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WESTERN COMMENT
Signs, Portents, and an Answer
REVIEW OFFICE, CHICAGO, I I I . , JANUARY 21,
of harmonies; but that only means that it is there for want of
something better. Positively, rather than negatively speaking, in
fact, we are forced to the conclusion that, with all its tremendous
advantages, the obvious defects of the piano are becoming known
to a public which during the last fifteen years has learned very
much about musical tone, and has become familiar, as never before,
with the modern orchestra, both symphonic and choreographic. In
a word, we have to-day an American public rapidly becoming, so to
speak, Damrosch-conscious and Whiteman conscious too. To a
public so educated the attraction of the piano as a solo instrument is
slighter than it would be if all this other familiarity with new
musical fields did not exist. Do we propose to stand by?
1929.
FOR reasons which I do not think it necessary to discuss, since they
are only too well understood, the makers and sellers of pianos do
not commonly set themselves to the study of books
about music. It is true that the day is past when
R dfi Id'
a piano man took it as an insult if he were asked
whether he had ever gone to a symphony concert.
But the opinions and the notions, the hypotheses and the ideas of
persons who write about music, its theory and practice, or about
musicians, are rather by way of being as closed books to our con-
freres. Which is a pity, but cannot be helped, since the roots of
the matter lie very deep in American social and economic life. Yet
it is a pity, for every so often something comes along in the way
of a book on music which ought to be read by every piano man.
Such an occasion is now before us. Mr. John Redfield, who is a
very bright man, despite his rather truculent manner, and who has
been a lecturer on the Physics of Music at Columbia University,
has written a very attractive and very interesting book called
"Music, A Science and an Art," in the course of which he not
only says some very severe things about the piano, but does his best
to prove to his readers that this instrument is no longer able to
meet the legitimate demands of to-day's musicians, and ought, in
fact, as soon as possible to be abolished. Mr. Redfield indeed,
does not confine himself to mere brutal assault. He adduces evi-
dence. He relates at considerable length all the defects proper to
the piano, its inability to produce a sustained tone, its incapacity
to swell or diminish a sound after the sound has been evoked, the
imperfect system of tuning which it uses and has imposed upon
the whole art of music; and so on with a considerable and dis-
turbing quantity of detail. Now, this book, unlike some other
books of its kind, is being read. Musicians are talking about it.
Newspapers are reviewing it. Not a review that I have yet seen
takes the part of the attacked piano. Not a musician to whom I
have talked believes that the attack is entirely without justifica-
tion. It is something to think about and to discuss. Taking then
the privilege accorded to me as a chartered libertine on these mat-
ters, I proceed to discuss them.
I HOPE not. Certainly those of us who care for the piano and who
believe in its present and in its future cannot contemplate pres-
ent conditions with enough equanimity to warrant
,
our standing still and waiting for something to
Negative
drop on us. What then can we do about it all?
I think that an answer can be given. First of all,
however, let me just set down here in a few words the positive
virtues of the piano as a musical instrument: (1) it is the only
commodious and domestically sized musical instrument which has
complete melodic and large harmonic capacity under the control
of two or four hands. (2) Its tone, admitting its evanescent quali-
ties, is fascinating and beautiful. (3) It is at present indispensable
to the practice of music in its practical sense: (4) the literature
of music composed for it is enormously greater than for all other
instruments: (5) no other convenient home instrument of any-
thing like the same capacities exists and (6) the ability to play
any other is less easily acquired. In a word, the piano remains
the prince of the instrumental world. Yet Mr. Redfield is per-
fectly right in cataloguing its positive defects. The tone, once made,
is unmalleable. Within a few seconds of its original evocation it
lias died away, while the effective duration of its sounds in the
region of greatest sustaining power is pitifully short. The tone
cannot be swelled or diminished after it has been made. Only the
best pianos have a really fascinating quality of tone, at best, and
most of the experiments made towards the development of very
small types have been disappointing. The point about the equal
temperament I do not think is worth much discussion. Mr. Red-
field is right in saying that the effect of tempered intervals on,
for instance, the organ is distressing to delicate ears. But
lie dismisses too easily the mechanical difficulty of building just
intonation instruments, or of getting musicians to play on them.
AND the first thing I should say is that all this may not be laughed
away as of no significance to the piano trade, as mere word-spin-
ning by a musical theorist. For in very truth what
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Mr. Redfield has to say is being said by a great
many other people. During the last twenty-five
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years there have been many .improvements in
musical instrument manufacture. To take just one example, the
organ, long an appanage only of the church, has become a feature
of the theatre and, more lately, of the fine home. A residence organ
is a lovely possession and a fashion is being born among those who
can afford it to include one of these kingly instruments in every
fine modern house. Much technical work of every imaginable kind
has been done by organ experts until the contemporary instrument
has become a very wonderful thing. Moreover, it is being reduced
in size, made less expensive and being groomed in fact for an
invasion of the homes of the moderately well-to-do. The talking
motion picture craze, which will last for a little time yet, will
force organ makers to go into this very field, and by the time that
•he theatre organ is again being demanded in large quantities, the
American home will have been successfully occupied. At least all
this is possible. Then again, the composers of to-day are asking
steadily .for new musical effects, in tone and in technique. The
piano indeed has worked itself into the dance orchestra by virtue
of its unsurpassed value as a marker of rhythms and as a filler-in
Now, we can make better pianos. The sustaining-tone problem is
very difficult, but it can be solved, and already to some extent has
been solved, as by the work of Breed, Severy, Sin-
clair, Simon Cooper, Hans Schumann, and so on.
'
Improvements in wire, in the soundboard, or at
any rate in the resonating system (w r hich may not
be the same thing at all) in the hammer and in the action, are not
only possible but already may be envisaged by those who know
what is being done by the few who are working in the field of re-
search. The piano can be built up within the next few years into
the most marvelous musical instrument the world has ever known ;
and this without spoiling its appearance or increasing its price. It
can be done ; and perhaps when manufacturers cease to boast that
all the technology their business possesses is under the hat of oni 1
half-educated and not over-paid workman called a superintendent
. . . then perhaps it will be done. And I, at least, am able to end
optimistically; for I say that it will be done.
- - W . B. W.
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