Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1920 1755

Page 7 Text:

March 11, 1920.
ingenuity, to awaken new interest in an inherent passion as old as
life itself. To devise new means for stirring up a practical demon-
stration of music-love which may reflect upon and influence the sale
of musical instruments, is no easy matter. It demands more than
even the rare abilities of the expert promoter and advertising spe-
cialist. It calls for genius. Mr. Aldcroftt recognized all this in his
compliment to the Bureau for the Advancement of Music.
And Mr. Aldcroftt also paid a graceful tribute to the tireless
efforts of General Counsel Pound, who so ably looked after the legal—
we had almost said political—interests of the industry and trade.
On the whole, President Aldcroftt's address was the most lib-
eral expression of conditions in the piano and associated industries
that we remember in connection with the annual conventions. And,
still better, it was informative and exceeded the customary official
review because it also looked forward and suggested ways by which
to remedy the defects of the past while insuring the progress of the
future.
If there is any member of the industry and trade who did not
read carefully what Mr. Aldcroftt said at the New York convention,
as reported in this paper of February 5, we suggest that a duty of
self-interest has been overlooked and the neglect should be remedied.
THE STENCIL CITY
Many years ago, while the earliest of the explorers had merely
coast maps to guide them, the French pushed inland in North Amer-
ica in their quest for Hochelaga, a mythical city of untold riches,
which one of their exploring geographers reported to have heard of.
But, although the wonderful city was never found, the search has its
counterpart today in the quest that is being made from time to time
by curious dealers as to the point of manufacture of this, that or
the other piano, the origin of which is not indicated on the instru-
ment.
When the French failed to find the native city, they attached
the name "Hochelaga" to a province in Quebec, Canada. Hoche-
laga has 76 square miles of territory, on the west bank of the St.
Lawrence River at Montreal, with Longue Pointe as the capital.
But what city or territory is the Hochelaga of the piano business?
And so we seem to have discovered the stencil city, at least.
And, no doubt, it's a good city—as good as the best of the unidenti-
fied pianos about which readers of Presto ask from week to week.
There was a time when the trade papers, and some of the piano
manufacturers also struggled hard to discover some other name that
could be used in place of "stencil." That descriptive word had be-
come so hackneyed, and it permitted of so many definitions, that it
had become evasive and unsatisfactory. Possibly the name of the
Canadian town might have served the purpose of a substitute.
"Hochelaga" might as well imply stenciling as any other word. It
has something of a teutonic sound, and the first syllable may easily
be translated to the advantage of any stencil piano.
In any event, the stencil piano has become softened in the esteem
of the piano trade. It no longer is regarded in the light of
fraud, as it once was, in its worst phase. And, whether or not
stencil pianos are sold by the dealers of Hochelaga, the researches
of the geographically-inclined member of Presto's staff has offered a
suggestion which may possibly be useful to some of the manufac-
turers, after things become normal and the demand for pianos sub-
sides to proportions something like those of former days.
PLAYER=ROLL PRIVILEGES
If there has been any doubt about the place of the playerpiano
in the development and exposition of art in music, such an announce-
ment as that of the Q R S Company, in last week's Presto, must
dispel it. For the Q R S announcement presented the names of
forty-nine of the world's greatest pianists and composers whose
creative and interpretative genius have been, by agreement, bound up
with the progress of the great player-roll industry. It means, of
course, that the phenomenal performers, the most inspired inter-
preters of music, have contracted to permit of the permanent record-
ing of their playing, for the perpetual example and delight of the less-
gifted lovers of good music.
From the days of Gottschalk, Thalberg, and the still earlier
pianists, the piano-loving public has had occasional opportunities for
knowing how the great interpreters caught and reproduced the mas-
ter-compositions. But it was an infrequent opportunity, and possible
to only a very small proportion of the people. Today it is possible
for any lover of fine pianism to know precisely how Paderewski,
Gabrilowitsch, Hamburg, Bauer, Busoni, Bloomfield-Zeisler, or any
of the rest, perform the intricate works of Liszt or Chopin, or Rubin-
stein, or the other geniuses of the piano. And the possibility of that
one-time priceless privilege is so easy of attainment that future gen-
erations may not place a proper estimate upon it. But, even so, the
effect, the influence, of the player roll must be one of the greatest
in the entire chronology of the world's intellectual and spiritual
"uplifts."
There are thoughts suggested by the Q R S Company's an-
nouncement that cause a tingling sensation in the minds of all who
know what fine music really means. It is difficult to realize that from
this time forward the world can never lose the impressions, the living
force and the deathless influences, of the great masters of the piano.
We have all read the lives of the wonder-workers of the piano. The
tours and triumphs of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Liszt,
Von Bulow, Anton Rubinstein and others, long since gone forever,
are familiar. Their stories and the idealized pictures tell us of some
of their moods and struggles. But beyond all that we know little.
We can not compare Chopin with Godowsky, nor Liszt with Les-
chetizky, nor Rubinstein with Hofmann, nor Von Bulow with Sauer.
All that the earlier masters of the piano could say, by their amazing
skill, was stilled in their death. But the masters of today can never,
in the same sense, die. Their wizardry will remain, and even the
tyro may repeat the effects of their genius with all their power of
tone and delicacy of shading.
How many of the music lovers fully appreciate this? And what
greater argument were possible in favor of the playerpiano as an
actual necessity in art? The old-time custom of the piano manufac-
turers finding great pianists to perform upon certain instruments ex-
clusively, is now discounted by the leading player-roll industries.
Where a great piano industry once engaged with an artist to use a
certain instrument, the Q R S Company now engages fifty pianists
to grant the exclusive privilege of reproducing their playing in the
rolls that will give back again for any owner of the rolls all of the
beauty of expression of the original performance.
It is certainly a great age in which we live. And, so far as con-
cerns music and the people who enjoy it, the playerpiano and the
music roll are contributing a large share of the greatness of the time
in which we live.
The "Where Doubts Are Dispelled" columns often give evidence
of the uses of printer's ink. Within two weeks three one-time famous
pianos have been asked after which were once famous but now almost
forgotten, No name is sufficiently powerful to defy the effects of
time and neglect. Publicity is as essential to a good piano as tone
or quality.
* * *
A correspondent asks us to name the "fool-proof" playerpiano.
Several of them come pretty near to it, but there is nothing in the
world that is absolutely fool-proof. If there was we wouldn't have
so many of them with us all the time, and playerpianos wouldn't be
submitted to so much abuse.
;|: *
*
The increasing number of "house organs" in the piano trade is
one of the signs of the times. The bright little store and factory pub-
lications serve a good purpose and help to enliven the trade. And
some of them suggest that there are factory workers who would
make good editors.
* * *
Piano selling is very largely a matter of intelligent solicitation.
As with life insurance, it involves the ability to convince people that
they really need something they think they are not sure they want.
Don't telephone. That only gives a man the chance to turn you down.
^ ^ ^
Japan threatens to make a strong bid for the world's trade in
many things. Musical instruments are among them. Wages are so
low in Japan, and labor union activities so small, that the cheap up-
rights of the little brown man may get a new stencil record.
* * *
There is significance in the renewed call for competent piano
salesmen. Pianos have been selling themselves, but a change is
coming and the automaton will not do, even where demand exceeds
supply.
^ ^ ,
A lively demand is growing for the once-popular "parlor organs."
It is certain that the few reed organ instruments that remain will ex-
perience a revival of activities sufficient to tax their capacities.
* * *
England is bidding for American industries. Some lines may
listen, but not piano manufacture. There's room enough at home and
better opportunities.
_
'
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Page 8 Text:

PRESTO
AMPICO CONCERT IN
NATIONAL CAPITAL
Famous Reproducing Playerpiano the Attrac-
tion Before Audience of Washington Mu-
sic Lovers at Sunday Afternoon Con-
cert at Belasco Theater.
An item in the Washington, D. C, newspapers last
week of extraordinary significance was the report of
a concert where the Ampico was offered as an at-
traction at the Belasco Theater on a Sunday after-
noon performance. At this concert Godowsky,
Levitzki, Rubinstein and Ornstein appeared with the
Ampico Reproducing Piano before an appreciative
Washington audience.
It was a repetition of the program, which the
American Piano Co. gave at Carnegie Hall during
Music Show Week, with the exception of the Moisei-
witsch number. This artist could not appear owing
to an engagement elsewhere.
It is. the first time on record that a mechanical
piano had been featured as an attraction in a con-
cert for which the public paid admission, a fact
which adds strongly to its importance and signifi-
cance. The same management, that of M. F. Kline,
is to repeat this concert in Washington, so great
was its success. ]t has also been arranged to give it
in Baltimore on March 13, and arrangements are
pending for other cities.
Two press notices from the Washington papers
which follow show the appreciative attitude of the
music critics:
What Times Said.
An exceptional opportunity was given yesterday at
the Belasco Theater to hear, in a single program,
the playing of four of the famous pianists of today.
An unusual experience was "hearing the ghost walk''
as it were, when these artists were reincarnated by
the Ampico Reproducing Piano that, in absolute
characteristics of the soloists, played just as Go-
dowsky, Levitzki, Ornstein and Rubinstein had
played.
A capacity audience was enthusiastic even to the
point of shouting "bravo" when Mischa Levitzki,
who was playing a dramatic, eloquent and finely
delineated interpretation of the Sixth Hungarian
Rhapsody of Liszt, suddenly pushed his chair back
from the piano—and in the identical spirit and tone,
the piano continued, with no break in the playing,
this virtuoso example of pianistic art.
That was amazing! But more so was the return
of the soloist to the keyboard. Expectancy was in
the air. as Levitzki drew his chair forward. It went
out in a shout when he plunged into a vigorous
chord ; during a fast tempo, picked up the work with
his own hands with no perceptible change in it and
concluded the Rhapsody in a brilliant sweep of big
octave passages.
A thing of wood and steel and felt, with man's
brain and genius added thereto, the Ampico has
evoked the soul of the pianist's art and "fixed it in
a moment thus"—like a sculptured tone-poem that
future music halls may know these gifts. The genius
of the pianist will no longer "pass away." His "re-
production," as it is called, is the book he leaves be-
hind to fill with his presence the composer's thoughts.
Poems, alone, in the past, reincarnated this elusive
art.
"Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,
The best to my mind is the Trovatore,
And Mario can soothe with a tenor note,
The souls in Purgatory."
Today we have them for us and for posterity.—
Washington Times.
Opinion of Herald Critic.
A large and very appreciative audience witnessed
one of the most remarkable feats of modern inven-
tion yesterday afternoon at the Belasco Theater. It
has always been a source of regret that our great
pianists have had no means of passing on to pos-
terity their accomplishments in the realms of art.
The Ampico Reproducing Piano has been evolved
and is the means by which the works of these fa-
mous artists will survive them, when they, unhap-
pilv, have passed from us.
The Ampico is really a marvelous instrument.
Yesterday its possibilities were demonstrated when
four of our greatest pianists, Ornstein, Godowsky,
Levitzki and Rubinstein, played upon it and their
productions were repeated by the mechanism of the
instrument. In one case, during the playing of Liszt's
Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody, by Mischa Levitzki, the
artist ceased playing while the Ampico began; after a
short while Levitzki reseated himself at the piano
and finished the composition. The change was im-
perceptible, it being impossible to tell when the
artist was performing and when the reproducing
mechanism began.
Ornstein opened the program with Chopin's "Noc-
turne in F Sharp" and it was repeated exactly by the
Ampico. Godowsky's rendition of "Etude de Con-
cert. No. 2," bv Liszt, was reproduced, and like-
wise Arthur Rubinstein's playing of "Triana" by Al-
beniz. and Levitzki's rendition of "Danse Humor-
esnue" bv Stojowsky.
• In addition to these numbers there were "13th
Rhapsody" by Liszt, played by Ornstein, "Triakon-
tameron" by Godowskv, played by the composer and
Schubert's "Marche Militaire" by Rubinstein. Each
of the artists was greeted by a great storm of ap-
plause and each responded with a short encore.—
Herald.
LARGE BUSH & QERTS SECTION
IN GREAT TEXAS DAILY PAPER
W. L. Bush Pushing Sales of Instruments from His
Factory to Limit.
Readers of great dailies are familiar with sections
of the Sunday issues of such publications in which
a line of industry is promoted, such as the automo-
bile manufacturers, but to find a whole large section
devoted exclusivel yto one retail piano house—that
of the Bush & Gerts Piano Co., of Texas, is un-
precedented in the annals of anv trade.
The Sunday Times-Herald, of Dallas, Texas—
one of the leading publications of the Lone Star
State—on a recent Sunday published a nine-page
section which it styled the Bush & Gerts section,
which told of nothing but the Bush & Gerts in-
struments and enterprise. Of course, the other Dal-
las dailies were not idle; but the Dallas Morning
News gave the house only one page at a time, owing
to the shortage of print paper which was affecting
it at that time.
The Sunday Times-Herald's Bush & Gerts sec-
tion was fully illustrated, there being specially-
drawn designs and borders, and also portraits of
many men and women who had been, or are at
present, connected with the house.
And William Lincoln Bush, who was responsible
for this flood of advertising, was the center of pro-
moting energy. It was his conception and designs
that were put over, and he was seen among the
salesmen as large as life in the big sales that fol-
lowed the advertising.
General Manager W. S. Miller of the Bush &
Gerts Piano Company, Weed and Dayton streets,
Chicago, says that grands are being made largely
now for the trade at the factory. It was a Bush &
Gerts grand, with the company's special mode of
stringing, that made the "hit" of the evening at the
recent dinner of the Chicago Piano Club at the Ho-
tel Morrison, Chicago.
A. S. BOND IS IN FLORIDA.
A. S. Bond, president of the Packard Piano Co.,
Fort Wayne, Ind., is now enjoying a vacation in
Florida. His exact whereabouts at the present time
are not known at the Chicago Packard office, but
he is presumably at or near Tampa. Mr. Bond
has been hard at it for many months, and his loyal
staff are glad that he had the chance to get away
for a recreation in the sunny peninsula.
March 11, 1920.
FOR MORE THAN A THIRD
OF A CENTURY IN VIRGINIA
Name of Hobbie Associated with Pianos in Lynch-
burg and Roanoke for That Period.
The firm of Hobbie Bros. Co., Inc., Roanoke, Va.,
dealers in pianos and musical instruments generally,
at 9 Church avenue, West, may be considered the
largest and, by succession, the oldest exclusive piano
house in Virginia, the name of Hobbie having been
identified with the business since about 1881, hav-
ing originally opened in Lynchburg. In 1888 the
main store was removed to Roanoke, and the Lynch-
burg store operated as a branch.
The officers of the present firm are: J. D. Hobbie,
Jr., president; W. N. Hobbie, secretary; T. D. Ho-
hart, Jr., treasurer. The above officers, with Hon. R.
Holman Willis and John A. Pilcher, constitute the
board of directors.
Messrs. J. D. Hobbie, Jr., and W. N. Hobbie are
both men of a lifetime experience in the handling
of pianos and other high grade musical instruments,
having been identified with their father, J. D. Hob-
bie, who first began handling pianos in Lynchburg
approximately forty years ago. The Hobbie broth-
ers are well known in Roanoke, where all their lives
have been spent, and where they enjoy the distinc-
tion of possessing the confidence and esteem of
their fellow townsmen to a marked degree.
The name "Hobbie" has been identified with lead-
ing pianos, including the Chickering, Marshall &
Wendell and Packard. For more than a third of a
century the firm has controlled the sale of the Chick-
ering in this territory. The Hobbies have sold ap-
proximately 15,000 pianos to as many satisfied cus-
tomers. This gives them a knowledge of piano
quality and piano value such as few men possess,
and all pianos handled by them are selected with
that knowledge. Therefore, piano purchasers get
the benefit of their long experience.
In addition to the large line of pianos carried,
Hobbie Bros. Co. is headquarters for the Columbia
Grafanola and records.
OPENED PIANO STORE SAFE.
After breaking the combinaiton of the safe at
the United Piano Co. store, 220 Third avenue,
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, J. E. Leming was arrested
and confessed to his crime. A search of Leming's
premises revealed the fact that he has also been
obtaining money by fraudulently writing checks.
Leming's craving for money seemed all the more
unusual when it was discovered that he has been
holding three positions in town at the same time
and last week made a total of $90. His wife also
works.
FINE DISPLAY IN MICHIGAN STORE
The handsome window display here shown was
arranged by Horace Prentice & Son, Kalamazoo,
Mich. It would be hard to improve on this display
of goods, the phonographs on the left being placed
in a most advantageous position for public inspec-
tion, and the team-work exemplified by the living
picture of the manufacturer's trade-mark being slev-
erly conceived and well executed. Another interest-
ing view is shown on page 25. The instruments dis-
played are "Puritans."
Enhanced content © 2008-2009 and presented by MBSI - The Musical Box Society International (www.mbsi.org) and the International Arcade Museum (www.arcade-museum.com).
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