The Quest for Perfect Tone.

“Have you often regretted that the music in your heart could not find its way to your fingers? You need regret it no longer.”[1] So concludes the article entitled, “The Quest for Perfect Tone,” written in 1915 to document the manufacturing developments of the Everett Piano Company. This article reads more like a sappy mystery novel than a historical record. The article begins with a brief and general history of the keyboard, beginning with the Grecian god Hermes “…hitting his winged foot against a tortoise shell…vibrating five dried sinews stretched taut across it”[2] to Pythagoras to the keyboard instruments of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Finally we arrive in the early 20^th century, and “…we find here and there a man who would rather make something surpassingly well than heap up great riches.”[3]

But who is this you might ask? McLeary leaves his readers in suspense. He introduces Frank A. Lee, president of the Everett Piano Company, who is searching for a perfectly harmonious instrument. In a section of the article entitled, “Just at the darkest moment fate appears behind the scenes,” a piano dealer leads Mr. Lee into a private display room which holds this perfect instrument. “He ran a short arpeggio in the middle register. Each note rang out as clear as a cathedral bell.”[4] Finally McLeary reveals that it is the Swedish cabinet-maker John Anderson who has fashioned this piano, whose artistry is then compared to the fine works of Benvenuto Cellini, Della Robbia, and Stradivarius. His European heritage is a important item for discussion. There is the implication that his “Old World” studies is an important factor in his superior craftsmanship.

McLeary then quotes John Anderson on his life philosophy and how this impacts his work at the Everett Piano Company. These quotes are too amazing not to list here:

Some people think when one side of an apple tree is touched with word holds and the only way tot save the tree is to cut it down. Then all the good of that tree is lost. Years ago I learned how to save the apple tree by filling the posts with cement and tarring them. It’s a good deal the same way with men.

Some men remind me of tubs…So long as your pour fresh ideas into them their minds are fresh, but if you leave them alone awhile they become stagnant.

All wisdom comes from some great unknown outside source. Anybody can be wise if he will take time to think. A well stays fresh because it continually draws new water.[5]

            What struck me most in this article is the description of the piano as the ultimate artistic vessel, and as John Anderson, my great-great grandfather and esteemed piano manufacturer, as some kind of Messiah. He is not only a craftsman; he is a philosopher. By creating the perfect balance in the piano McLeary implies that Anderson understands the deepest secrets of life, and that if you too would like to be as wise as John Anderson, all you need to do is buy from the Everett Piano Company.

           

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[1] McLeary, F. Burnham, “The Quest for Perfect Tone,” The World’s Work: A History of our Time Volume XXX May, 1915 to October, 1915 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915), 285.

[2] McLeary 280.

[3] Ibid., 280.

[4] Ibid. 281.

[5] Ibid. 183.

Critique of Elgar.

Thomson and Fuller’s essays explore Elgar’s musical success in the public and private realms. In Fuller’s essay, entitled “Elgar and the Salons: The Significance of a Private Musical World,” I was struck by Elgar’s simultaneous affinity for and discomfort with the women and homosexual men in his musical circle. These individuals supported him emotionally and financially, a fact that both aided in Elgar’s popularity but also compromised his image as a “masculine” composer. Fuller notes that writings by women in Elgar’s life chronicle “…the often intense and passionate nature of Elgar’s relationships with these and other women – all of whom, in various ways, invested vast amounts of energy in nurturing and supporting the moody and self-doubting composer.”[1] Particularly telling is Elgar’s relationship with Frank Schuster, a flamboyantly homosexual man that it appears both boosted Elgar’s reputation and may have been in love with him.  Elgar was grateful for Schuster’s patronage but hesitant about his own association with an effeminate man. Fuller concludes, ‘This was a world that opened its doors to women, to lesbians and gay men, to foreigners, to Catholics and Jews – to all those who were different and face exclusion from the Anglican, patriarchal system.”[2]

            In contrast, Thomson’s article entitled, “Elgar’s Critical Critics,” studies the British school of musical thought at the time, a school which excluded Elgar because of his musical ties to Wagner and Strauss and because of his “…lower-middle-class, self-taught, provincial Roman Catholic…” heritage.[3] I find it ironic however that the British school seemed to yearn for the raw, heartfelt music of a self-taught composer, yet when someone of this actual condition faced them they turned their backs. I deduced from class discussion today that a discomfort that critics may have felt with Elgar’s musical similarity to Wagner is the growing nationalism in Europe as the continent approaches World War I. British strived for a quintessential musical sound that would match its individual entity. They deemed five composers, including Stanford and Parry, as leaders in the British music movement (just as France had “Les Six”). I found it amusing that British critics were so harsh in their criticism of Elgar, especially considering Elgar’s affinity and respect for Parry, the most popular British composer in the late 19^th century. It was not as if Elgar was trying to sound so different from his colleagues. It seems that like many great composers, his music was for a future generation of Englishmen. Thomson quotes Hadow: “Elgar had ‘remodeled the musical language of English: he [had] enlarged its style and enriches its vocabulary, and the monument of his work is not only a landmark in our present advance but a beacon of guidance for its future.”[4]

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[1] Fuller 230.

[2] Ibid. 241.

[3] Thomson 196.

[4] Ibid. 216

Temperley reading

As Temperley conveys, it is absolutely unbelievable that Victorian England should bring so much to the music industry without leaving a lasting musical impression. Temperley asks, “If music meant to much to the British in the nineteenth century, why has the twentieth shown so little interest in the music they produced?”[1] The author suggests that this lack of a musical legacy might have resulted from the country’s lack of political motive, as much of the music of the 19^th century was inspired by a country’s struggle/transformation. The choral societies of Britain, although essential to reviving music of the past, also kept music in the past. The music of Handel, Bach, and Mendelssohn prevailed.             Lastly there is the societal expectation that women should study music, but that music should not become a woman life’s work. I loved Temperley’s section on the Italian opera in Britain. While I knew that Italian opera was well received, I had no idea that Covent Garden solely produced Italian opera. Temperley writes, “Together with this affectation of Italian taste came the aristocratic idea that music was no pursuit for a gentleman, except as a dilettante.”[2] This idea develops further when discussing William Sterndale Bennett’s pursuits in music, which were stifled by British society. While Britain enjoyed classical music, the country did not consider it a worthy career, even for a man.

I also appreciated Temperley’s thoughts on chamber music, with the audience’s whispered affirmations and snooty applause. This commentary directly relates to classical audiences today. I attended Anne Sofie von Otter’s recital last night, and after reading this article, was struck by the hums, sighs, and sniffling between songs and what each sound might signify. It would be fascinating to read about the anthropology of a classical music concert.

Temperley writes, “Serious Victorian music is a Lost Chord: the sound of it is out of our reach, in a way that the sight and message of other Victorian arts is not.”[3] It is not that Britain did not have creative minds and musical geniuses. It is more so that society did not nurture and encourage these souls, nor consider them essential to their country’s history. This makes me think about if Brahms, or Mahler, or Faure were British citizens, whether their music would have been lost in the sands of time as well.

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[1] Temperley 8.

[2] Ibid., 16.

[3] Ibid., 21.

Remarks on "Fictions of the Opera Box"

Solie’s essay “Fictions of the Opera Box” utilizes realist Victorian novels to study the socioeconomic class system and how the divide was specifically evident through the world of opera. I particularly enjoyed the following passage: “The Metropolitan Opera opened in 1883, with no fewer than 122 pique-inspired boxes for which the wealthy subscribers drew lots. ‘As certainly as the pews of a church are ranged in lines ordained by the purpose of the structure, so the Metropolitan was built around the tiers of boxes which were its original sin.’”[1] From Solie’s studies, one can deduce that only the elite upper class owned opera boxes.  A trip to the opera had little to do with the enjoyment of the music, but rather it was a place to see and be seen. Wharton explains in her novel The Custom of the Country that the box numbers and names of those who occupied the boxes were listed on the back of the program.[2] No doubt for some people this information was more interesting than the program itself.

I was also fascinated with how Solie connected the opera world to the Victorian-originated trend of slumming, in which wealthy people visit impoverished areas “for fun.” I found this idea ridiculous until I realized that in my trip to India I was fascinated by the lives of the poor, especially in the Himalayan villages.  Living with little or no means is something I know nothing about, and in a way my experience in India made me feel that I had lived a little bit more, that I was a little bit better of a person for the taking the time to understand someone besides myself. I wonder if the Victorians viewed slumming this way. Solie writes, “Part of the appeal of opera had for upright Americans was its way of legitimating the exotic, the sensational, what would in everyday circumstances be not quite respectable.”[3] Solie argues opera and slumming are both a means for the wealthy to lose themselves in a story that is not their own. It seems that throughout time the wealthy are not really the happy ones. I appreciated Frank Norris’s anecdote from The Pit, which a group of homeless people stand outside the theater to watch the wealthy concert-goers walk down the streets.[4] This tidbit exemplifies so perfectly not just the existence of two distinct social classes, but the huge divide between the two, as if the rich and the poor are observing each other through permanent glass fish bowl.

           

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[1] Solie 193.

[2] Ibid., 194.

[3] Ibid., 199.

[4] Ibid., 203.

John Anderson

While discussing in class Solie’s essay “ ‘Girling’ at the parlor piano,” it dawned on me that my great-great grandfather was a piano manufacturer in the Victorian Era. His name was John Anderson.  Throughout my childhood I did a couple school projects inspired by/about him. In 4^th grade I played a Swedish immigrant in our Ellis Island unit, inspired by John Anderson, my only Swedish ancestor. In eighth grade, I wrote a paper on John Anderson and my other famous relative Peter Smith (Mayflower pioneer!). I studied piano for 12 years, until I was a senior in high school. During that time I practiced on two instruments that my great-great grandfather designed. At my family’s summer home on Lake Winnepesaukee we have sketches of John Anderson a la Johannes Brahms, passionately playing the piano over a hefty belly. When I googled “John Anderson piano manufacturer” this past week, the first item to appear was a google book entitled Pianos and their Makers: Development of the piano industry in America since the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia 1876 by Alfred Dodge. Upon browsing the book online I found an entire section devoted to my great-great grandfather.

John Anderson spent his childhood working in the Royal Gardens of Sweden among the flowers. This point kept coming up throughout the chapter, as if my grandfather’s deep sensual love of natural beauty is what eventually led him to piano design. By 14, Anderson began his apprenticeship with the Royal cabinet-maker. After five years, the Society of Mechanics of Stockholm awarded him for his work. He then received a stipend from the Swedish Chamber of Commerce to study with the great cabinet makers abroad. He traveled to Vienna, Munich, Zurich, and Paris. In 1884, he immigrated to New York. While designing cabinets, he also received his first assignments to design piano cases. He studied this craft with Decker Brothers and Steinway & Sons.  Anderson then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota to work for the Century Piano Company, where he designed the “Anderson” piano. (My family actually owns an “Anderson” piano. It is nestled in a corner of our summer home living room below the sketches and portraits of the man himself.) The Everett Piano Company of Boston, MA was so impressed with his work that in 1899 they invited him to take over all manufacturing for their company. While at Everett, Anderson felt a responsibility to employ every man personally, an action that Dodge suggested was because of his deep love for the integrity of piano design. Anderson designed the Everett concert grand piano (one of which sits in my family’s living room in Boston).

            Included in this chapter was a quote from a letter that my great-great grandfather had written to Alfred Dodge. From this quote I gathered not only a little bit of Anderson’s personality, but the great romantic beauty that men attached to the piano. It was Wagnerian almost, to relish in an instrument as if it were the summation of everything musical that had come before. The letter reads,

            I had long ago formed an idea for the beautiful in life, and although neither musician nor singer, also for the beautiful in sound. The roar of the ocean, the whisper of the leaves, the murmur of the brook, the mighty sound of storm in the woods, always had a charm for me, but when I heard men discuss piano tone, at first I hardly knew much about it.  But as time went on it became perfectly clear to me that tone, color, shade and light in a beautiful painting, the delicate molding in a  statue, and the harmony produced by perfect piano tones are practically the same thing, for the reason that the whole must result in a harmonious perfection.”[1]

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[1] Alfred Dodge, Pianos and their Makers: Development of the piano industry in America since the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia 1876 (Covina, California: Covina Publishing Company, 1913), 85-6.

Thoughts on "Girling."

            I really loved Solie’s essay entitled “’Girling’ at the Parlor Piano,” as it used teenage girls’ diaries as well as popular Victorian novels to convey the notions of gender identity that permeated the culture. Teenage girls were expected to sing and play the piano so as to appear more attractive to their potential husbands. Solie writes, “…girling is the social process that forms girls appropriate to the needs of the society they live in; on the other, it is their own enactment…of girlhood, both to satisfy familial and social demands on them and…to satisfy needs of their own either to resist those demands or to reassure themselves about their own capacity to fulfill them.”[1]

Playing the piano was so much more than cultivating a skill. It put women in their place, so to speak. It calmed a father or husband’s nerves after a long day. In class today Professor Leonard read an excerpt from “The Angel in the House,” a popular Victorian poem by Coventry Patmore which perfectly illuminates the expectations of a Victorian woman.[2] We deduced in class that a woman’s role in the Victorian Era was to serve her husband, to only give and receive love when it was convenient for the man, and to be a pinnacle of calm and contentment when the man was in a bad mood. This sentiment sounds more like an abusive relationship than an ideal marriage.

As is evident from “The Angel in the House”, Victorian “girling” also brings up issues of gender polarity. There were many writings of the Victorian Era that define Man and Woman in absolute terms: “Man is bold-woman is beautiful. Man is courageous-woman is timid. Man labors in the field – woman at home.”[3] When I read this I thought of some of my friends at Mount Holyoke that are the antithesis of what a woman “should” be. They are bold, courageous, laboring rugby players. From the article I gathered that some women accepted their fate, while others hated playing the piano, their strict schedules, and what each represented. Even more interesting is Florence Nightingale, who enjoyed the “girling” of her youth, yet remained unmarried through her life, and revolutionized the modern-day nursing field. Whatever the woman’s sentiment, she could not escape the oppressive symbolism of this black-and-white instrument.

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[1] Solie 86.

[2] http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html

[3] Solie 93.

Music is to the Victorians what Yoga is for me.

            I am appreciating Ruth Solie’s Music in Other Words: Victorian Conversations for its creative source material. I have read two of Solie’s essays. The first essay used Victorian journalism and the second utilized teenage girls’ diaries. In “Music in a Victorian Mirror: Macmillan’s Magazine in the Grove Years,” Solie writes, “I attempt to find a window onto the meanings that music held in English Victorian culture, to understand how musical ideas and information, as well as feelings and attitudes toward music, may permeate a culture…”[1] Through this article I am beginning to understand how much the Victorians valued the arts. Poetry and creative writing a la Charles Dickens permeated their magazines. Solie deduces that this rise in interest in the arts is a result of industrialization and the growing middle class. It is interesting to me that music began in the church, served the elite, and now, music is finally for the people. If it weren’t for the Victorian Era, I might not have a job as a conductor, since amateur choral societies arose from music’s newfound availability to the public.  As intelligent and well learned as people were when it came to Handel and Mendelssohn, people were hesitant to accept the music “of the future,”[2] or really anything “of the future.” Solie explains, “The coinage evidently captured the Victorian imagination, immersed as it was in the sense of an ongoing developmental stream of history and an intense concern as to where that stream would lead…”[3] It’s clear that people of the Victorian Era don’t want music to be challenging and progressive because everything else in their lives is already challenging enough. Music should be an escape from life’s fast pace. It seems that in the world I live in we have accepted that music will ever evolve, as does everything else. The way we cope with change, however, is through the green movement (buy local, and you are returning to your hunter-gatherer roots) and alternative forms of healing like yoga, acupuncture, and massage. I am sure there are other trends as well, but these trends in particular appeal to the middle and upper classes, the same kinds of people who one hundred and fifty years ago would be escaping life’s troubles through the next Great Expectations installment in a London magazine or through singing the cathartic and beautiful “He that shall ensure to the end” from Mendelssohn’s Elijah in their local choral society.

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[1] Solie 44.

[2] Ibid. 53.

[3] Ibid. 55.