Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1928 Vol. 87 N. 18

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
NOVEMBER 3, 1928
Francis Glynn to
Represent Mathushek
John H. Gettell, General Manager, Returns
From Trip Through South, and Reports
Better Conditions
The Music Trade Review
the center of the display, and reprints of sev-
eral full-page advertisements pertaining to the
close relationship between the Knabe and the
Metropolitan Opera stars were shown effec-
tively.
J. D. Mugford to Handle
Sonora Co. Publicity
John H. Gettell, general manager of the
Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Corp., New
York, announced this week the appointment of
J. D. Mugford has been appointed director
Francis Glynn as traveling representative for of publicity for the Sonora Phonograph Co.,
this house. Mr. Glynn is now making a trip and has already taken up his new r duties. Mr.
through the West and has already met with
success. He is the son of John J. Glynn, of
the James & Holmstrom Piano Co., and has
had training and experience which fits him ad
mirably for the position which he now holds.
In speaking of his Southern trip to The Re-
view this week, Mr. Gettell was . full of en-
thusiasm over the success he had had. "I
found," he said, "that the dealers are now all
hustling for business and that, where consistent
effort is being made, sales are increasing. We
have been most successful during the last year
and have established over twenty-five new-
dealers. On my recent trip I established font-
new dealers, all representative houses, who are
exploiting the Mathushek through advertising
campaigns and through the direct-mail promo-
tion which we are now furnishing them. One
of the houses with which I arranged to handle
Mathushek is the Siegling Music House,
Charleston, S. C, one of the oldest retail piano
establishments in the country. The music
merchants in general throughout the South arc
anticipating a good Fall business."
Victor Contest for Concert
Compositions Comes to End
Award of $10,000 First and $5,000 Second Prizes
to Be Announced on December 28—Sym-
phonic Contest Ends in May
The Victor Talking Machine Co.'s $10,000
prize competition for the best concert composi-
tion within the scope of the American dance or
jazz orchestra, closed at midnight on Monday,
October 29. Many hundred of entries were
received, and the awards, which included a
second prize of $5,000 will be announced on
December 28.
The judges of the contest are Nathaniel Fins-
ton, Edwin Franko Goldman, Roger Wolfe
Kahn, Arthur Lange, George Olsen, Dr. Hugo
Riesenfeld, Domenico Savino, Frank Skinner,
Fred Waring, S. L. Rothafel (Roxy) and Tito
Floridia.
The Victor contest for a composition of sym-
phonic type for which a prize of $25,000, said
to be the largest sum ever offered for a single
musical work, is offered, closes May 28, 1929.
Already many manuscripts have been received
for consideration by the judges who, in the
symphonic competition, are Mme. Olga Sam-
aroff, Rudolph Ganz, Serge Koussevitzky, Fred-
erick Stock and Leopold Stokowski.
J. D. Mugford
Mugford has had a long and varied experience
both in England and this country. In addition
to his work as a journalist he is well known
to radio and concert audiences on both sides
of the Atlantic as an entertainer.
Lester Piano Co. Urges
Early Ordering for Fall
The Lester Piano Co., Philadelphia, has sent
out to its dealers an effective broadside in color
announcing the fact that there is every indi-
cation of a heavy Fall business and urging that
orders for shipments before January 1 be placed
at the earliest moment in order to avoid dis-
appointment. The first page of the folder has
a reproduction of the front window of a piano
store with the company name of each recipient
specially printed on that same window, thus
giving it the advantage of individuality.
Black, Derges & Marshall
Open New Quarters
Black, Derges & Marshall, music merchants
of Peoria, 111., recently held the formal opening
of their elaborate new store at 629 Main street
that city. The company occupies the store and
basement, at. that .address and the quarters have
been entirely remodeled and richly decorated,
a number of separate parlors being provided for
the display and demonstration of various in-
struments. including, the Siernway piano for
-•
- .: v ..- :
A specially decorated show window in Am- which they are sub-dealers.
pico Hall, Forty-seventh street and Fifth ave-
nue, New York, this week, marked the opening
of the Metropolitan Opera House, for which
the Knabe piano is the official instrument. Al-
Fay Graves and Robert S. Mills have pur-
though the Ampico showrooms provide no chased the musical instrument and furniture
regular show window space, an attractive dis- business of Carl j . Griffin, at Akron, N. Y.,
play was created by curtaining off a portion of and will continue to operate at the present store
the front of the store, visible to Fifth avenue in the Gifford Block, in Main street, of that
shoppers. A reduced photographic cut-out of city.
Rosa Ponselle, attired for her role in Monte-
mezzi's opera, "L'Amore de Tre Re," which
The Fuller Music Store, Defiance, O., has
opened the season at the Metropolitan, had a moved to an upper floor of the building at
prominent place in the window. A Knabe Am- present occupied by the company at 502 Clinton
pico of Sheraton design in red mahogany was street that city.
Ampico Hall Features
Metropolitan Opening
Buy Store in Akron, N. Y.
Howard E. Wurlitzer Dies
Suddenly in New York
Former Head of Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. Suc-
cumbs to Attack of Influenza While on Visit
to Metropolis—Was Fifty-seven Years Old
Howard E. Wurlitzer, of Cincinnati, former
president of the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. and
chairman of the board of that company until
his retirement this Spring, died at the Ritz-
Carlton Hotel, New York, on Monday of this
week of influenza, after an illness of several
days. Mr. Wurlitzer came to New York to
attend the celebration of the eighty-fifth birth-
day of his mother, Mrs. Leonie F. Wurlitzer.
The deceased, who was fifty-seven years old,
is survived by his mother, his widow, a daugh-
ter, a son, Raimond Wurlitzer, Mrs. Mary
Thoman, a sister, and two brothers, Farny and
Rudolph Wurlitzer, both connected actively
with the music business.
The body was taken to Mr. Wurlitzer's home
in Cincinnati, where funeral services were held
on Friday of this week.
Maresh Piano Co. Opens
New Branch in Cleveland
Will Carry Full Line of Pianos, Phonographs
and Radios in New Store Opened at 6710
Broadway, That City
CLEVELAND, O., October 29.—The Maresh Piano
Co. is opening a new branch store this week at
6710 Broadway. It has a floor space of 40 x 150
feet and occupies one of the largest stores on
this thoroughfare. The main store on East
Fifty-fifth street near Broadway will be contin-
ued and A. L. Maresh will have his office there
as in the past. A feature of the store will be the
radio department and Atwater Kent and Cros-
ley lines will be the leaders. Victor instruments
and records are also to be carried. The Laf-
targue and Francis Bacon pianos will be the
principal instruments carried. Whether other
musical merchandise will be carried such as
small goods, etc., has not yet been decided. A
scarcity of certain models of grand pianos js
becoming acute, Mr. Maresh reports, and two
months is the earliest delivery date being prom-
ised by the factories.
Steinway Piano for New
Keith Theatre in Boston
BOSTON, MASS., October 30.—The B F. Keith
Memorial Theatre was opened up last night
with a most unusual program in which speeches
played a prominent part. The program was n-o,t
of so much importance; it was the occasion it-
self that brought out the great crowd-to this
$5,000,000 vaudeville house. The pianos "in-this
house are the Steinway.
.'""' ~
Farny Wurlitzer on Hoover-
Curtis Export Gommittel
BUFFALO, N. Y., October 29.—•FarnyWurfitJttt,
vice-president of the Wuflitzer. Manufa&tufiwg
Co., has been appointed a member gf.-.-.^.^Qm-
mittee of fifty prominent American tuisihess
men, serving on the Hoover-Curtis" Export
Committee, an organization formed to continue
the policies laid down by Mr. Hoover during
the latter's administration as Secretary of Com-
merce.
The Griffith Piano Co., Newark, N. J., which
features a number of prominent pianos, includ-
ing the Steinway and the Sohmer, as well as
radio receivers, has leased quarters in the Me-
Alpin Building, Morristown, N. J., and will open
a branch store there under the management of
Sid Reardon.
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
WESTERN COMMENT
Is Individualism King?
REVIEW OFFICE, CHICAGO, I I I . , OCTOBER 29,
1928.
week the American Iron & Steel Institute held its annual meet-
ing at New York, and the address of the president was read, as is
usual, before some 1,500 of the leaders of the
Schwab
great steel industry. It is the custom, so I am
* n
told, for the vast majority of the members to per-
Schelhng
form the ceremony known as ducking the meet-
ing as soon as the presidential pronouncement has gone forth; but
this time the event was different. The president, Charles M.
Schwab, who is a music lover unashamed, had a secret stunt ready
for his hearers and he insisted that they stay. In consequence,
when the first of the technical papers following his address, was
started, it turned out that the subject to be discussed was none other
than the relation of the American steel industry to the American
piano business! A grand piano, a mass of acoustical apparatus of
various strange looking types, pictures of sound waves thrown on a
screen and so on informed the steel men of the country that ton-
nage, business conditions, price wars and tariffs are not their only
concern, but that the United States Steel Corp. at any rate finds
time to busy itself with such airy trifles as the tonal value of pianos
and the difference between a steel string giving out only a funda-
mental tone and another emitting a mass of partial tones without
any fundamentals at all. And, then, when the paper was finished
and Ernest Schelling, at Mr. Schwab's invitation, sat down to the
piano and for ten minutes played Chopin to the hard-boiled bosses
of rolling mills and of blast furnaces, one could have heard a pin
drop all over the vast ballroom of the Commodore Hotel. Truly,
the piano industry of the United States has been moving in high
financial company. Truly, too, that day was achieved something in
the way of publicity for the piano industry, which even the New
York daily papers thought worthy of notice. For the first time in
history a convention of steel men was held up in its orderly program
while its relation to music and musical instruments was explained,
and while a great artist brought out lovely sounds from the
stretched steel wires, made by some of those steel men, of a mag-
nificent piano. It was an occasion worthy rather more than pass-
ing attention and a few observations on its implications will not
here be out of place.
LAST
paper on piano tone research and to the lovely music that flowed
from Ernest Schelling's fingers have in their homes fine grand
pianos. Certainly, if their behavior during this so unexpected in-
trusion of art into a business convention counts for anything, music
speaks to the vast majority of them with no uncertain voice. To
them the idea of a piano business talking as if it were down and
out, or at least lingering on the count of the eighth second, seemed
frankly absurd.
Now, if one contrasts the personnel of our industry with the per-
sonnel of the great basic industry like that of steel, the differences
to be observed are far more superficial than they
We
are profound. From the platform of the hall at
Have
the meeting of the Iron & Steel Institute that
Men
morning could be seen the faces of piano men like
Henry Ziegler, Theodore Steinway, Harry Sohmer, E. S. Werolin,
Charles Fuller Stoddard, and many others, who sat as invited
guests. Each one of these men is in his particular field of the in-
dustry a true leader, whether in executive management, in technical
achievement, in research, or in organizing. Each of them could just
as well have been a leader of the steel or of any other industry.
Nor is the piano business lacking in brains at any of its centers.
Men like Herbert Simpson, of the Kohler Industries, like Rice of
Kurtzmann & Co., like Bradford Edmunds of Boston, like Cava-
naugh of East Rochester, like Axel Gulbransen, like George J.
Dowling, like Farny Wurlitzer, like Albert Bond, like Willard Van
Matre, like Erwin Bartlett, are not devoid of executive, technical or
organizing brains. They know their field, they have given their
lives to its cultivation, and they have built up strong and enduring
business structures which now are standing rocklike through the
tempests of the hour. Put those men among the crowd of steel
leaders and they will look the part; for they, too, are big men. An
industry dominated and led by men so individually strong certainly
ought not to be, certainly cannot in reality be, a weak, failing in-
dustry. And it is not.
BUT it has a weakness. That weakness is.to be found in this, that
the men are strong, wise and skilled individuals, but that they lack
a sense of community. It is true that in every
But
industry the sense of individualism outweighs all
THE engineer who read the paper said of the American piano busi-
°
.
sense of communal interest. Even in the steel in-
ness that it is a "hundred-million-dollar-a-year" business. He meant
Commumty
. . .
., . rr .
.
,
of course that in a normal year the value of the
dustry competition is terribly efficient. A good
Looking
pianos turned out is not less than this large sum.
From
part of Mr. Schwab's presidential address the other day was taken
Such an industry is respectable and worthy of at-
Outside
up with an appeal to the members of the Institute to refrain from
tention, even among steel men. When, therefore,
disastrous price-cutting. He had the nerve (for nerve was needed )
the question is considered; why is the piano business going through
to say frankly that if he had his way he would stop all addition to
a,phase of depression?, the answer must take into account the fact
plant and equipment for at least a year, seeing that the steel business
that it is a large, respectable, old-established and economically im-
has already too much equipment, too much producing power for
portant industry which is in this condition. During this very meet-
its market. It sounded almost like the head of the Piano Manu-
ing of the Iron & Steel Institute, at which so dramatically the
facturers' Association talking to his members! Yet it is probable
phenomena and the fortunes of the piano industry were introduced
that Mr. Schwab's words will be heeded, for the steel men are com-
on the stage of high-light publicity, the question was asked a hun-
pelled, by the nature of their industry, to realize always a certain
dred times by individual members who had heard the paper and the
strong sense of brotherhood and community. Now it is just this
music: "What, then, is the matter with the piano industry? I did
sense of community which, so it seems to me, our industry lacks.
not know it was in a depressed state. I always thought of a piano
Piano making has indeed grown to its present proportions as an art
as a necessity. There's plenty of money in the country. Why don't
and a business partly because of its jealous individualism, because,
the piano men wake up? What's the matter with them?" And
in fact, of its insistence upon the beauty and the strength of indi-
many other questions of like content. In a word, the distresses of
vidual craftsmanship. But it is absurd to make individualism the
our industry are hardly comprehensible by persons outside it who
foundation stone of an industry which at the same time insists that
look at the product only from an outside point of view, but who,
it is so well established as to be technically standardized and really
at the same time, sense clearly its social importance and its position
incapable of improvement. If the latter belief be correct, then the
as a generally acknowledged necessity to the cultured home. Prob-
ably nine-tenths <>\ the men who sat in that hall listening to the industry can properly get together and lose the last traces of an in-
dividualism which, by hypothesis, no longer has any meaning.
10

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