Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
PERTINENT COMMENTS
UPON TIMELY TOPICS OF INTEREST
TO THE TRADE BY WRITERS IN OUR
EXCHANGES.
ARTISTIC PIANO DESIGNS-riore General.
Amid so much modern talk about art,
one naturally expects some confusion. The
individual who proposes to- put a figured
mahogany door to a pigsty is not an artist;
nor is he an artist who prates of art in our
washhouses and dustholes. These things
are barbarities — the excrescenses that
fasten themselves to the true growth of
the artistic sensibility of to-day. If, simi-
larly, we find here and there some irre-
deemably ugly pianoforte cases, thought
by their inventors to be irreproachable
examples of good taste, it is equally
true that genuinely artistic '' evidences
of design" are surely becoming more gen-
eral, says Music. They are commoner now
than they were twenty years ago—nay,
than they were a decade back. The "out
ward and visible grace" of the instrument
has in the last quarter of a century under-
gone considerable modification. It has, in
fact, become more nearly what it should
be, namely, "a thing of beauty," although
its beauty may not be such as to render it
"a joy forever." That is too much to an-
ticipate. Manufacturers could not if they
would, and would not if they could, pro-
duce an instrument to last forever and a day.
They are too wide awake to attempt what
would be futile, and what would be ruinous
if not futile. At the same time they have
come to see that the old and incongruous
lines of production have to be discarded if
they would but partially realize the aspira-
tions of a higher education in decorative
art. Such questions as the scale, treat-
ment, material, position and use of the
pianoforte have latterly pressed more
keenly upon their attention, and have led
to a different and improved character for
the instrument. . . . The craftsman should
be the designer, or rather the designer
should have been a craftsman.
This
happily, thanks to the spread of tech-
nical training and instruction in newly in-
stituted schools, will, in the near future, be
as common as, in the recent past, it has
been rare. The man who is exclusively a
designer can have but little sympathy with
the material which composes the object of
his design. Between the craftsman and his
material there is, however, an obvious
sympathy. He knows the possibilities of
his material, its powers and limits, and
with a cultivated art faculty is bound to
produce a truer art result than the man
who is merely a designer and whose knowl-
edge is partial, and therefore defective.
STUDY YOUR TRADE—Insures Success.
"There is no other point of greater im-
portance to a retailer," says Facts, "than
that he should thoroughly and intelligently
learn to understand the requirements of
the particular trade to which he caters, and
which he must depend in order to win
success. In buying a new season's stock
he should be governed absolutely by these
requirements. A line of goods that will
prove a source of profit to one merchant
will be dead stock on the hands of another.
The mining town, the manufacturing
center, the railroad town, the thriving vil-
lage, the county seat, the small city and
the suburb usually require a particular
kind of stock. . . . It is well to compare
the prospects of a coming season with the
one that has passed. Consider if the situ-
ation has changed any. Perhaps you have
strong competition; maybe a new rival.
With other experiences of the past, care-
fully bear in mind the lines of goods you
failed to provide enough of last season; re-
member with even greater acuteness those
of which you bought too heavily. Find
out why certain lines did not sell. There
is always a reason. To be able to solve
these questions means to be successful. '
TRADE EXTENSION—A National Concern.
It has come to pass that all industrial
nations are becoming more intelligently
sensible of the importance of foreign trade.
The evidences of this are seen in the prom-
inence given to industrial and commercial
concerns, says an exchange. There is more
in a well nourished and prosperous people
than in a huge empire that has to be gir-
dled with bayonets to keep it intact. The
world, or at least a great part of it, is wak-
ing up to this fact, and if it is building
larger navies and bigger guns than at any
time in its history, it is doing so not so
much for the purpose of decreasing the
population as of protecting commerce and
extending trade. Meanwhile we are scour-
ing the world for new markets, enlarging
our productive capacity, and putting skill,
ingenuity and inventive genius into every
possible form of mechanical appliance, to
transform raw material into finished pro-
ducts. Our manufacturing interests now
exceed all others in magnitude, and are
manifestly destined to continually widen
the difference. We have reached a point
where commerce is becoming more and
more a national concern. It has to be
lifted out of partisan politics, and its
interests unify all parties. . . . The com-
mercial element is not in force as it ought
to be in our national councils. This sooner
or later will have to be remedied. That
public sentiment is in favor of such a re-
form is evidenced by the formation of man-
ufacturers' associations and claims being
made for a commercial council being added
to our administrative departments.
It is not surprising to note that our conser-
vative cousins across the sea, who though
they have built up the most colossal for-
eign trade ever known in all commercial
history, are coming to the point where
statesmanship must concern itself with the
industrial well-being of the people. The
Secretary of the Colonies is cognizant of
this imperative duty, and is said to have in
contemplation the formation of a council of
experts for the purpose of opening up new
avenues of trade.
u
I
S the Autoharp popular? Well, we
should say so, judging from the orders
which W. B. Wilson, the Autoharp repre-
sentative for Alfred Dolge & Son, is secur-
ing on his present Western trip.
Owing to the excellent advertising of the
Autoharp by Alfred Dolge & Son, the
purchasing public have a fair idea of what
the Autoharp is like, hence it is to the
interest of dealers everywhere to keep a
full stock of these instruments on hand, for
an examination or trial is always followed
by a sale.
The output of Autoharps for 1896 prom-
ises to be phenomenal. There are few
instruments that afford greater pleasure
musically when the simplicity of learning
and the price is considered.
Send on Your Catalogues.
G
ILBERTO P. BOLDE, Apartado, 536,
Mexico City, Mex., writes us that he
has established himself in business in that
city, and is prepared to receive catalogues
and price lists from manufacturing and
publishing houses in this city with a view
to representing them in Mexico City. Mr.
Bolde was formerly with the firm of H.
Nagel, Successors, and is one of the best
posted men in musical matters in Mexico
City.
Opens Up Well.
T
HE Pease Piano Co. are well pleased
with the opening of trade for 1896.
Their orders so far this month are not only
better than December, but fully 50 per
cent, higher than January, 1895. This is
the news we like to hear.
Warning to Dealers.
T
HE White-Smith Music Publishing Co.
have issued a notice to dealers warn-
ing them against unauthorized versions of
the "Bully" song written and sung by May
Irwin, which will soon be published by
this house. Miss Irwin, in a recent com-
munication to the White-Smith Music
Publishing Co., says: " I t is solely and
absolutely my property; no other publisher
has a right to use it."
ONE of Strich & Zeidler's new grand
pianos will be used at a concert to be given
Feb. 9th, at the German Reformed Church,
in Morrisania.
JUDGMENT was entered last Wednesday
against the Swick Piano Co. for $1,043, a t
the instance of Abraham Levy.