THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF

Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.

VOLUME XX


THE PIANO IN THE UNITED STATES.

     TWENTY-FIVE thousand pianos were made in the United States last year!
     This is the estimate of the persons who know most of this branch of manufacture, but it is only an approximation to the truth; for, besides the sixty makers in New York, the thirty in Boston, the twenty in Philadelphia, the fifteen in Baltimore, the ten in Albany, and the less number in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco, there are small makers in many country towns, and even in villages, who buy the parts of a piano in the nearest city, put them together, and sell the instrument in the neighborhood. The returns of the houses which supply the ivory keys of the piano to all the makers in the country are confirmatory of this estimate; which, we may add, is that of Messrs. Steinway of New York, who have made it a point to collect both the literature and the statistics of the instrument, of which they are among the largest manufacturers in the world.

     The makers� prices of pianos now range from two hundred and ninety dollars to one thousand; and the prices to the public, from four hundred and fifty dollars to fifteen hundred. We may conclude, therefore, that the people of the United States during the year 1866 expended fifteen millions of dollars in the purchase of new pianos. It is not true that we export many pianos to foreign countries, as the public are led to suppose from the advertisements of imaginative manufacturers. American citizens � all but the few American citizens � all but the few consummately able kings of business � allow a free play to their imagination in advertising the products of their skill. Canada buys a small number of our pianos; Cuba, a few; Mexico, a few; South America, a few; and now and then one is sent to Europe, or taken thither by a Thalberg or a Gottschalk; but an inflated currency and a war tariff make it impossible for Americans to compete with European makers in anything but excellence. In price, they cannot compete. Every disinterested and competent judge with whom we have conversed on this subject gives it as his deliberate opinion that the best American piano is the best of all pianos, and the one longest capable of resisting the effects of a trying climate; yet we cannot sell them, at present, in any considerable numbers, in any market but our own. Protectionists are requested to note this fact, which is not an isolated fact. America possesses such an astonishing genius for inventing and combining labor-saving machinery, that we could now supply the world with many of its choicest products,in the teeth of native competition, but for the tariff, the taxes, and the inflation, which double the cost of producing. The time may come, however, when we shall sell pianos at Paris, and watches in London, as we already do sewing-machines everywhere.

     Twenty-five thousand pianos a year, at a cost of fifteen millions of dollars ! Presented in this manner, the figures produce an effect upon the mind, and we wonder that an imperfectly reconstructed country could absorb in a single year, and that year an unprosperous one, so large a number of costly musical instruments. But, upon performing a sum in long division, we discover that these startling figures merely mean, that every working-day in this. country one hundred and twelve persons buy a new piano. When we consider, that every hotel, steamboat, and public school above a certain very moderate grade, must have from one to four pianos, and that young ladies' seminaries jingle with them from basement to garret, (one school in New York has thirty Chickerings,) and that almost every couple that sets up housekeeping on a respectable scale considers a piano only less indispensable than a kitchen range, we are rather inclined to wonder at the smallness than at the largeness of the number.

     The trade in new pianos, however, is nothing to the countless transactions in old. Here figures are impossible; but probably ten second-hand pianos are sold to one new one. The business of letting pianos is also one of great extent. It is computed by the well-informed, that the number of these instruments now "out," in the city of New York, is three thousand. There is one firm in Boston that usually has a thousand let. As the rent of a piano ranges from six dollars to twelve dollars a month, � cartage both ways paid by the hirer, � it may be inferred that this business, when conducted on a large scale, and with the requisite vigilance, is not unprofitable. In fact, the income of a piano-letting business has approached eighty thousand dollars per annum, of which one third was profit. It has, however, its risks and drawbacks. From June to September, the owner of the instruments must find storage for the greater part of his stock, and must do without most of his monthly returns. Many of those who hire pianos, too, are persons "hanging on the verge" of society, who have little respect for the property of others, and vanish to parts unknown, leaving a damaged piano behind them.

     England alone surpasses the United States in the number of pianos annually manufactured. In 1852, the one hundred and eighty English makers produced twenty-three thousand pianos, � fifteen hundred grands, fifteen hundred squares, and twenty thousand uprights. As England has enjoyed fifteen years of prosperity since, it is probable that the annual number now exceeds that of the United States. The English people, however, pay much less money for the thirty thousand pianos which they probably buy every year, than we do for our twenty-five thousand. In London, the retail price of the best Broadwood grand, in plain mahogany case, is one hundred and thirty-five guineas ; which is a little more than half the price of the corresponding American instrument. The best London square piano, in plain case, is sixty guineas, � almost exactly half the American price. Two thirds of all the pianos made in England are low-priced uprights, � averaging thirty-five guineas, � which would not stand in our climate for a year. England, therefore, supplies herself and the British empire with pianos at an annual expenditure of about eight millions of our present dollars. American makers, we may add, have recently taken a hint from their English brethren with regard to the upright instrument. Space is getting to be the dearest of all luxuries in our cities, and it has become highly desirable to have pianos that occupy less of it than the square instrument which we usually see. Successful attempts have been recently made to apply the new methods of constructionto the upright piano, with a view to make it as durable as those of the usual forms. Such a brisk demand has sprung up for the improved uprights, that the leading makers are producing them in considerable numbers, and the Messrs. Steinway are erecting a new building for the sole purpose of manufacturing them. The American uprights, how ever, cannot be cheap. Such is the nature of the American climate, that a piano, to be tolerable, must be excellent; and while parts of the upright cost more than the corresponding parts of the square, no part of it costs less. Six hundred dollars is the price of the upright in plain rosewood case, � fifty dollars more than a plain rose-wood square.

     Paris pianos are renowned, the world over, and consequently three tenths of all the pianos made in Paris are exported to foreign countries. France, too, owing to the cheapness of labor, can make a better cheap piano than any other country. In 1852, there were ten thousand pianos made in Paris, at an average cost of one thousand francs each; and, we are informed, a very good new upright piano can now be bought in France for one hundred dollars. But in France the average wages of piano-makers are five francs per day; in London, ten shillings; in New York, four dollars and thirty-three cents. The cream of the business, in Paris, is divided among three makers, � Erard, Hertz, and Pleyel, � each of whom has a concert-hall of his own, to give éclat to his establishment. We presume Messrs. Steinway added "Steinway Hall" to the attractions of New York from the example of their Paris friends, and soon the metropolis will boast a "Chickering Hall" as well. This is an exceedingly expensive form of advertisement. Steinway Hall cost two hundred thousand dollars, and has not yet paid the cost of warming, cleaning, and lighting it. This, however, is partly owing to the good-nature of the proprietors, who find it hard to exact the rent from a poor artist after a losing concert, and who have a constitutional difficulty about saying No, when the use of the hall is asked for a charitable object.

     In Germany there are no manufactories of pianos on the scale of England, France, and the United States. A business of five pianos a week excites astonishment in a German state, and it is not uncommon there for one man to construct every part of a piano, � a work of three or four months. Mr. Steinway the elder has frequently done this in his native place, and could now do it. A great number of excellent instruments are made in Germany in the slow, patient, thorough manner of the Germans; but in the fashionable houses of Berlin and Vienna no German name is so much valued as those of the celebrated makers of Paris. In the London exhibition of 1851, Russian pianos competed for the medals, some of which attracted much attention from the excellence of their construction. Messrs. Chickering assert, that the Russians were the first to employ successfully the device of "overstringing," as it is called, by which the bass strings are stretched over the others.

     The piano, then, one hundred and fifty-seven years after its invention, in spite of its great cost, has become the leading musical instrument of Christendom. England produces thirty thousand every year; the United States, twenty-five thousand; France, fifteen thousand; Germany, perhaps ten thousand; and all other countries, ten thousand; making a total of ninety thousand, or four hundred and twenty-two for every working-day. It is computed, that an average piano is the result of one hundred and twenty days� work; and, consequently, there must be at least fifty thousand men employed in the business. And it is only within a few years that the making of these noble instruments has been done on anything like the present scale. Messrs. Broadwood, of London, who have made in all one hundred and twenty-nine thousand pianos, only begin to count at the year 1780;. and in the United States there were scarcely fifty pianos a year made fifty years ago.

     We need scarcely say that the production of music for the piano has kept pace with the advance of the instrument. Dr. Burney mentions, in his History of Music (Vol. IV. p. 664), that when he came to London in I744, "Handel�s Harpsichord Lessons and Organ Concertos, and the two First Books of Scarletti�s Lessons, were all the good music for keyed instruments at that time in the nation." We have at this monient before us the catalogue of music sold by one house in Boston, Oliver Ditson & Co. It is a closely printed volume of three hundred and sixty pages, and contains the titles of about thirty-three thousand pieces of music, designed to be performed, wholly or partly, on the piano. By far the greater number are piano music pure and siniple. It is not a very rare occurrence for a new piece to have a sale of one hundred thousand copies in the United States. A composer who can produce the kind of music that pleases the greatest number, may derive a revenue from his art ten times greater than Mozart or Beethoven enjoyed in their most prosperous time. There are trifiing waltzes and songs upon the list of Messrs. Ditson, which have yielded more profit than Mozart received for "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic Flute" together. We learn from the catalogue just mentioned, that the composers of music have an advantage over the authors of books, in being always able to secure a pubusher for their productioiis. Messrs. Ditson announce that they are ready and willing to publish any piece of music by any composer on the following easy conditions: "Three dollars per page for engraving; two dollars and a half per hundred sheets of paper; and one dollar and a quarter per hundred pages for printing." At the same time they frankly notify ambitious teachers, that "not one piece in ten pays the cost of getting up, and not one in fifty proves a success.

     ...The history of the piano from 1710 to 1867 is nothing but a history of the improved mechanism of the instrument. The moment the idea was conceived of striking the strings with hammers, unlimited improvement was possible; and though the piano of to-day is covered all over with ingenious devices, the great, essential improvements are few in number. The hammer, for example, may contain one hundred ingenuities, but they are all included in the device of covering the first wooden hammers with cloth; and the master-thought of making the whole frame of the piano of iron suggested the line of improvement which secures the supremacy of the piano over all other stringed instruments forever.

     ...America began early to try her hand at improving the instrument. Mr. Jefferson, in the year 1800, in one of his letters to his daughter Martha, speaks of "a very ingenious, modest, and poor young man" in philadelphia, who "has invented one of the prettiest improvements in the forte-piano I have ever seen." Mr. Jefferson, Who was himself a player upon the violin, and had some little skill upon the harpsichord, adds, "It has tempted me to engage one for Monticello." This instrument was an uptight piano, and we have found no mention of an upright of an earlier date. " His strings," says Mr. Jefferson, "are perpendicular, and he contrives within that height" (not given in the published extract) "to give his strings the same length as in the grand forte-piano, and fixes his three unisons to the same screw, which screw is in the direction of the strings, and therefore never yields. It scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then, for the most part, the three unisons are tuned at once." This is an interesting passage; for, although the "forte-pianos "of this modest young man have left no trace upon the history of the instrument, it shows that America had no sooner cast an eye upon its mechanism than she set to work improving it. Can it be that the upright piano was an American invention? It may be. The Messrs. Broadwood, in the little book which lay upon their pianos in the Exhibition of 1851, say that the first vertical or cabinet pianos were constructed by William Southwell, of their house, in 1804. four years after the date of Mr. Jefferson�s letter.

     After 1800 there were a few pianos made every year in the United States, but none that could compare with the best Erards and Broadwoods, until the Chickering era, which began in 1823...Jonas Chickering was essentially a mechanic, - a most skilful, patient, thoughtful, faithful mechanic, - and it was his excellence as a mechanic which enabled him to rear an establishment which, beginning with one or two pianos a month, was producing, at the death of the founder, in 1853, fifteen hundred pianos a year. It was he who introduced into the piano the full iron frame. It was he who first made American pianos that were equal to the best imported ones....Henry Steinway, the founder of the great house of Steinway and Sons, has had a career not unlike that of Mr. Chickering...In 1849, being then past fifty years of age, and the father of four intelligent and gifted sons, he looked to America for a wider range and a more promising home for his boys...In 1853, in a small back shop in Varick Street, with infinite pains, they made their first piano...Various improvements in the framing and mechanism of the piano have been invented and introduced by them; and, while some members of the family have super-intended the manufacture, others have conducted the not less difficult business of selling. To this hour, the father of the family, in the dress of a workman, attends daily at the factory, as vigilant and active as ever, though now past seventy...

     Besides the Chickerings and the Steinways, there are twenty manufacturers in the United States whose production exceeds one hundred pianos per annum. Messrs. Knabe & Co. of Baltimore, who supply large portions of the South and West, sold about a thousand pianos in the year 1866; W. P. Emerson of Boston, 935; Messrs. Haines Brothers of New York, 830; Messrs. Hallett and Davis of Boston, 462; Ernest Gabler of New York, 312; Messrs. E. C. Lighte & Co. of New York, 286; Messrs. Hazelton and Brothers of New York, 269; Albert Webber of New York, 266; Messrs. Decker Brothers of New York, 256; Messrs. George Steck and Co. of New York, 244; W. I. Bradbury of New York, 244; Messrs. Lindeman and Sons of New York, 223; the New York Piano-forte Company, 139. About one half of all the pianos made in the United States are made in the city of New York.

     To visit one of our large manufactories of pianos is a lesson in the noble art of taking pains. Genius itself; says Carlyle, means, first of all, "a transcendent capacity for taking trouble." Everywhere in these vast and interesting establishments we find what we may call the perfection of painstaking.

     The construction of an American piano is a continual act of defensive warfare against the future inroads of our climate, - a climate which is polar for a few days in January, tropical for a week or two in July, Nova-Scotian now and then in November, and at all times most trying to the finer woods, leathers, and fabrics. To make a piano is now not so difficult; but to make one that will stand in America, - that is very difficult. In the rear of the Messrs. Steinway�s factory there is a yard for seasoning timber, which usually contains an amount of material equal to two hundred and fifty thousand ordinary boards, an inch thick and twelve feet long; and there it remains from four months to five years, according to its nature and magnitude. Most of the timber used in an American piano requires two years� seasoning at least. From this yard it is transferred to the steam-drying house, where it remains subjected to a high temperature for three months. The wood has then lost nearly all the warp there ever was in it, and the temperature may change fifty degrees in twelve hours (as it does sometimes in New York) without seriously affecting a fibre. Besides this, the timber is sawed in such a manner as to neutralize, in some degree, its tendency to warp, or, rather, so as to make it warp the right way. The reader would be surprised to hear the great makers converse on this subject of the warping of timber. They have studied the laws which govern warping; they know why wood warps, how each variety warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act asa restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An astonishing amount of thought and experiment has been expended upon this matter of warping, - so much, that now not a piece of wood is employed in a piano, the grain of which does not run in the precise direction which experience has shown to be the best.

     The forests of the whole earth have been searched for woods adapted to the different parts of the instrument. Dr. Rimbault, in his learned "History of the Piano-forte," published recently in London, gives a catalogue of the various woods, metals, skins, and fabrics used in the construction of a piano, which forcibly illustrates the delicacy of the modern instrument and the infinite care taken in its manufacture. We copy the list, though some of the materials differ from those used by American manufacturers.

MATERIALS.WHERE USED.
Woods.From
Oak.RigaFraming, various parts.
Deal.NorwayWood-bracing, &c.
Fir.SwitzerlandSounding-board.
Pine.AmericaParts of framing, key-bed
  or bottom.
MahoganyHondurasSolid wood of top, and varous parts of the fram-
  ing and the action.
BeechEnglandWrest-plank, bridge or
  or sound-board, centre of legs.
Beef-woodBrazilsTongues in the beam,
  forming the divisions
  between the hammers.
BirchCanadaBelly-rail, a part of the
  framing.
CedarS. AmericaRound shanks of hammers.
Lime-treeEnglandKeys.
Pear-tree-------Heads of dampers.
Sycamore-------Hoppers or levers, ve-
neers on wrest-plank.
EbonyCeylonBlack keys.
Spanish Mahogany
Rosewood
Satinwood
White Holly
Zebra-wood
Other fancy woods
Cuba
Rio Janeiro
East Indies
England
Brazils
. . .
For decoration.
Woolen Fabrics.
Baize ; green, blue,
and brown
Upper surface of key-frame,
  cushions for hammers to fall
  on, to damp dead par of
  strings, &c.
Cloth, various qual-
ities
For various parts of the action
  and in other places to pre-
  vent jarring ; also for damp-
ers.
FeltExternal covering for hammers.
Leather.
BuffaloUnder-covering of hammers-bass.
Saddletenor and treble.
Basil
Calf
Doeskin
Seal
Sheepskin
Morocco
Various parts of action.
Sole-Rings for pedal wires.
Metal.
Iron
Steel
Brass
Gun Metal
Metallic bracing, and in various small
  screws, springs, centres, pins, &c.
  &c., thoughout the instrument.
Steel wireStrings.
Steel spun wire.Lapped strings.
Covered copper wire  " " lowest notes.
Various.
IvoryWhite keys.
Black leadTo smooth the rubbing surfaces of cloth
  or leather in the action.
Glue (of a particular quali-
  ty, made expressly for
  this trade)
Woodwork throughout.
Beeswax, emery paper,
glass paper, French pol-
  ish, oil, putty powder,
  spirits of wine, &c., &c.
Cleaning and finishing.

     Such are the materials used. The processes to which they are subjected are far more numerous. So numerous are they and so complicated, that the Steinways, who employ five hundred and twelve men, and labor-saving machinery which does tile work of five hundred men more, aided by three steam-engines of a hundred and twenty-five, fifty, and twenty-five horse-power, can only produce from forty-five to fifty-five pianos a week. The average number is about fifty, - six grand, four upright and forty square. The reader has seen, doubtless, a piano with the top taken off; but perhaps it has never occurred to him what a tremendous pull those fifty to sixty strings are keeping up, day and night, from one year�s end to another. The shortest and thinnest string of all pulls two hundred and sixty-two pounds, - about as much as we should care to lift; and the entire pull of the strings of a grand piano is sixty pounds less than twenty tons, - a load for twenty cart-horses. The fundamental difficulty in the construction of a piano has always been to support this continuous strain. When we look into a piano we see the "iron frame" so much vaunted in the advertisements, and so splendid with bronze and gilding; but it is not this thin plate of cast-iron that resists the strain of twenty tons. If the wires were to pull upon the iron for one second, it would fly into atoms. The iron plate is screwed to what is called the "bottom" of the piano, which is a mass of timber four inches thick, composed of three layers of plank glued together, and so arranged that the pull of the wires shall be in a line with the grain of the wood. The iron plate itself is subjected to a long course of treatment. The rough casting is brought from the foundery, placed under the drilling-machine, which bores many scores of holes of various sizes with marvellous rapidity. Then it is smoothed and finished with the file; next, it is japanned; after which it is baked in an oven for forty-eight hours. It is then ready for the bronzer and gilder, who covers the greater part of the surface with a light-yellow bronzing, and brightens it here and there with gilding. All this long process is necessary in order to make the plate retain its brilliancy of color.

     Upon this solid foundation of timber and iron the delicate instrument is built, and it is enclosed in a case constructed with still greater care. To make so large a box, and one so thin, as the case of a piano stand our summer heats and our furnace heats (still more trying), is a work of extreme difficulty. The seasoned boards are covered with a double veneer, designed to counteract all the tendencies to warp; and the surface is most laboriously polished. It takes three months to varnish and polish the case of a piano. In such a factory as the Steinways� or the Chickerings�, there will be always six or seven hundred cases undergoing this expensive process. When the surface of the wood has been made as smooth as sand-paper can make it, the first coat of varnish is applied, and this requires eight days to harden. Then all the varnish is scraped off, except that which has sunk into the pores of the wood. The second coat is then put on; which, after eight days� drying, is also scraped away, until the surface of the veneer is laid bare again. After this four or five coats of varnish are added, at intervals of eight days, and, finally, the last polish is produced by the hand of the workman. The object of all this is not merely to produce a splendid and enduring gloss, but to make the case stand for a hundred years in a room which is heated by a furnace to seventy degrees by day, and in which water will freeze at night. During the war, when good varnish cost as much as the best champagne, the varnish bills of the leading makers were formidable indeed.

     The labor, however, is the chief item of expense. The average wages of the five hundred and twelve men employed by the Messrs. Steinway is twenty-six dollars a week. This force, aided by one hundred and two labor-saving machines, driven by steam-power equivalent to two hundred horses, produces a piano in one hour and fifteen minutes. A man with the ordinary tools can make a piano in about four months, but it could not possibly be as good a one as those produced in the large establishments. Nor, indeed, is such a feat ever attempted in the United States. The small makers, who manufacture from one to five instruments a week, generally, as already mentioned, buy the different parts from persons who make only parts. It is a business to make the hammers of a piano; it is another business to make the "action"; another, to make the keys; another, the legs; another, the cases ; another, the pedals. The manufacture of the hardware used in a piano is a very important branch, and it is a separate business to sell it. The London Directory enumerates forty-two different trades and businesses related to the piano, and we presume there are not fewer in New York. Consequently, any man who knows enough of a piano to put one together, and can command capital enough to buy the parts of one instrument, may boldly fling his sign to the breeze, and announce himself to an inattentive public as a "piano-forte-maker." The only difficulty is to sell the piano when it is put together. At present it costs rather more money to sell a piano than it does to make one.

     When the case is finished, all except the final hand-polish, it is taken to the sounding-board room. The sounding-board - a thin, clear sheet of spruce under the strings - is the piano�s soul, wanting which, it were a dead thing. Almost every resonant substance in nature has been tried for sounding-boards, but nothing has been found equal to spruce. Countless experiments have been made with a view to ascertain precisely the best way of shaping, arranging, and fixing the sounding-board, the best thickness, the best number and direction of the supporting ribs; and every great maker is happy in the conviction that he is a little better in sounding-boards than any of his rivals. Next, the strings are inserted; next, the action and the keys. Every one will pause to admire the hammers of the piano, so light, yet so capable of giving a telling blow, which evoke all the music of the strings, but mingle with that music no click, nor thud, nor thump, of their own. The felt employed varies in thickness from one sixteenth of an inch to an inch and an eighth, and costs $ 5.75 in gold per pound. Only Paris, it seems, can make it good enough for the purpose. Many of the keys have a double felting, compressed from an inch and a half to three quarters of an inch, and others again have an outer covering of leather to keep the strings from cutting the felt. Simple as the finished hammer looks, there are a hundred and fifty years of thought and experiment in it. It required half a century to exhaust the different kinds of wood, bone, and cork; and when, about 1760, the idea was conceived of covering the hammers with something soft, another century was to elapse before all the leathers and fabrics had been tried, and felt found to be the ne plus ultra. With regard to the action, or the mechanism by which the hammers are made to strike the strings, we must refer the inquisitive reader to the piano itself.

     When all the parts have been placed in the case, the instrument falls into the hands of the "regulator," who inspects, rectifies, tunes, harmonizes, perfects the whole. Nothing then remains but to convey it to the store, give it its final polish and its last tuning.

     The next thing is to sell it. Six hundred and fifty dollars seems a high price for a square piano, such as we used to buy for three hundred, and the "natural cost" of which does not much exceed two hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars for a grand piano is also rather startling. But how much tax, does the reader suppose, is paid upon a fifteen-hundred-dollar grand. It is difficult to compute it; but it does not fall much below two hundred dollars. The five per cent manufacturer�s tax, which is paid upon the price of the finished instrument, has also to be paid upon various parts, such as the wire; and upon the imported articles there is a high tariff. It is computed that the taxes upon very complicated articles, in which a great variety of materials are employed, such as carriages, pianos, organs, and fine furniture, amount to about one eighth of the price. The piano, too, is an expensive creature to keep, in these times of high rents, and its fare upon a railroad is higher than that of its owner. We saw, however, a magnificent piano, the other day, at the establishment of Messrs. Chickering, in Broadway, for which passage had been secured all the way to Oregon for thirty-five dollars, - only five dollars more than it would cost to transport it to Chicago. Happily for us, to whom fifteen hundred dollars - nay, six hundred and fifty dollars - is an enormous sum of money, a very good second-hand piano is always attainable for less than half the original price.

     For, reader, you must know that the ostentation of the rich is always putting costly pleasures within the reach of the refined not-rich. A piano in its time plays many parts, and figures in a variety of scenes. Like the more delicate and sympathetic kinds of human beings, it is naught unless it is valued; but, being valued, it is a treasure beyond price. Cold, glittering, and dumb, it stands among the tasteless splendors with which the wealthy ignorant cumber their dreary abodes, - a thing of ostentation merely, - as uninteresting as the women who surround it, gorgeously apparelled, but without conversation, conscious of defective parts of speech. "There is much music, excellent voice, in that little organ," but there is no one there who can "make it speak." They may "fret" the noble instrument; they "cannot play upon it."

     But a fool and his nine-hundred-dollar piano are soon parted. The red flag of the auctioneer announces its transfer to a drawing-room frequented by persons capable of enjoying the refined pleasures. Bright and joyous is the scene, about half past nine in the evening, when, by turns, the ladies try over their newest pieces, or else listen with intelligent pleasure to� the performance of a master. Pleasant are the informal family concerts insuch a house, when one sister breaks down under the difficulties of Thalberg, and yields the piano-stool to the musical genius of the family, who takes up the note, and, dashing gayly into the midst of "Egitto," forces a path through the wilderness, takes the Red Sea like a heroine, bursts at length into the triumphal prayer, and retires from the instrument as calm as a summer morning. On occasions of ceremony, too, the piano has a part to perform, though a humble one. Awkward pauses will occur in all but the best-regulated parties, and people will get together, in the best houses, who quench and neutralize one another. It is the piano that fills those pauses, and gives a welcome respite to the toil of forcing conversation. How could "society" go on without the occasional interposition of the piano? One hundred and sixty years ago, in those days beloved and vaunted by Thackeray, when Louis XIV. was king of France, and Anne queen of England, society danced, tattled, and gambled. Cards have receded as the piano has advanced in importance.

     From such a drawing-room as this, after a stay of some years, the piano may pass into a boarding-school, and thence into the sitting-room of a family who have pinched for two years to buy it. "It must have been," says Henry Ward Beecher, "about the year 1820, in old Litchfield, Connecticut, upon waking one fine morning, that we heard music in the parlor, and, hastening down, beheld an upright piano, the first we ever saw or heard of! Nothing can describe the amazement of silence that filled us. It rose almost to superstitious reverence, and all that day was a dream and marvel." It is such pianos that are appreciated. It is in such parlors that the instrument best answers the end of its creation. - There is many a piano in the back room of a little store, or in the uncarpeted sitting-room of a farm-house, that yields a larger revenue of delight than the splendid grand of a splendid drawing-room. In these humble abodes of refined intelligence, the piano is a dear and honored member of the family.

     ...Few Americans, we presume, expected that the department of the Paris Exposition in which the United States should most surpass other nations would be that appropriated to musical instruments. Even our cornets and bugles are highly commended in Paris. The cabinet organs, according to several correspondents, are much admired. We can hardly credit the assertion of an intelligent correspondent of the Tribune, that the superiority of the American pianos is not "questioned?" by Erard, Pleyel, and Hertz, but we can well believe that it is acknowledged by the great players congregated at Paris. The aged Rossini is reported to have said, after listening to an American piano, "It is like a nightingale cooing in a thunder-storm."


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