January 3, 1925.
IS
PRESTO
STEINWAY'S PART
IN MUSICAL LONDON
Famous Piano and Personalities About Foun-
der and Successive Makers, Together with
Description of New Steinway Hall Provide
Interesting Topics for Trade Story.
EVENT OF 1855
Date Named for Creation of Square with Full Metal
Plate Regarded as Parent of All Modern
Grands.
The new Steinway Hall in London is the subject
of an interesting news story in the December issue
of the London Music Trades Review, in which
the years of Steinway achievement at home and
abroad are told:
The removal about the middle of last month of
Messrs. Steinway and Sons from Wigmore street to
more commodious premises at 1 and 2, George Street,
Conduit street, is another important event in the
history of musical London.
Situated within a stone's-throw of Bond street,
Regent street, and St. George's, Hanover Square, it is
a six-story building, more than twice the size of the
old one, and contains some forty rooms, of which
eleven will be used as showrooms, and eleven as
studios. The main showroom, on the ground floor, is
sixty feet long, decorated in white and gold, and will
be used for the display of fancy-case pianos.
The New Hall.
On the top floor are the studios. Close-fitting,
baize-covered doors and hemp-covered floors, under
which is a layer of felt, help to make these rooms
sound-absorbing, so that even if all eleven studios
are being used at once there will be little, if any,
clash of sound. Professional teachers of music, sing-
ing, and elocution will have these studios at their
disposal.
Messrs. Steinway and Sons have an interesting his-
tory as the pioneers of the grand piano. The founder
of the firm, Henry Engelhard Steinway, was born
in 1797, the youngest of twelve children. Chance
left him without either mother or father, brother or
sister, at the age of fifteen. At that time Western
Europe was in a ferment, the name of Napoleon was
spoken with bated breath. Steinway joined the army
of the Duke of Brunswick. Here he rose to the rank
of subaltern, and fought at the Battle of Waterloo.
During his army career, Steinway seemed to have
passed much of his spare time in inventing weird and
wonderful musical
instruments—variations of the dul-
cimer, the Jew r 's harp, the zither.
First Steinway Effort.
When twenty-one, Steinway forsook the army and
settled in a little town at the foot of the Hartz Moun-
tains. First, he worked in a cabinet-maker's shop,
then in a little factory where they made church
organs. Incidentally, he played the organ in the vil-
lage church. In 1825 he married, and his gift to the
bride was a two-stringed piano of his own making—
one of the first "Steinways."
During the next fourteen years several children
were born, and it was Henry Steinway's great ambi-
tion to make a beautiful piano for his eldest son,
Theodore. He worked at this piano at every spare
moment, continually introducing improvements and
testing new theories of construction, until, in 1839,
the first "Steinway Grand" was finished and exhibited
at the State Fair of Brunswick. Musicians came
from far cities to see and hear this wonderful instru-
ment. Nothing like it had ever been seen or heard
before. Steinway received a specially-struck gold
medal, and the piano was sold—probably to the Duke
of Brunswick—for a thousand thalers—about £150.
Beginning in America.
The next ten years were uneventful ones for the
Steinways. Their children were growing up, the
father still turning out "Steinways" with their help.
In 1849 the second son, Charles, emigrated to New
York. He wrote home such wonderful accounts of
the large sums of money to be made in America, that
the whole family emigrated a year later. Charles
Steinway had not erred in urging his parents to go
overseas, for every member of the family settled
down
in their new home to real hard work, and by
1853 1 the firm of "Steinway and Sons" was founded.
Two years later, Henry Steinway and his sons
designed and exhibited in New York a square piano
"overstrung and with full metal frame." It was this
piano which may be regarded as the parent of all
modern grand pianos. Its exhibition caused such ex-
citement and so great a sensation that almost all
piano manufacturers in the world abandoned their
previous method of construction and built their in-
struments on the Steinway principle—a principle
which still holds good.
Twenty-five years after the foundation of the firm
in New York the firm opened the Steinway Hall in
London.
Today, the "Steinways 1 ' in use all over the world
number nearly a quarter of a million, and eight lineal
descendants of the first Henry Steinway are actively
engaged in guiding the destinies of the firm in two
continents.
EST. 1856
Don't Allow Even Your Old Established Customer to
Forget You or Your Business.
Consistency is held to be the soul of advertising
for the small retail dealer in a pamphlet on "Small
Store Adverising," issued by the Domestic Distri-
bution Department of the Chamber of Commerce of
the United States.
The department lays down the general rule that
"every merchant must make himself known in or-
der to conduct a profitable business." It then goes
on to explain the methods best adapted to the use
of the small store owner by which this may be ac-
complished.
"Although every repetition of an advertisement or
a letter costs money, occasional, hit-or-miss adver-
tising is usually a loss, whereas steady advertising
of the right kind is sure to be productive. The re->
tailer whose business justifies advertising in news-
papers will do better to run a small advertisement
every day than to run a large one once a week.
"This principle applies to all forms of publicity.
If form letters are sent out, it is best to send them
regularly; if handbills are broadcast, it is best to
broadcast them regularly; if window advertising is
used, the displays should be constant and changed
frequently. Never let the public forget you. Never
give even your old established customers a chance
to forget you, your store, your goods."
DATE OF LYONS FAIR.
The next Lyons Fair, the interesting annual event
in France, will be held from March 2 to 15, 1925, and
will contain exhibits from upwards of twe'nty differ-
ent countries, especially those of the manufacturing
countries of Western Europe. An advanced edition
of the official catalog, translated into English, is now
ready.
Grand and
Reproducing
Grand Pianos
DECKER
mJ
UNCLE SAM'S ADVICE TO
SMALL STORE ADVERTISING
are the last word in
musical perfection.
& SON
Cincinnati Factories of The Baldwin Piano Company
1306 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia
Grand, Upright
SUCCESS
and
is assured the dealer who takes advantage of
THE BALDWIN CO-OPERATION PLAN
which offers every opportunity to represent
under the mos 1 favorable conditions a com-
plete line of high grade pianos, players and
reproducers.
Welte-Mi^non
{Licensee)
Reproducing
(Electric)
Lester Piano Co.
For tnjorma/lon unit*
Pianos and Players -
/ncorporatea
of Recognized
Artistic Character
Company
CHICAGO
CINCINNATI
INDIANAPOLIS
LOUISVILLB
NEW YOBK
DBNVBB
SAN FBANCMCO
ST. Louie
DALLAS
Made by a Decker Since 1856
699-703 East 135th Street
New York
For QUALITY, SATISFACTION and PROFIT
NEWMAN BROTHERS PIANOS
NEWMAN BROS. CO.
published 1870
Factories, 816 DIX ST., Chicago, HI.
A QUALITY PRODUCT
FOR OVER
QUARTER OFA CENTURY
-n-n—^ZjlZZ——,—J ESt. 1 8 9 3 1
==
Kindler & Collins
Pianos
520-524 W. 4tlh S
NEW YORK
When In Doubt See Presto Buyers' Guide
POOLE
^BOSTON—
GRAND AND UPRIGHT PIANOS
AND
PLAYER PIANOS
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