Music Trade Review
Issue: 1893 Vol. 18 N. 3 - Page 8
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
IO
NOTICE, in the Louisville Courier Journal
of July 26th, a lengthy article on a piano
which is now being exhibited in the show
window of Emil Wulschner's warerooms with
the placard, " made in 1731." The instrument
bears the maker's inscription, "Joseph Hisky,
Baltimore, " and the newspaper man sa} s of it:
"But what remains after the abatement of
this excessive claim to antiquity is very fair
evidence that a pianoforte was made in Balti-
more before the beginning of the present
century. Jacob Astor, of New York, the great-
grandfather of John Jacob, saj'S one well versed
on this subject, is generally regarded as having
been the first man to make pianos in America.
Now comes the long forgotten Joseph Hisky, of
Baltimore, to claim precedence of Jacob Astor.
Joseph Hisky's dampers, if they are too modern
for 1731, are of a fashion which was probably
superannuated before the end of the century, his
tuning pins are in front and his action alto-
gether from the back of the instrument, and al-
though the iron wrest-plank tells of a date long
after 1731, its form and the absence of more iron
in the construction would seem to evidence age
greater than than that of the present century.
The varnished engraving, too, which decorates
the front of the instrument, on either side of
Joseph Hisky "s name, is of decidedly eighteenth
century style—shepherd's pipe, instead of at-
tending to their business, beneath umbrageous
oaks, and classically attired damsels dance to
to their piping, while the idle shepherds and
shepherdesses sit and talk of love, heedless of
the piping, clear streams babble and plunge over
the crags, ducks and their ducklings swim on a
separate body of water, to the right of Joseph
Hisky's name, and a wicked fox peeps over the
top of a bowlder biding his time and choosing
his duck. All this is classic with the classical-
ity of the eighteenth century."
*
*
*
*
*
*
So the newspaper man is not quite green. He
makes a very bad break regarding "Jacob
Astor" and the priority of Hickey. Yet he
suspects from the style of the case decoration
that this is not as old a piano as it is said to
be. He, however, assumes it withal to be an
instrument of antique value and continues
thus : " Perhaps most interesting of all to the
Kentuckian is the question, how did the Hisky
piano get to Louisville ? The mania for the
old in furniture and household decoration did
not seize upon Kentucky until within the
present generation. From what has been
gathered by diligent inquiry, it never affected
the last possessor of Hisky's piano at all. Their
THE KEYNOTE.
TIHIE C O L B Y
ABOUT AN OLD PIANO,
"Jos The HOME: Musical Journal of America.
story is that the piano was traded to them by a
gentleman in the hardware business on Market
street. The son of this last-mentioned gentle-
man says his father bought the piano for a
mere trifle at an auction from a large furniture
dealer of this city about ten years ago ; the furni-
ture dealer says that at that time he used to
have three auctions a week, has no recollection
of any specially noteworthy piano sold by him
which would answer to this description, and
could not possibly find out now where and how
he got this piece of Hisky's work.
" All that remains is to hope that the most
romantic solution of the mystery may be the
true one—that Hisky's piano was brought into
distant Transylvania, a family treasure, by
some fine old family of Maryland pioneers that,
after having been carried hither on some primi-
tive dray of the period, it long witnessed the
joys and sorrows, the marriages, christenings,
funerals of that old family in their old Ken-
tucky home, and now at length reappears to tell
us how advanced in refinement were the first
settlers of Kentucky and how unjustly posterity
has hitherto buried in oblivion the name of
Joseph Hisky, piano forte manufacturer, Balti-
more. But this solution may be all wrong.
*
*
*
*
*
*
The foregoing must seem amusing when it is
pointed out that Hisky was making pianos in
Baltimore not long before 1820. James Lick,
of astronomical fame, was one of his workmen,
and the late Conrad Meyer, of Philadelphia,
was at one time another. So that the news-
paper man was merely wasting his thunder, and
writing up a romance around a piano of which
hundreds of the same make may be had at
present.
T H E REVIEWER.
IFI^-IfcTO
ART, LITEBATUfiE, DBAMA.
From One to Two Dollars worth of Music with each Issue.
Grand and Upright Pianos,
Subscription, $1.50 per Year.
ERIE, PA.
EDWARD LYMAN BILL,
NO.
3 EAST 14TH STREET,
NEW YORK.
NEW YORK OFFICE: 18 East 17th Street, with G. W. HERBERT.
F. MUEHLFELD & CO
Seaverns Piano Action
HST-A.BJL.ISIBIEID
CO.,
MARUFACTUREKS OF
1851.
Piano Manufacturers,
511-513 E. 137th St., NEW YORK
MANUFACTURERS OF
Nos. 113-125 BROADWAY,
GAMBBID6EPOBT, MASS.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
IO
NOTICE, in the Louisville Courier Journal
of July 26th, a lengthy article on a piano
which is now being exhibited in the show
window of Emil Wulschner's warerooms with
the placard, " made in 1731." The instrument
bears the maker's inscription, "Joseph Hisky,
Baltimore, " and the newspaper man sa} s of it:
"But what remains after the abatement of
this excessive claim to antiquity is very fair
evidence that a pianoforte was made in Balti-
more before the beginning of the present
century. Jacob Astor, of New York, the great-
grandfather of John Jacob, saj'S one well versed
on this subject, is generally regarded as having
been the first man to make pianos in America.
Now comes the long forgotten Joseph Hisky, of
Baltimore, to claim precedence of Jacob Astor.
Joseph Hisky's dampers, if they are too modern
for 1731, are of a fashion which was probably
superannuated before the end of the century, his
tuning pins are in front and his action alto-
gether from the back of the instrument, and al-
though the iron wrest-plank tells of a date long
after 1731, its form and the absence of more iron
in the construction would seem to evidence age
greater than than that of the present century.
The varnished engraving, too, which decorates
the front of the instrument, on either side of
Joseph Hisky "s name, is of decidedly eighteenth
century style—shepherd's pipe, instead of at-
tending to their business, beneath umbrageous
oaks, and classically attired damsels dance to
to their piping, while the idle shepherds and
shepherdesses sit and talk of love, heedless of
the piping, clear streams babble and plunge over
the crags, ducks and their ducklings swim on a
separate body of water, to the right of Joseph
Hisky's name, and a wicked fox peeps over the
top of a bowlder biding his time and choosing
his duck. All this is classic with the classical-
ity of the eighteenth century."
*
*
*
*
*
*
So the newspaper man is not quite green. He
makes a very bad break regarding "Jacob
Astor" and the priority of Hickey. Yet he
suspects from the style of the case decoration
that this is not as old a piano as it is said to
be. He, however, assumes it withal to be an
instrument of antique value and continues
thus : " Perhaps most interesting of all to the
Kentuckian is the question, how did the Hisky
piano get to Louisville ? The mania for the
old in furniture and household decoration did
not seize upon Kentucky until within the
present generation. From what has been
gathered by diligent inquiry, it never affected
the last possessor of Hisky's piano at all. Their
THE KEYNOTE.
TIHIE C O L B Y
ABOUT AN OLD PIANO,
"Jos The HOME: Musical Journal of America.
story is that the piano was traded to them by a
gentleman in the hardware business on Market
street. The son of this last-mentioned gentle-
man says his father bought the piano for a
mere trifle at an auction from a large furniture
dealer of this city about ten years ago ; the furni-
ture dealer says that at that time he used to
have three auctions a week, has no recollection
of any specially noteworthy piano sold by him
which would answer to this description, and
could not possibly find out now where and how
he got this piece of Hisky's work.
" All that remains is to hope that the most
romantic solution of the mystery may be the
true one—that Hisky's piano was brought into
distant Transylvania, a family treasure, by
some fine old family of Maryland pioneers that,
after having been carried hither on some primi-
tive dray of the period, it long witnessed the
joys and sorrows, the marriages, christenings,
funerals of that old family in their old Ken-
tucky home, and now at length reappears to tell
us how advanced in refinement were the first
settlers of Kentucky and how unjustly posterity
has hitherto buried in oblivion the name of
Joseph Hisky, piano forte manufacturer, Balti-
more. But this solution may be all wrong.
*
*
*
*
*
*
The foregoing must seem amusing when it is
pointed out that Hisky was making pianos in
Baltimore not long before 1820. James Lick,
of astronomical fame, was one of his workmen,
and the late Conrad Meyer, of Philadelphia,
was at one time another. So that the news-
paper man was merely wasting his thunder, and
writing up a romance around a piano of which
hundreds of the same make may be had at
present.
T H E REVIEWER.
IFI^-IfcTO
ART, LITEBATUfiE, DBAMA.
From One to Two Dollars worth of Music with each Issue.
Grand and Upright Pianos,
Subscription, $1.50 per Year.
ERIE, PA.
EDWARD LYMAN BILL,
NO.
3 EAST 14TH STREET,
NEW YORK.
NEW YORK OFFICE: 18 East 17th Street, with G. W. HERBERT.
F. MUEHLFELD & CO
Seaverns Piano Action
HST-A.BJL.ISIBIEID
CO.,
MARUFACTUREKS OF
1851.
Piano Manufacturers,
511-513 E. 137th St., NEW YORK
MANUFACTURERS OF
Nos. 113-125 BROADWAY,
GAMBBID6EPOBT, MASS.
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).