Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 145
Scan 145
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
15 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 123. See the scan on archive.org.
1A list of seventy-six eminent performers, teachers and composers for the pianoforte, all users of the Chickering, appears as "The Roll of Honor of the Chickering Piano" on pages 77 and 78 in the book issued in 1903 in commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the company's founding. This included more European than American names, showing the instrument's standing in the musical world of that time.
3Great artists of later days using the pianoforte on their tours include Busoni, Chemet, D'Alvarez, von Dohnanyi, Dumesnil, Lhevinne, Maier, Mirovitch, Elly Ney, Pattison, Germaine Schnitzer, Telmanyi, and many others.
5VOSE & SONS PIANO COMPANY
7This company, incorporated in 1889, was founded in 1851 by James Whiting Vose, who served an old fashioned apprenticeship in expert cabinet making in Milton and Boston. He then began to study pianoforte construction, especially action and key making. After experience in cabinet work, organ and pianoforte key making and action building in various Boston shops, he began to make pianofortes at the age of twenty, first putting his name on them in 1851. The first appearance of his name in the Boston Business Directory was in 185219 at [address hidden], as "Vose, Jas. (Keys alone)."
9Pianoforte No. 1, made in the first factory at [address hidden], Boston, is a square with a highly ornamental full iron plate, a beautiful rosewood case and fine set of ivory keys. It still has a good tone and is in the possession of the company at their factory, [address hidden], Boston.
11This company has always aimed to make a "pianoforte of exceptional musical value and durability." An illustration of how early it became noted for the quality of its instruments is found in the following statement taken from an advertisement in Dwight's Journal of Music in 1857. James W. Vose's premium piano-fortes made in [address hidden] "won a silver prize medal for fine musical tone and perfect action, and a bronze medal for superiority of exterior at the last previous Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association Exhibition."20 The company has not gone in for the
1319 The Directory year ran from July 1851-July 1852.
1420 Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. X, Feb. 28, 1857 p. 176.
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