Presto

April 25, 1925.
PRESTO
8
Presto
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE WEEKLY.
Published Every Saturday at 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, Illinois.
C. A. DANIELL and FRANK D. ABBOTT
• Editors
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mercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the
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SATURDAY, APRIL 25; 1925.
A MUSIC SURFEIT
One of America's greatest music directors
made a strange statement in a recent inter-
view. It was when Mr. Walter Damrosch
said that there was a "surfeit" of music in this
country. He elaborated by adding that the
establishing of many symphony orchestras, in
the larger cities, and even the smaller ones,
may have beaten down the element of novelty
and supplied too much of the kind of music
that is supposed to be uplifting in the highest
sense—the so-called "classic" music, and the
compositions which it is customary to prac-
tice for public singing, as well as public per-
formances upon instruments.
If Mr. Damrosch is right, and he should
know, then is there any possibility of the great
thrill of "music week" and the other similar
upheavals working ill to the common cause
which is vital to the music industry and trade ?
In other words, do such widespread excitations
to serious musical effort stimulate the sale of
musical instruments—and most of all the piano
—or do they serve, as Mr. Damrosch says, to
"surfeit" the people with too much of a good
thing?
The subject is not a small one to the men
who have built up a great business in the man-
ufacture and sale of musical instruments. It
is nowhere claimed that the musical festivals
of popular kind have filled the people's homes
to overflowing with pianos. What it has done
for the smaller instruments may be a different
story. But it is certain that, in the opinion
of some well-informed piano manufacturers, it
would have been better had there been fewer
pianos made and often better ones distributed
by the dealers. The inroads of "commercial-
ism," while natural in a great industry of a
great country, has not helped either the manu-
facturers or the dealers. The tendency to cut
prices in keeping with quality is both natural
and proper. But it doesn't help along the char-
acter of either the industry or trade.
Perhaps Mr. Damrosch may have sounded a
warning. Music is too good and too absolutely
essential to life and happiness to suggest any
threat of banishment, no matter what the in-
strument or instruments. But, if it is at all
possible that there may be a surfeit of it there
can be little doubt about the kind of instru-
ments which must be first to suffer the conse-
quences. And they will include all such as
suggest any degree of effort, and concentra-
tion of study, or even in sustaining a popular
place in the homes of the people. There is
food enough for thought in what the great
symphony, opera and community singing di-
rector says.
TOO FEW PIANOS
If, as was disclosed in last week's Presto,
the city of Milwaukee is less than one-half
supplied with pianos, what is to be said of the
other great American cities and, still more,
of the smaller places and the rural districts?
It is not difficult to make a mental calculation
of what it means in the duty of the piano
manufacturers and dealers. Statistics such as
have been compiled by the Milwaukee Daily
Journal are enough to inspire the most apa-
thetic piano manufacturers and merchants to
renewed efforts. The figures are sufficient to
bring back any millionaire piano manufacturer
who may have concluded to retire and to cre-
ate a new ambition in any wealthy retailer
who may have contemplated suspending ef-
forts in favor of the golf links or the recrea-
tions of a tour of the world.
For here is business in the offing—plenty of
it. If Milwaukee, which is recognized as one
of the real "piano cities," has supplied her
people with only one-half the required number
of pianos, the other half will not forget the
local dealers and the distant factories if they
fail to rally to the rescue and help to keep
life worth living, especially since Blatz no
longer "makes Milwaukee famous," and the
signs in shop windows no longer read "hier
wirt English gesprochen."
And if Milwaukee is in such a plight in the
matter of pianos, what about the other cities
where piano factories also flourish. Still more,
what of the unhappy cities and towns that
never have known a piano factory. It is
natural to suppose that the places where piano
factories abide are better taken care of than
the others that are denied the opportunity to
"see how they are made."
Consequently if Milwaukee is only half sup-
plied, such places as Detroit, Cleveland, Los
Angeles, Calumet and Oshkosh must be almost
denied the joys of music. It is a serious
matter, and certainly the deficiencies pointed
out by the enterprising gatherer of statistics
of Milwaukee will be speedily supplied.
Dr. Latour, the French inventor, did enough
to the American radio industries. He kept
perfectly still until several thousand radio en-
terprises over here had gotten under way and
then came across with his little bill. Why
couldn't he have fixed it with the French gov-
ernment to pay him his royalties and let his
patents offset Uncle Sam's war claims?
* * *
It would be interesting to know to what de-
gree the manufacturers of and dealers in play-
erpianos appreciate the influence and enter-
prise of the music roll industries. For some
time past the leading music roll makers have
been investing in a kind of publicity that must
be of immense value to the playerpiano in its
every contact with trade and public. In some
instances this music roll enterprise exceeds
the best that the piano makers themselves have
done, with a few exceptions.
* * *
Can a piano show be made profitable to the
manufacturers who participate? At the time
of the second exhibition in the Chicago Coli-
seum, five years ago, the Packard Piano Co.
devised a plan which netted more than 200
straight sales and a large number of regular
customers. With a fine piano and the right
kind of enterprise, the exposition can be made
to pay in almost any place.
*
•-!=
*
There is an unmistakable call for reed
organs again. One of the largest music houses
in the world this week called upon Presto for
a list of makers of that type of instrument.
And it was possible to offer the addresses of
only three of them remaining. Will the mirror-
tops and vox humana stops ever return again?
* * *
If you intend to have? any part in the big
June Convention in Chicago it's time to begin
to get ready.
30 YEARS AGO IN THE TRADE
From the Files of Presto
(April 25, 1895.)
With Paderewski, Scharwenka, Joseffy, De Pach-
mann, Rive, Sherwood, Mine. Fanny Zeisler, and
others, the great charm lies in the fact that they im-
part to the music they make something of soul or
emotion. Having mastered the technical require-
ments they understand that music is not technique,
though it is impossible for the one to exist without
the other.
The future of the organ trade—what is it to be?
Has the reed organ "had its day," and will the de-
mand for it grow "beautifully less" until it ceases
altogether? Is this the end implied by the number
of organ manufacturers who are gradually trans-
ferring their best energies to paino manufacture?
There seems to be a warning to the trade in the
report from Russia concerning the warring piano
manufacturers. They have cut and slashed prices
over there until there is no profit in the business,
and now they are struggling to ruin one another.
Interest in the "Awards Souvenir," now nearly
ready, continues unabated. Our amiable music trade
contemporaries are helping to "push it along," which
is very proper in the case of so good a thing.
Chas. H. Badlam, whose arrest at Niagara Falls
was noted in Presto two weeks ago, has been for
many years a resident of St. Lawrence county, New
York, and has been well (but not favorably) known
for a long time.
20 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
(From Presto, April 27, 1905.)
The survival of the fittest is illustrated by the
pianos that are old in years of reputation and grow-
ing more famous every year. Among such pianos
may be mentioned the Chickering, Steinway, Chase
Bros., Emerson, Gabler, Hazelton Bros., James &
Holmstrom, Kimball, Knabe, Kroeger, Kurtzmann,
Mason & Hamlin, Mathusek, Henry F. Miller, Ray-
mond, Smith & Nixon, Steck, Vose, and Weber.
Nineteen of the best known music publishing firms
have decided for the present not to publish any new
music, not to make fresh contracts with artists and
singers and not to advertise. This action is taken as
a protest against the lack of protection afforded the
publishers against music piracies.
J. C. Acton, of Fremont, Neb., advertises exten-
sively. In one of Mr. Acton's recent advertisements
he refers to the Hobart M. Cable piano as being
"like a soldier on the field of battle, ever ready to
respond to every call and always the soul of honor."
Last Sunday's Buffalo Express contained an inter-
esting half tone illustration, extending across a full
page, in which the new era of the Kurtzmann piano
was proclaimed. The picture presented a full train
of Kurtzmann "carload lots." There were ten cars.
The Cable-Nelson Piano Company has formally
accepted the new factory building from the South
Haven board of trade, and the manufacturer of
pianos in South Haven is expected to commence
soon.
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