Scan 4
Musical Courier 1907-12-04: Vol 55 Iss 23, 1907
14 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Question of Pianists.
3[From The Musical Courier Extra Observations, November 30, 1907.]
5Some time ago last season, there was an advertisement in the music hall programs, in which Steinway & Sons announced that they had brought Rubinstein over here and had brought Paderewski over here and had brought Lhevinne over here. Paderewski is just the same as any other of the foreign pianists that come over here—he comes over here as a business proposition, and it is commendable and correct from his point of view and from the point of view of these people who live in foreign countries, who make no money at home because there is no paying clientele there, and who come over here to make it. I was over in Europe for a long time recently and I closely studied this question. These pianists make very little money in Europe. They make no tours, anyway—they play spasmodically. Eugene d'Albert, who charges $500 a performance in America and his railway expenses, gets 600 and 800 marks in Germany—that is, $150 and $200—and he only gets them occasionally, and in one or two cities he has drawing audiences. He doesn't average 1000 marks with all his drawing audiences—that is, $250. Paderewski himself rarely plays in public. In some of the large capitals he never plays. So it is with all of them. They may be able to make some seasons $3000 or $4000, but as to making $10,000, $20,000, $40,000, $100,000 as they do over here,—why, that is out of the question. It isn't over there and nobody will pay for it and in some countries nobody pays anything for a ticket for a piano recital; it is all invitation. But the advertising gotten there is used over here to influence us.
7The violinist, the cellist, the singer—these artists come over here and take their chances. If they make an impression with the public, they succeed; if they don't, they return home sore and sorrowful and denounce America, and even those who succeed frequently denounce America. Under this condition of engaging foreign artists, the piano houses spend fortunes every season, and their advertisements neutralize one another. As soon as one announces one pianist, another one announces another pianist. This expense is a serious inroad on the profits of the business, and it is a fact that those houses have made the most money on their investment that have not engaged these pianists.
9Under this practice, the American pianist becomes a dead letter. He must go to Europe if he wants an engagement in America. MacDowell was a pianist of great eminence. He could get no engagements because he was an American, who lived here. He was a very great pianist. When he played, he surprised the musicians through the scholarly interpretation and the authority that was vested in it through him, through the agility of his technic, through his poetic delivery and the beauty of his touch which exemplified his poetry and his deep musical feeling. A great many of the pianists that have been over here couldn't compete with him, yet he was an American who lived here and he was of no use. The American pianist suffers, the American musical institutions suffer and the American people suffer through this constant inroad of these foreign pianists who are brought over by deals and contracts made with piano houses, the piano houses directly announcing this to be the case. It is a very serious proposition and many piano houses are very tired of it and they have expressed to me a desire that this thing should stop for mutual good. I am trying to stop it.
11When Mr. Paderewski plays the Steinway on one occasion and the Weber on another occasion and Mr. Rosenthal does the same; when Mme. Carreno plays all the pianos; when Hambourg plays one piano and then another, why, the old testimonials vitiate the new ones, and as long as the public knows that Mr. Paderewski plays the Weber piano as the result of a deal, why it can do no good and it destroys Mr. Paderewski's value and his artistic standing is vitiated. The same with all the others. It is a bargain proposition, it is auctioneering and it must stop, because it will prove itself valueless. Who cares what any of them say, when they say the same thing about various pianos? It is only a difference of phraseology or a difference of money payment that brings out the most superlative adjective.
13Why should an American product, which is not sold in any foreign countries, be exploited by foreigners, anyway? Why should the foreigners get the profits that flow from the sale of American pianos that are sold only in America, or anywhere? Why should the manufacturers burden themselves with this kind of an insufferable load that only produces bad feeling, money losses, loss of prestige and loss of character? If there are to be exploitations of pianos, let these people come over here and play and take their chances, and if they succeed before the public, let the highest bidder have them. There would at least be something reasonable about that kind of an arrangement, because it would subject them to a test on their own merits and would, furthermore, show whether they really had the power to attract the public without the backing of the piano house. As it stands today, they are all piano demonstrators; they are all high-priced salesmen and their testimo-
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