Klaber, H. E. Freund, J.
W. Sturtevant, W. D. Dutton, L. Haas, M.
Sonnenberg, J. G. Ramsdell, J. F. Allen,
F. G. Howe, W. C. Taylor, B. F. Fischer,
R. B. Gregory, L. Bogert, E. Wander,
Chicago Times, Associated Press, H.
Mathushek, L. Miller, W. E. Patterson, W.
M. Thorns, G. M. Taylor, H. Junge, S. A.
Gould, J. J. Estey, E. Leins, Alfonso
Smith, Wm. Foster, A. B. Campbell, R. S.
Howard, T. T. Fischer, H. K. S. Williams,
R. H. Goffe,.Jr., I. N. Goff, W. C. Newby,
L. Barker, United Press, H. D. Pease, J.
Emanuel, S. Mayer, A. Peck, A. M. Mans-
field, S. H. Cowan, C. A. Jacob, Wm.-
Schlemmer, L. F. Hepburn, Jr., P. D.
Strauch, R. M. Bent, A. Strauch, L. W. P.
Norris, C. E. Brockington, B. H. Janssen,
Otto Wessell, C. Muehfeld, Official Steno-
grapher, Official vStenographer, A. Stuercke,
C. Reinwarth, F. Engelhardt, A. P. Roth,
P. Duffy, G. Bothner, F. Bauer, F. W.
Lohr, J. Ullman, L. Peck, John Foley, R.
M. Webb, J. D. Pease, H. Brown, S. Hub-
bard, F. Dietz, F. Fechteler, J. C. Hewitt,
J. W, Stevens, F. G. Smith, Sr., Col. A. S.
Bacon, F. C. Train, E. R. Wanckel, Phil.
Burkhard, R. A. Wiedeman, L. Cavalli, D.
F. Treacy, S, Brambach, A. J. Mcnzl, C.
Now, then, gentlemen, I am not going to
make a very long speech, because we have
splendid speakers iiere to-night, and al-
though I am going to speak of our art in-
dustry, I am not going to the extent that I
did five or six years ago by beginning at
the beginning, some 200 years back, but in
a few bold strokes from one decade to
another I will give you in brief the pro-
gress of our trade down to modern times.
I will add, however, that which ) 7 ou all
know, that to begin a speech is the hardest
thing, but our Dinner Committee has come
to my rescue. I am to describe our art in-
dustry. Our Dinner Committee has not
only given us a magnificent dinner,- a
splendid room, and something as fine to eat
and drink as you can find on the face of the
earth, but, gentlemen, the committee has
anticipated and made it easy for me by the
production of this grand piano.
They have contrived to put the treble
strings where the bass strings ought to be.
They have contrived to make a concert
grand piano with four one-third octaves.
There is the beginning, and now I can
start.
Now then, gentlemen, as I said before, 1
will not begin with Silbermann in 1718 and
1732 and so on, but I will stick to piano
manufacturing in this country.
I believe that I have told you on a former
occasion that some thirty years ago I spent
many months in my life in making a search
in the United States Patent Office, which
was afterward extended into a search in the
English Patent Office and the Patent Offices
of France, Belgium, etc., and I applied
these researches to the fact that about the
beginning of the century some of our coun-
trymen essayed to make pianos and the re-
sult of their work. They started about the
end of the last century, and in Philadel-
phia, too. It was my good fortune in 1885,
when I was at the Inventions Exhibition in
London, to see the piano manufactured and
exhibited in London in 1802 by Hawkins,
of Philadelphia, and I assure you that
whatever it lacked in tone it made up in
ingenuity.
You will all remember that I have stated
to you before, and it was known to you that
after the conclusion of the Amcrican-
P^nglish War of 1812, and after the Battle
of Waterloo in 1815, when they had a ter-
rible time of depression in Great Britain,
which lasted up to the year 1835, a number
of skilled English workingmen started and
essayed to make pianos here. Of those,
Dubois, Bacon and Chambers, with the ex-
ception of Chickering, who was an Amer-
ican, started about that time.
The German element came in about the
year 1838, when Conrad Meyer started in
Philadelphia. In 1825 the American in-
dustry received an immense impetus in the
invention of the iron frame, something
rendered possible by the genius of Samuel
Babcock, of Philadelphia, and by the high
state of the art of casting iron which at that
time prevailed in the United States.
It is not amiss to state here that in the
art of casting iron, which dates back 150
years, the Americans excelled, and in and
during the War of Independence in 1776,
the Americans, with a for smaller number