Scan 356
The American history and encyclopedia of music, 1908
6 lines. Read by computer on 11 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSIC TRADES
3Whatever may be the state of musical culture in America, the standard of musical taste, or the value of American composition, there can be no question as to the importance of American achievement in the line of instrument making. The best of American instruments, in the matter of the piano for instance, serve as ideals for the followers of Cristofori's art in every country of the globe. And the principal improvements, which have placed the piano of today beyond comparison with its progenitors of half a century ago, have emanated from the brain of our own instrument makers. It sometimes is suggested that American initiative in this line is the initiative of the transplanted foreigner. This was well answered a few years ago, at a piano-makers' dinner in Boston, by Edward Everett Hale:
5"What moral can we find in the circumstance by which Jonas Chickering's attention was turned from being a machinist in a cotton factory to enter upon the taking up of this industry in America? Why is it that a machinist in New Ipswich, or in New Hampshire, turns to making pianos? Does a blacksmith in Bulgaria turn to making pianos? Is there anywhere in Nijni-Novgorod or in Archangel, or in the center of Russia, where such a change of conditions is brought about? Is there any country in this world where a man turns about, as you see everywhere in
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