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 38
Scan 38
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
13 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 16. See the scan on archive.org.
1Nathan Richardson (1827-1859), who had been a pupil of Moscheles, Alexander Dreyschock and others, opened a "Musical Exchange" in 1854 at [address hidden] and remained there till 1856. In 1855 he published Richardson's Collection of National and Operatic Melodies, the Minuet of Mozart's E-flat Symphony arranged for pianoforte, songs of Robert Franz and Franz Schubert, and advertised his Third Book of Concone's Vocal Exercises, for the middle register of the voice,—price $2—as "The only complete edition in the country."33 In 1856 he brought out Stephen Heller's Six Album Leaves for pianoforte, The Musical Drama, A Collection of Choruses, Quintettes, Quartettes, Trios and Concerted Pieces, in three volumes, from standard operas arranged and translated by J. C. D. Parker, and other worth while publications.
3The firm of Nathan Richardson was described in 1856 by Dwight's Journal of Music as "the youngest but not least enterprising"34 of our (Boston's) three leading publishers. The company's first mentioned publication was a new edition of the Modern School for the Piano.35 The editor commented that this "seems to have taken its place as a standard work."34 "This was published with the endorsement of William Mason, then in Weimar."36 It was "a technical work that included a series of large anatomical plates of the hand and forearm. . . It was the forerunner of the enormously popular work Richardson's New Method for the Piano-Forte published by Ditson in 1859 . . . a simplification of the earlier work discarding its complexities and adapting the book to the needs of beginners; but the feature which gave it such extraordinary vogue was the abundant use of so-called Amusements, tuneful recreative music that gave the pupil a happy relief from the 'studies' and purely technical work. This was a new feature in instruction books for the piano."37
5Other publications mentioned in the review38 were a small instruction book, First Book for the Pianoforte by A. LeCarpentier, Professor of Music in the Conservatoire, which was stated to be "expressly for beginners and is extensively used in Europe";38
733 Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. VI, March 3, 1855 p. 192.
834 Ibid March 22, 1856 pp. 198 & 199.
935 Third Edition already issued in 1855.
1036 Fisher, William Arms. One Hundred and Fifty Years of Music Publishing in the United States p. 57.
1137 Ibid p. 58.
1238 Dwight's Journal of Music, March 22, 1856 pp. 198 & 199.
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