Presto

PRESTO
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
. Editors
Telephones, Local and Long Distance, Harrison 234
Private Phones to all Departments. Cable Address (Com-
merclal Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
Post Office, Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879.
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Items of news and other matter are solicited and if
of general interest to the music trade will be paid for
at space rates. Usually piano merchants or salesmen
in the smaller cities are the best occasional corre-
spondents, and their assistance is invited.
Forms close at noon every Thursday. News mat-
ter should be in not later than eleven o'clock on the
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Address all communications for the editorial or business
departments to PRESTO PUBLISHING CO., 417 South
Dearborn Street, Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1925.
UNCOMMON CASES
Why not take a lesson from the French
piano manufacturers? Of course no one will
presume to say that there is anything over
there that suggests a betterment over our
American pianos in tone or construction. But
in the matter of case designs and ornamenta-
tion, even plain elegance, the pianos of France
sometimes present something different. And
there are indications that something different
is what the trade of this country needs and
the piano public is waiting for—if there really
is any waiting.
For many years past the notion of uni-
formity, standardization, or similitude^ has
taken hold of the American piano industries.
There are many makes of pianos, and a num-
ber of fine standard case designs. But there
is a sameness that can not help but strike
the interested visitor to any large piano ware-
room. There does not seem to have been
much special effort at beauty of effect in any
of the pianos of splendid tonal results in a
good many years. Perhaps the manufactur-
ers have become so accustomed to their sub-
stantial and severely plain cases that nothing
else is at all desirable.
How would it do if a few of the piano in-
dustries were to make a specialty of unusual
case designs—of special decorative features,
or some departure from the standardized
cases? In France the leading piano manufac-
turers produce cases of marvelous beauty,
and often artistically dainty in minor details.
Such beauty of case ornamentation must
have its effect upon the more "exclusive"
class of buyers. It must draw the line be-
tween the commonplace, or even the "stand-
ard," and the unique or rare designs by which
the drawing room has an added charm to the
eye as well as the ear.
At intervals, in the larger piano ware-
rooms, it is possible to see an instrument of
peculiar beauty and novelty of case design
and decoration. Would it help trade if more
of that kind of thing were on display?
THE FIRST PIANO
Mr. A. M. Lansford, of Charlotte, N. C,
writes to Presto as follows, on a subject which
has been supposed to belong with the closed
discussions:
Chas. Goodrich Piano Co., Emporia, Va., report a
find that seems to dispute the common impression
that pianos are only about two centuries old. Mr.
Goodrich recently traded in a beautiful, five-octave
square piano bearing the date of 1579 in two places.
It has one pedal, but no plate. It has two unison
treble and single, wrapped bass strings. The solid,
inlaid mahogany of which it is made, is exceptionally
pretty and perfectly preserved. The fall board is in-
scribed as follows: "Astor & Co., Crownhill, Lon-
don.". Mr. Goodrich says the family from whom he
got the old relic traced its ownership back 280 years.
If someone can tell when Astor & Co. were in ex-
istence, we might thereby verify dates on piano.
Evidently there must be some mistake
about the date which appears on the old piano
traded in by Mr. Goodrich. There were
no pianos made as long ago as 1579, which
was the period following the finest develop-
ment of the harpsichord. It is no longer
disputed that Cristofori, of Padua, devised the
first piano action, from which has developed
the almost perfect mechanism of today—about
1709.
There was an Astor piano industry in Lon-
don in the middle of the seventeenth century,
and it was a son of the founder of that indus-
try that has credit of starting the piano busi-
ness in the United States. The son was John
Jacob Astor who, in about the year 1780,
opened a fur store in New York and installed
there several of the Astor instruments which
he had brought over with him.
Probably the figures to which Mr. Lans-
ford refers, as appearing on the old piano
traded in by Dealer Goodrich, were placed
there by tuners or others for some other pur-
pose than to settle the time of the instru-
ment's creation. In any event, it is an inter-
esting relic of the times past, and should be
reserved as such, the more because it retains
some of its original beauty of tone and ap-
pearance.
Can't keep a good man out of the piano game
after he has been in it all his life. Mr. Geo. P.
Bent traveled over the world selling Crown
pianos, repeated it for the Price & Teeple
pianos; then he wrote a book, and now he will
go back to selling pianos in the Pacific Coast
country.
The Price & Teeple is again the
lucky piano.
* * *
It isn't too soon to talk about the big music
trade convention set for next June, with head-
quarters at the Drake Hotel, Chicago. There
will be displays, and already the promise is of
the most enthusiastic gathering in the history
of the trade.
We do not recall having read anything
more reasonable, or more fraught with good
sense than Mr. A. G. Gulbransen's admonition
to quit fluttering about inconsequentials and
sell more playerpianos. Practical advice well
put.
A CRAWFORD EDITORIAL
[Reprinted from Presto of Feb. 7 by request.]
There are few, except among the very youngest
recruits in the piano trade and industry, who do not
know Mr. Henry W. Crawford, long prominent as
head of the old Smith & Nixon Piano Co., of Cin-
cinnati. Mr. Crawford has not been active during the
past four years because of severe illness. But his
mind is as vigorous as ever, and Presto takes the
liberty to make use here of a private letter, by the
former yery energetic piano manufacturer and sales-
man. The letter, from which the following is taken,
was written three years ago and is the more interest-
February 21, 1925.
ing and valuable because it was addressed by Mr.
Crawford to his son at Harvard college:
Fame and fortune are the ambitions of life, but not
its object. So prepare that you may be dependable
and do well that which you undertake to do.
Lack of thoroughness is the great defect of the
human race. Superficiality is the father of ignorance.
Ignorance is the father of fear. Fear makes slaves
of men and makes despotism possible. Aim to ren-
der such service as to make the community happier
and better because you have lived in it. In the lan-
guage of Lincoln's mother, "Be honest and be kind."
"Know thyself and then you will know God."
Worry not, nor concern yourself about going to
heaven, or about the heaven after death. Concern
yourself with helping to make this place, here on
earth, a heaven and a decent place in which to live,
both for yourself and for others.
We are inclined to think that the letter, from a
piano man who has put a lifetime of energy into the
business, and who for years was a dominating char-
acter in the industry, is good enough to cause other
piano men a sense of pride. It is an" admonitory ad-
dress of a kind to be of great value to any young
man about to start out in the world, whether in the
piano business or any other. And in its eloquence
we believe that it has so few equals that we are glad
to adopt it as an editorial.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(February 21, 1895.)
Music-Trade exhibitions are quite common in Eng-
land. Strange that we do not have them in America,
also. Here the result would be more satisfactory
from a commercial standpoint, and in the matter of
public interest we believe they could be made to pay
the management.
Decker & Son, 971-975 East One Hundred and
Thirty-fifth street, New York City, favor us with
their Piano Catalogue, recently issued. The catalogue
is printed on superior paper and tastefully bound in
an embossed enamelled cover, with the name of the
firm stamped in red relief. Judging by the testimonials
at the end of the book convinces one that the Decker
& Son piano is making a great record.
At the recent trade banquet Mr. A. H. Reed said
he expected some day to see the cheap piano accepted
in this country just as it is in Europe, implying
that the trade across the water regarded the "stump
boxes" with complacent unconcern. The question of
the cheap piano is stirring the old-world trade just
as in this country. And over there, as here, many
refuse to believe that pianos can be profitably made
for the prices asked for the cheaper grades or to
admit they have "come to stay."
The Old Square Piano.
How dear to my heart was the old square piano
That stood in the parlor when I was a boy,
With its wide-spreading case, it was built on a plan, O,
That filled all the neighbors with ecstatic joy.
How it tinkled and roared, resounded and rattled,
When mother sat down to its ivory keys;
Yet ah, how I hated to practice, and battled
To jangle and bang on them just as I pleased.
Ah, the old square piano, its tone was so tinney,
Its thin little legs were so round and so spare;
Its top so expansive, whatever was wanted
We looked on the piano and sure found it there.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto February 23, 1905.)
The cross of the Legion of Honor lately conferred
on Charles H. Steinway, president of Steinway &
Sons, by the French government, has just been trans-
mitted to him bv the French consul-general in New
York.
The tribute to the late W. W. Kimball, which
appears elsewhere this week, was written by Mr.
Alfred Dolge for American Industries. It is a splen-
did contribution by one captain of industry to the
memory of another.
The W. B. Brinkerhoff Piano Company is having
a fine business; in fact, is snowed under with orders.
Everything is moving along nicely, and their new
addition was finished Monday, and they hope to be
able to use this addition by the first of March, the
weather permitting.
When the changes now in progress at the ware-
rooms of J. Bauer & Co., on Wabash avenue, Chi-
cago, shall be completed they will be as handsome as
any in this country. The ground floor will be trans-
formed into a series of piano parlors, and the offices
will be made as elaborate and convenient as the de-
mands of the splendid establishment suggest.
Merely to say something really startling someone
has started the rumor that several of the old-time
eastern piano industries will henceforth confine their
energies to the production of grands. Such a proced-
ure on the part of certain of the distinguished piano
manufacturers would precipitate a panic in the trade.
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