Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
There are quite a number of college- distinguish that peculiar cough of the
bred men in the music trade, among whom "Vesuvius," and the only cure for the
is Harry Lowell Mason, who has trans- " Vesuvius " cough is the dynamite bom-
ferred his allegiance from Boston to New bardment of Cuban Forts.
York, making his headquarters at the Ma-
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son & Hamlin branch in this city.
It was five years ago that William Stein-
Harry Lowell Mason is one of the pro- way wrote the subjoined to the Commer-
gressive members of what we may term cial :
the younger generation of piano men. A
" If you ask what has helped me most in
close student of the trend of affairs, he is
life I will tell you it was a happy combin-
destined to further augment Mason &
ation of family talents. My father, my
Hamlin fame.
two brothers and myself represented a to-
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tality of talent and skill in our particular
The latest musical invention that has field. We came here in 1850 and worked
come to disturb our peace of mind is the together for an end. We made pianos the
orthophemic piano. According to Cincin- very best, and knew how. That led to
nati exchanges, Dr. Hageman of that city, other things, incidently to wealth.
"I say 'incidentally,' because I do not see
is the inventor and boldly claims to have
solved the problem of incalculable impor- why the wealthy man, the millionaire if
tance to musical art, one that has hitherto you please, should find life, in its true
seemed to present faulty and mathemati- sense, so different from the average man.
cal difficulties. Probably we shall hear To be sure he does not have to worry over
more later from the Doctor. In the mean- getting bread and butter, clothes and
while, it is my impression that to play an shelter; but, aside from these, the million-
ordinary every-day piano will still continue aire's life is made up of the usual comple-
to be in evidence, orthophemic or no or- ment of successes and failures, hopes, dis-
appointments and ambitions.
thophemic.
"It is believed by many that wealthy men
have
no ambitions higher or nobler than
There is trouble now between the Man-
money,
these same people believing that
hattan Musical Union and the Banda
higher
ambition
belongs only to those in
Rossa, and the Central Labor Union will
poverty,
or,
at
best,
to those of moderate
be asked to take action in the matter at its
means.
Such
a
belief
should be discour-
meeting in Clarendon Hall next Sunday,
aged,
for
history,
literature,
art and science
and the labor unions of this State and New
and
an
acquaintance
with
men
of wealth
Jersey are likely to be involved.
disprove
it.
Simply
because
a
man
is rich
Delegate Eugene Johnson of the Man-
is
no
argument
that
he
has
no
ambitions
hattan Musical Union, who is also secre-
tary of the Miscellaneous Section of the above or beyond money. As a matter of
Central Labor Union, reports that a section fact, wealth arouses ambitions which in
of the Banda Rossa employed at Midland poverty would have remained dormant,
Beach, Richmond Borough, has a number but the rich man is seldom taken seriously
of non-union musicians who are not even in his higher ambitions, and the general
citizens, and who were employed in public look upon them merely as fads. So
defiance of the Alien Contract Labor law. it is that wealthy men turn to their money.
This is right. Instead of painting pic-
Both the Manhattan Union and the
tures, writing great books, or making sci-
unions affiliated with the Miscellaneous
entific discoveries, their ambition now is
Section have already resolved to place a
to make the best use of money, so that it
ban on the beach named, and the Central
will give the most help and benefit to
Labor Union and all of the central bodies
others. This takes shape in many forms
of New Jersey will be asked to do the
of philanthropy, and this is the way in
same.
which wealth gives evidence of noble and
•P
•r
"H
"I*
lofty ambitions."
It is said that at a recent wedding in
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Kansas twelv» girl friends of the bride
Musical and theatrical managers have
supplied the music by whistling the wed-
been
complaining bitterly of the existing
ding march and no one who was present
conditions
for the past two or three sea-
was rude enough to make any allusion to
sons.
There
is no doubt but that the
crowing hens.
business
has
been seriously affected by
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reason of the high salaries paid European
It is all well enough to advertise, but artists.
advertising must be supplemented by a
Oscar Hammerstein, whose meteoric
little vim and hustling on the part of the career has been remarkable in that he has
advertiser, as advertising is not a thing to spent more than a million dollars in his
go of its own accord and carry one any efforts to entertain New York, being the
more than a bicycle is. A wheel is orna- builder of six theatres, among which is
mental, but in order to travel on it one has the notable "Olympia,"is to-day practi-
to work the pedals. In order to get bene- cally propertyless. Concerning his busi-
fit from advertising one must hustle.
ness misfortunes among other things he
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has to say the following:
And so Sagasta says that peace overtures
" The theatrical business has its ups
must come from America. It might be if and downs, and the downs are as swift as
our distinguished Spanish friend would the ups, perhaps swifter. You will no-
apply his ear close to the ground he could tice that in an almost incredibly short
\
space of time everything has been swept
away from me.
" I have no fault to find with the pub-
lic. It is ridiculous to say that the public
won't support enterprise.
New York
audiences are most generous in support of
what they want, but you are playing to a
public which has seen and heard almost
everything, and which, therefore, wants
something novel. If that public says to
you, ' Go to the North Pole for your at-
traction,' you must go to the North Pole
or retire from business. I suppose if
some music hall manager could persuade
Dewey or Hobson to come out on the
stage and make a bow, he could fill ,his
house every night. They're about all
there is in the way of celebrities at present
that have not been trotted out on the
music hall stage.
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" The first season of Olympia was im-
mensely prosperous. I opened with an
ordinary vaudeville show in the music
hall and ' Excelsior ' in the theatre. The
vaudeville ran four weeks to a large busi-
ness.
"While I was building Olympia I had
made a contract with Yvette Guilbert to
come over for four weeks at $3,000 a week.
I said to myself, 'What does $12,000
amount to when I'm putting up a building
for over a million? Instead of debiting it
to running expenses, I'll just charge it to
the building fund.'
"Guilbert was an immense success.
Coming over here at $3,000 a week, she
played to $60,000 in four weeks. That
was the beginning of the end.
" Notwithstanding this phenomenal suc-
cess, I consider that Yvette Guilbert's en-
gagement was not only the ultimate cause
of my own failure, but that it has practi-
cally ' busted ' the music hall business. It
created the rage for high-priced European
celebrities. They are very few in num-
ber; none has been a success here twice,
and as a result the list is exhausted—yet
the music hall public has been spoiled by
them and wants something which doesn't
exist—more novelties in the way of Euro-
pean celebrities. And the success of
high-priced Guilbert sent all the foreign
artists crazy for huge American salaries,
and managers became equally crazy in
bidding against each other, trebling their
expenses without doubling their receipts.
It was the beginning of an era of music
hall folly and ruin."
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Piano dealers expend annually vast
sums of money in advertising, and it
occurs to me from observations made in
my travels over America that many of
them would do well to employ the services
of some wideawake advertising man who
makes a specialty of designing advertise-
ments. Advertising is a very important
adjunct to modern business, and the men
who are keenly alive to its advantages and
arrange their advertisements so they are
read are the ones who reap the great
benefits.
The only real difference between a news-