AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



July, 1906 



The Piano in American Homes 



Tone Texture and Architectural Consistency- 



I HE extension of the compass of the piano 

 since the vanishing of the harpsichord is 

 revealed hy a glance at any modern piano- 

 program. Black are the pages of virtuoso 

 music with crabbed scores written for or- 

 chestra ; — with astounding challenges to the 

 sustaining power of the piano. What the composers, Schu- 

 mann, Berlioz, Tausig and Liszt (who treated the piano as 

 if it were an orchestra) destined the piano to become, it has 

 become. But it is with an added beauty of which they did 

 not dream and one that is as exclusively a twentieth century 

 achievement as the wireless message. 



Modern musical taste 

 is not content to receive 

 a piano on the score of 

 sonority and brilliance 

 alone; it must have tone 

 color. 



Every artist in play- 

 ing the Baldwin piano 

 for the first time has 

 expressed surprise at 

 its susceptibility to the 

 most delicate shading 

 and at the same time its 

 power to produce the 

 greatest dynamic effects. 

 At the Paris 1900 

 exposition, the Baldwin 

 piano, already known to 

 the musical elect as an 

 instrument in which un- 

 usual characteristics had 

 been attained, made its 

 professional debut into 

 the society of the classic 

 makes of Europe. It 

 was awarded the Grand 

 Prix. A local exhibitor 

 expressed his surprise at 

 the decision on the score 

 of the visitor's compara- 

 tive youth. Had he for- 



gotten the early maturity of musical genius — Mozart, 

 Beethoven, Handel? One of the jurors, a famous piano 



teacher of the Conservatoire, replied — "My dear B , 



you will have to get used to hearing this young piano's 

 name." 



His words have been amply justified. In addition to 

 the Grand Prix award, the head of the Baldwin House was 

 made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. At the St. 

 Louis Exposition the Grand Prize was given the Baldwin, 

 forming another in the sequence of successes which has 

 marked the Baldwin's career. Tn the realm of tone, it has 

 received the homage of men and women whose names adorn 

 the contemporary gallery of fame. In homes of culture 

 and wealth, it has gained a welcomed entree. 



The Baldwin has moved so steadily to the heights where 

 if now stands that to those who have known it and played 

 it its name in the mere speaking carries a suggestion of all 

 that is most desired in an artistic piano. The tone is per- 

 vaded with a loveliness of quality wholly individual and 

 fresh — a quality described by Felix Weingartner with Le- 

 schitiszky's phrase "extra-musical." Its union of sound and 

 significance, power and imagination, is the accepted ideal 

 of tone-beauty. The charm of the Baldwin, indeed, may be 

 said to be an affair of immense sonority plus emotional 

 beauty. It is a tone that admits of the subtlest shading, the 

 finest melodic hues and infinite combinations. If Liszt, as 

 Heine phrased it, is "the Raphael of the piano," the Baldwin 

 Piano, in the paraphrase of Sembrich, is "the Raphael 

 among pianos." In her use of a concert piano the great 

 coloratura artist has selected the Baldwin. "It enriches, 

 heightens and extends the beauty of song — it gives a regal 

 setting to musical art." Such is the Sembrich tribute. 



A memorable event of the musical season just past was 

 the playing of the Baldwin by Raoul Pugno. Not one of 

 the thousands who heard the great French artist will forget 

 the heroic effects produced by the fuller and deeper tones of 

 this instrument. "It is the tone that dazzles and excites the 

 emotional life, yet stimulates the intellect," said Pugno, with 

 the vivacity of his race; — "an immense tone for an immense 

 technique" — was the critic's comment. With De Pach- 

 mann's exquisite interpretations of the gossamer music of 

 Chopin on the Baldwin Piano, the whole musical world is 

 familiar. The nuance, the accents and shimmering effects of 



3TY1J. 

 LOU!-. 



f,^ SMAI 



