TRADE DEPARTMENT.

V

company had not sufficient space in which to properly display our instruments, yet considering what others received, we were satisfied. Considering the very difficult task of fairly assigning space, we feel that it was done as well as could be expected.

The real grievance is probably due to the system of special awards. By that system awards are to be given for specified points of excellence which constitute an advance in piano construction, or which clearly indicate superiority. We do not understand that it is the intention, as has been stated, to give an award for a trivial improvement. The improvement or point of excellence must be of an important nature. My company considers the system eminently just and proper, whereas a system of general awards is impracticable. The makers who have withdrawn had great opportunities at Philadelphia in 1876, and made the most of them -the awards secured at that time being of great commercial value. That is all right-but some of us did not make pianos then; and some of us have in recent years effected improvements of an important nature. The younger makers have a right to the opportunities which are now offered. Let us have fair play.

The intimations that discrimination is being shown Chicago makers, and that the latter are acting dishonorably, are most undignified and uncalled for. I am convinced that the officers of the Fair will do all in their power towards fairness, not only as to awards, but as to everything else.

EDWARD P. MASON,

President Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Co.

NEW YORK, February 15.

PIANO MAKER'S AS EXPERT JURYMEN.

Mr. Henry F. Miller holds that it is not possible to obtain an examination of musical instruments, and particularly of pianos, which will be at the same time impartial and capable. He says that artists are largely actuated by prejudice and small whims, whereby they are apt to condemn an

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instrument for lacking some little peculiarity of touch or mechanism or tone quality, which may be of no essential relation to the value of the piano in a deep sense. Scientists, he says, are not competent to test the tone quality in the manner proposed in a late number of MUSIC. "Nobody but a

piano maker," says Mr. Miller, "can satisfactorily judge of a piano, because the piano maker alone has given to the subject, its difficulties and methods, the attention necessary to enable him to make a complete judgment.'

If

From this verdict MUSIC feels compelled to dissent. one were to believe what he is told about pianos by other makers, he would conclude with the Psalmist that all men are liars," or that there is no such thing as a good piano made. Weber holds that the Steinway tone is a mistake, and that the ideal piano for the home will have a very different piano tone. Miller holds that while the Masons are gentlemen, their pianos leave much to be desired; and as for the Chickerings, it is well known that the Miller piano has taken the concert place which theirs used to hold. Steinway holds, it is believed, that when we come down to strict facts there is only one good piano in the market. Chickering holds, it is thought, that there is now, and never has been, more than one really fine piano-and this one is not made in New York. A gentleman who spent an evening lately with that veteran warhorse of the piano trade, Mr. Frank H. King, was occupied half the evening in being educated to observe the superiority of the Wissner upright for concert use to a concert grand by another maker. And so one might go on by the hour.

Men are not now principally engaged in resigning nominations for congress in favor of other men whom they believe more competent; clergymen do not object to be nominated for bishops; and captains are quite ready not to pass over a nomination for a generalship in favor of some more competent person. "Every man," the German proverb says, is nearest unto himself." He knows his own ideals, his own good intentions, and his merits. He is not so sure of the corresponding points in his neighbor.

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And hence, while Music gladly chronicles the progres of altruism in the piano trade, as between the makers and the public, it is not so evident as between the makers and each other. Every man has his peculiar ideals. The vividess of this inner idea makes him apt to undervalue the evidences of a different but equally valid ideal in his brother's work. Mr. Miller expects too much.

66

And yet there is a way. Every piano might be intrusted to a committee of experts, consisting of its own makers. These would examine it and write its award. They made its and they understand what it is. Nobody else knows its weak points as they do. Why not, then, have them say something like this: My upright piano is the best combination of good qualities that is now in the market. The sounding boards are of the first grade, and bought at a high price by the gross. Some of my workmen practiced piano making in the Garden of Eden, and have been continually engaged in the business ever since. I feel therefore that if there be any merit in tradition and in strict gathering up of the wisdom of the past-there can be but one, and that one I have. You hear ME."

Or like this: "My upright pianos represent the highest triumph of scientific machinery applied to tone production. My iron is cast the hardest, my lumber planed the smoothest, my tuning pins driven tightest, and my sounding boards crowned the most reliably of all instruments now before the public. Moreover, while the tonal qualities are good enough for kings and queens, the prices are for the people and of the people.' You hear ME."

Or this: My pianos are made to sell. The cases are very handsome, though I do not pay very much for them. My iron is well gilded in all the places that show, and in all respects I have taken care to produce an instrument which will please the uneducated eye, and, if possible, take in the trained expert. Between ourselves, I do not pretend (outside of advertisements or a pending sale) to have such tonal qualities as Weber, Steinway or Chickering; I make a piano to sell. Unfortunately, I am succeeding rather too well, inasmuch as I am more than 400 instruments behind my