Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
JANUARY 7, 1922
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
13
WINNERS OF CHICKERING ESSAY CONTEST—(Continued from page 12)
and when finished was the largest building in the
United States, excepting the Capitol at Wash-
ington. Inside it is adapted and equipped with
the latest machinery for piano manufacturing.
The offices are here, too. This is the home of
the Chickering piano.
About 1835 Jonas Chickering, perceiving that
he could benefit greatly by such an association,
joined partnership with Capt. John Mackay, who
owned a fine ship. The captain was able to
carry a number of pianos to South America on
each trip and bring back rosewood and mahog-
any to be used in making pianos. Jonas Chick-
ering thus found an enlarged market for his
pianos and a better method for securing ma-
terial. In 1909 Chickering & Sons, following
in its founder's footsteps, made a similar move
on a large scale for similar motives when it
affiliated itself with the American Piano Co.,
a concern controlling the manufacture of more
high-grade pianos than any other in the world.
Not a manufacturing concern itself, it merely
controls the associated piano companies and
allows each to retain its own factory and charac-
teristics. With assets exceeding $10,000,000, the
company -has been able to give Chickering &
Sons advantages in buying and selling which
the latter had never before enjoyed. Perhaps the
greatest single advantage of the association is
that the Chickering and the Ampico have been
brought together. This reproducing mechanism,
deriving its name from the initials of the Amer-
ican Piano Co., has become probably the most
miraculous mechanical device in the field of
music.
I would like to recount an actual occurrence in
connection with the Ampico that happened in
our vicinity only last week. A prominent citizen
was giving a party in honor of his wife's birth-
day anniversary. It was a brilliant affair, the
table beautifully appointed and the meal served
by candle light. Frequent bursts of laughter
showed the feeling of happiness that the occa-
sion had brought forth. Suddenly, in the midst
of the merriment, there came to the dining-room
the faint sound of music. One by one the guests
heard it and stopped to listen. Soon all were
quiet and listening in wonder to the beautiful
melody coming from a nearby room. Someone
was playing the piano—but such playing! The
hostess was perhaps more surprised than anyone
else. She looked at her husband in amazement
and finally, arising from the table, she rushed into
the other room. Where formerly her silent piano
had stood she found a new Chickering grand piano
pouring forth beautiful music. It was as if a
great artist were sitting at the instrument.
While the supper had been under way her piano
had been removed and the Ampico substituted.
A roll had then been inserted and Godowsky
was performing for them. The surprise was
complete, and it is needless to say the wife was
delighted. The salesman then explained that the
instrument could be played manually, as an or-
dinary piano; that it could be used as a straight
player, allowing individual expression, or it could
be used with the reproducing rolls, in which
capacity the possibilities were almost limitless.
A soloist can be accompanied, a dance num-
ber played by the best Broadway talent, or the
great pianists will perform. These artists are
always in the home ready to soothe and rest
the tired mind or to enliven .and cheer if this
LAYEft PIANO:
form of music is desired. What wonder that the
birthday ended happily! This home never again
need be without the world's best music. Surely
this family, if it knew, would bless the day that
made possible its musical future—that day
Chickering & Sons became associated with the
American Piano Co. and the Ampico brought
into happy combination with the Chickering
piano.
It may not be that the dreams of Jonas Chick-
ering extended as far as the development of
this wonder of wonders, the Ampico, but certain
it is that he thought far in advance of his time,
for he led while others were satisfied to follow.
What more fitting tribute can we bring to the
memory of this great man than to say that even
as the great artists of the present and future
will be immortalized by the Ampico, so also will
the name of Jonas Chickering be immortalized
through his contribution to the art of piano con-
struction, for he must always remain the corner-
stone of the great structure on which rest the
fundamental principles, the success and the glory
of the American piano.
C. L. Peters 9 Essay Wins Third Prize
Around the achievements and life work of
Jonas Chickering may well be written the story
of a "typical American," whose contributions
to American music and American invention are
indelibly preserved for all time to come in the
Chickering piano of to-day and reflected in its
interpretive twin, the marvelous Ampico.
The title "typical American" belongs to Jonas
Chickering by every test of merit and his life
work was in a large sense the keystone of the
structure of American music.
He was "typically American" in the days
when hard work and success roamed together.
His constructive genius in the field of music,
as related to the pianoforte, ranks with that
of his contemporaries in statecraft and invention
in the early years of the twentieth century,
when America was a struggling camp of hardy
pioneers on the very outposts of civilization.
This New England genius not only gave to
us the fundamentals of the Chickering piano,
as we know it to-day, but, born of his inspira-
tion and put through by his devotion to an
ideal, he also gave us the priceless heritage
of an accomplishment wrought out of days and
nights of toil, years of conscientious prepara-
tion, of discouragement, of self-denial and ob-
stacles innumerable, yet not sufficient in part
or in whole to overcome his will-to-do. It was
this spirit, so typically American and so char-
acteristic of the fathers of our nation, in in-
dustry as well as statecraft, which transformed
the simple New Hampshire youth of 1816 into
the genius and inventor of thirty years later,
whom William Steinway, at a great banquet in
New York in 1895, referred to as "The father
of American pianoforte making."
Jonas Chickering got his first inspiration
when, as a cabinetmaker's apprentice in New
Hampshire, in the -early part of the nineteenth
century, he succeeded in mending the only piano
in the village, an instrument made in London
years before by Christopher Gaynor, and later
owned by Princess Amelia, a daughter of
George the Third.
A year or two later, when but twenty years
old, Jonas Chickering went to Boston, entered
the employ of the piano maker, John Osborne,
and for the Scriptural seven years worked day
and night to master his trade. His mind and his
time were occupied with things musical, both
at the factory, where he served his apprentice-
ship and became a master workman, and in the
little world of social and church life to which
he had become attached upon his arrival in the
city.
To the music clubs of Boston, to the church
choir and to the oratorios and concerts of the
day he lent his personal co-operation and the
sweet tenor voice which he had cultivated as
opportunity offered.
He became remarkably
proficient in the sight reading of music, for it
was truly the interpretative part of the world
in which he lived and wrought.
In the Spring of 1823 the young workman,
having an associate in the person of James Ste-
wart, a Scotchman (under the firm name of
Stewart & Chickering) opened the little plant
which was to grow into the largest piano fac-
tory in the world, and here, on June 23, 1823, he
sold the first Chickering piano, made by his
own hands, to James Bingham, of Boston, for
$275. Nearly one hundred years of age, this
original Chickering piano is to-day a prized relic
in the possession of the firm of Chickering &
Sons, and has the place of honor in their Bos-
ton warerooms. Fragrant with the memories
of long ago, this little square piano stands
sturdy and intact as the first milestone in the
lifework of Jonas Chickering.
The story of the years that followed is one of
interest to every American music lover, and a
matter of pride to every one of the thousands
of Chickering owners throughout the civilized
world.
Shortly followed the first upright piano, mod-
eled after the high "book-case" style of the
period. Stewart had been a partner for but a
few months when he sold out and returned to
Scotland, and his place with the young inventor
and musician was taken by Captain John Mac-
kay, for seventeen years, and until his death, a
partner in the house of Chickering & Mackay.
He was the master of a fine ship and carried
with him to many ports the six-octave piano
which had already commanded the critical at-
tention of the leading pianists of that day.
In 1841 Mr. Chickering bought from Captain
Mackay's estate the outstanding stock interest
in the business and from that day until now the
concern has been owned and managed by the
members of the Chickering family and their as-
sociates, admitted to the company in later years.
In 1840, after years of experiment, Jonas
Chickering had made his first grand piano with
the one-piece iron frame.
This invention
heralded a new era in piano construction and
solved the problem of a sufficient and perma-
nent support for the great strain of the strings,
amounting in a concert grand of to-day to
twenty tons. This achievement was followed in
1843 by a new method of string deflection and
in 1845 by a new and practical method of over-
stringing in square pianos, placing the strings
in two banks instead of side by side, a funda-
mental principle in vogue to this day in the
construction of all pianos of all designs.
In 1851, at the first World's Fair, held in
London, Jonas Chickering was awarded the
highest prize . The principle of his full iron
plate was copied by the piano makers of the
Continent and this country and the Chickering
piano was honored at numerous national and
world-wide expositions. To the achievements
of Jonas Chickering and his successors have
(Continued on page 14)
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