MUSICAL
TIMES
PRESTO
Established
1884
Established
1881
THE AMERICAN MUSIC TRADE JOURNAL
I Year.
$1.00. 6 Months
60 cents
CHICAGO, SEPT.-OCT., 1932
A WEALTH OF REACTION
The Announcement of the Baldwin Masterpiece
Models Has Awakened an Interest That
Presages a Brilliant Triumph for
the New Piano Creation
The Manufacturers Now Getting These Instruments Ready
for Delivery for the Autumn and Winter Season=1932=33
CONTINUATION OF A STORY OF
DEVELOPING PERFECT TONE
IN A PIANO
It is worthy of emphasis and worth repeat-
ing that when in times such as the piano busi-
ness has of late been experiencing, an an-
nouncement in piano construction is made,
much of which opens the way to important
connections, such a message must inevitably
carry with it assurances of something vital to
T
HE story, as related in the announcement
sent out a few weeks ago by The Baldwin
Piano Company telling of the experiments and
research in perfecting tone quality of the piano,
as particularly exemplified in the new Baldwin
Masterpiece grand pianos, attracted immediate
attention in this country and has become of
world-wide interest.
The topic of the Baldwin announcement was
of such vital import and interest that it brought
to the manufacturers a vast and varied corre-
spondence ; letters of congratulation; compli-
mentary and testimonial letters from pianists,
teachers, amateurs anxious to add tribute to
the merit already expressed of the new Bald-
win creations. Many letters asked for "fur-
ther particulars''; a few dealers wanted to "be
shown," and others asked to place orders for
one or two models to "try out" the "great
Baldwin adventure." In short, the simple and
unexaggerated story of the development of a
more perfect tone by means of the "Tone
Spectrograph" research caught on like wildfire,
with the result that reaction to the announce-
ment was almost immediate.
Probably no appeal to the piano world, the
profession, the music trade and the general
music public, in recent years, perhaps within
the existence of the modern piano has met with
a more spontaneous reception than have been
the responses to this Baldwin announcement;
a condition particularly striking now, in these
days of economic stress when marked inac-
tivity prevails in the music manufacturing in-
dustries ; when the appeal of circular letters,
of enticing offers ; when tremendous cut prices
are given as alluring inducements and when
this, that, and the other "unheard of" offers are
made to get business, go by w T ith little or no
results, or even responses.
LI TO I EN WULSIN, PRESIDENT THE BALDWIN
PIANO COMPANY.
the best interests of the recipient and impor-
tant to the field of pianodom and to music in
general.
Supplementing the original announcement
of the Baldwin Masterpiece pianos the Bald-
win Company sent out another one, brief and
explicit, bearing the caption, "From Coast to
Coast the Leading Music Critics Have Ac-
claimed the New Baldwin Masterpiece Models
with Unprecedented Enthusiasm." This an-
nouncement is as follows :
ANNOUNCEMENT
Without exception, every artist playing the Bald-
win this season has received more enthusiastic criti-
cisms than at any previous time in his career.
Fifteenth of Publication Month
The significant characteristic of the comment of
each critic has been his delighted tribute to the TONE
of the piano.
Baldwin's scientific staff had been at work for
seven years upon the development of "The Tone
Spectrograph," an electrical marvel that not only
breaks down each tone into its component harmonic
partials, but makes it possible to set up a definitely
new ideal of tone and to guarantee that every Bald-
win piano shall contain that tone.
The result is a new line of Baldwin pianos known
as the Masterpiece Models. But before announcing
them to the trade and to the public, Baldwin in-
corporated the new perfections FIRST in its Con-
cert Grand Pianos and sent them out to be played
by the foremost pianists before exacting and impar-
tial writers on music.
Then follows a page of printed criticisms in size
about 18 by 21 inches, giving extracts from what the
Press of America has had to say of the tone and
action of the new Masterpiece models, for the pianists
mentioned, Bauer, Gieseking, Iturbi, Schmitz, Bo-
guslavvski, Carreras, and all the others were using
Baldwin concert grands in which had been incor-
porated the principals and improvements now an-
nounced for the Baldwin Masterpiece models.
Criticisms and Comments
Presto-Times presents herewith a few of the news-
paper criticisms of these performances.
OF MR. GIESEKING
The New York Times said: "On no previous occa-
sion in New York has Mr. Gieseking given such an
absorbing and impressive performance as he did last
night in Carnegie Hall."
The Chicago Herald and Examiner said: "Gie-
seking, whose command of the softer inflections, the
subtler nuances and of that new world of acoustic
effect assures him a distinguished place among the
great pianists of the world."
The Chicago Daily Tribune said: "He makes ex-
quisite beauty out of his own transcription of Richard
Strauss' 'Serenade' when many another pianist has
found nothing but bad luck in it."
The Cincinnati Post said: "Gieseking's playing
was electrifying. It brought the audience to its feet
with bravos and cheers not heard in Emery for a
long, long time."
The Chicago Evening Journal said: "The writer
has never heard more ethereal tone of sheer poetry
produced by any other pianist. The whole gamut
of musical expressions and nuance from a tremen-
dous fortissimo to merest shimmer of tone is dis-
played with an uncanny sense of fitness in the vary-
ing emotions of the music rendered."
The Toronto (Canada) Evening Telegram said:
"To hear Gieseking play as he played last night is
to go back to your beloved piano with a fresh store
of reverence for its beauty and wonder at its rich
resources."
The Chicago Daily News said: "What we heard
in this music was its unapproachable perfection."
OF BOGUSLAWSKI
The Jacksonville Times Union said: "The ethereal
loveliness produced by means of Boguslawski's ex-
traordinarily beautiful liquid tone sets standards of
virtuosity equalled by few today."
The Houston Post-Dispatch said: "Delicate shad-
ing, always gradual, and here restrained until a rip-
pling liquid shower of sound flowed from under his
fingers."
OF MR. ITURBI
The New York Herald-Tribune said: "Mr. Iturbi
gave a notable performance of the Mozart Concerto.
He gave it a fluent graceful performance displaying
a masterful command of subtleties of phrasing and
shading, a singing tone, liquid rippling runs and rapid
passages. A deserved ovation followed."
The Boston Evening Transcript said: "Master of
unalloyed tone who would have it neither insistently
percussive nor smearingly songful nor yet again,
pseudo-orchestral."
The Chicago Daily Tribune said: "At all times
Iturbi excelled in the loveliness of the piano, partic-
ularly when that loveliness was in gentle mood."
The Houston Post-Dispatch said: "Evanescent
lovely tone, fading into the merest whisper of mel-
ody."
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