rapid progress. The tide of California gold was flowing in, and every day some one was getting rich enough to treat his family to a new piano. It was the Messrs. Steinway who chiefly supplied the new demand, without lessening by one instrument a month the business of older houses. Various improvements in the framing and mechanism of the piano have been invented and introduced by them; and, while some members of the family have superintended the manufacture, others have conducted the not less difficult business of selling. To this hour, the father of the family, in the dress of a workman, attends daily at the factory, as vigilant and active as ever, though now past seventy; and his surviving sons are as laboriously engaged in assisting him as they were in the infancy of the establishment.

Besides the Chickerings and the Steinways, there are twenty manufacturers in the United States whose production exceeds one hundred pianos per annum. Messrs. Knabe & Co. of Baltimore, who supply large portions of the South and West, sold about a thousand pianos in the year 1866; W. P. Emerson of Boston, 935; Messrs. Haines Brothers of New York, 830; Messrs. Hallett and Davis of Boston, 462; Ernest Gabler of New York, 312; Messrs. E. C. Lighte & Co. of New York, 286; Messrs. Hazelton and Brothers of New York, 269; Albert Webber of New York, 266; Messrs. Decker Brothers of New York, 256; Messrs. George Steck and Co. of New York, 244; W. I. Bradbury of New York, 244; Messrs. Lindeman and Sons of New York, 223; the New York Piano-forte Company, 139. About one half of all the pianos made in the United States are made in the city of New York.

To visit one of our large manufactories of pianos is a lesson in the noble art of taking pains. Genius itself, says Carlyle, means, first of all, "a transcendent capacity for taking trouble." Everywhere in these vast and interesting establishments we find what we may call the perfection of painstaking.

The construction of an American piano is a continual act of defensive warfare against the future inroads of our climate, — a climate which is polar for a few days in January, tropical for a week or two in July, Nova-Scotian now and then in November, and at all times most trying to the finer woods, leathers, and fabrics. To make a piano is now not so difficult; but to make one that will stand in America, — that is very difficult. In the rear of the Messrs. Steinway's factory there is a yard for seasoning timber, which usually contains an amount of material equal to two hundred and fifty thousand ordinary boards, an inch thick and twelve feet long; and there it remains from four months to five years, according to its nature and magnitude. Most of the timber used in an American piano requires two years' seasoning at least. From this yard it is transferred to the steam-drying house, where it remains subjected to a high temperature for three months. The wood has then lost nearly all the warp there ever was in it, and the temperature may change fifty degrees in twelve hours (as it does sometimes in New York) without seriously affecting a fibre. Besides this, the timber is sawed in such a manner as to neutralize, in some degree, its tendency to warp, or, rather, so as to make it warp the right way. The reader would be surprised to hear the great makers converse on this subject of the warping of timber. They have studied the laws which govern warping; they know why wood warps, how each variety warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act as a restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An astonishing amount of thought and experiment has

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been expended upon this matter of warping, so much, that now not a piece of wood is employed in a piano, the grain of which does not run in the precise direction which experience has shown to be the best.

The forests of the whole earth have been searched for woods adapted to the different parts of the instrument. Dr. Rimbault, in his learned "History of the Piano-forte," published recently in London, gives a catalogue of the various woods, metals, skins, and fabrics used in the construction of a piano, which forcibly illustrates the delicacy of the modern instrument and the infinite care taken in its manufacture. We copy the list, though some of the materials differ from those used by American manufac

Ivory Black lead

Strings. Lapped strings.

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lowest notes.

Various.

White keys.

To smooth the rubbing surfaces of cloth or leather in the action.

Glue (of a particular quali-y

ty, made expressly for Woodwork throughout. this trade)

Beeswax, emery paper,

glass paper, French pol-Cleaning and finishing. ish, oil, putty powder, spirits of wine, &c., &c.

Such are the materials used. The processes to which they are subjected are far more numerous. So numerous are they and so complicated, that the Steinways, who employ five hundred and twelve men, and labor-saving machinery which does the work of five hundred men more, aided by three steam-engines of a hundred and twentyfive, fifty, and twenty-five horse-power, can only produce from forty-five to fifty-five pianos a week. The average number is about fifty, six grand, four upright, and forty square. The reader has seen, doubtless, a piano with the top taken off; but perhaps it has never occurred to him what a tremendous pull those fifty to sixty strings are keeping up, day and night, from The one year's end to another. shortest and thinnest string of all pulls two hundred and sixty-two pounds, about as much as we should care to lift; and the entire pull of the strings of a grand piano is sixty pounds less than twenty tons, -a load for twenty cart-horses. The fundamental diffi

culty in the construction of a piano has always been to support this continuous strain. When we look into a piano we see the "iron frame" so much vaunted in the advertisements, and so splendid with bronze and gilding; but it is not this thin plate of cast-iron that resists the strain of twenty tons. If the wires were to pull upon the iron for one second, it would fly into atoms. The iron plate is screwed to what is called the "bottom" of the piano, which is a mass of timber four inches thick, composed of three layers of plank glued together, and so arranged that the pull of the wires shall be in a line with the grain of the wood. The iron plate itself is subjected to a long course of treatment. The rough casting is brought from the foundery, placed under the drilling-machine, which bores many scores of holes of various sizes with marvellous rapidity. Then it is smoothed and finished with the file; next, it is japanned; after which it is baked in an oven for forty-eight hours. It is then ready for the bronzer and gilder, who covers the greater part of the surface with a light-yellow bronzing, and brightens it here and there with gilding. All this long process is necessary in order to make the plate retain its brilliancy of color.

Upon this solid foundation of timber and iron the delicate instrument is built, and it is enclosed in a case constructed with still greater care. Το make so large a box, and one so thin, as the case of a piano stand our summer heats and our furnace heats (still more trying), is a work of extreme difficulty. The seasoned boards are covered with a double veneer, designed to counteract all the tendencies to warp; and the surface is most laboriously polished. It takes three months to varnish and polish the case of a piano. In such a factory as the Steinways' or the Chickerings', there will be always six or seven hundred cases undergoing this expensive process. When the surface of the wood has been made as smooth as sand-paper can make it, the first coat of varnish is

applied, and this requires eight days to harden. Then all the varnish is scraped off, except that which has sunk into the pores of the wood. The second coat is then put on; which, after eight days' drying, is also scraped away, until the surface of the veneer is laid bare again. After this four or five coats of varnish are added, at intervals of eight days, and, finally, the last polish is produced by the hand of the workman. The object of all this is not merely to produce a splendid and enduring gloss, but to make the case stand for a hundred years in a room which is heated by a furnace to seventy degrees by day, and in which water will freeze at night. During the war, when good varnish cost as much as the best champagne, the varnish bills of the leading makers were formidable indeed.

The labor, however, is the chief item of expense. The average wages of the five hundred and twelve men employed by the Messrs. Steinway is twenty-six dollars a week. This force, aided by one hundred and two labor-saving machines, driven by steam-power equivalent to two hundred horses, produces a piano in one hour and fifteen minutes. A man with the ordinary tools can make a piano in about four months, but it could not possibly be as good a one as those produced in the large establishments. Nor, indeed, is such a feat ever attempted in the United States. The small makers, who manufacture from one to five instruments a week, generally, as already mentioned, buy the different parts from persons who make only parts. It is a business to make the hammers of a piano; it is another business to make the "action"; another, to make the keys; another, the legs; another, the cases; another, the pedals. The manufacture of the hardware used in a piano is a very important branch, and it is a separate business to sell it. The London Directory enumerates forty-two different trades and businesses related to the piano, and we presume there are not fewer in New York. Consequently,

any man who knows enough of a piano to put one together, and can command capital enough to buy the parts of one instrument, may boldly fling his sign to the breeze, and announce himself to an inattentive public as a "piano-fortemaker." The only difficulty is to sell the piano when it is put together. At present it costs rather more money to sell a piano than it does to make one.

When the case is finished, all except the final hand-polish, it is taken to the sounding-board room. The soundingboard a thin, clear sheet of spruce under the strings — is the piano's soul, wanting which, it were a dead thing. Almost every resonant substance in nature has been tried for sounding-boards, but nothing has been found equal to spruce. Countless experiments have been made with a view to ascertain precisely the best way of shaping, arranging, and fixing the sounding-board, the best thickness, the best number and direction of the supporting ribs; and every great maker is happy in the conviction that he is a little better in sounding-boards than any of his rivals. Next, the strings are inserted; next, the action and the keys. Every one will pause to admire the hammers of the piano, so light, yet so capable of giving a telling blow, which evoke all the music of the strings, but mingle with that music no click, nor thud, nor thump, of their own. The felt employed varies in thickness from one sixteenth of an inch to an inch and an eighth, and costs $5.75 in gold per pound. Only Paris, it seems, can make it good enough for the purpose. Many of the keys have a double felting, compressed from an inch and a half to three quarters of an inch, and others again have an outer covering of leather to keep the strings from cutting the felt. Simple as the finished hammer looks, there are a hundred and fifty years of thought and experiment in it. It required half a century to exhaust the different kinds of wood, bone, and cork; and when, about 1760, the idea was conceived of covering the hammers with something soft, another century was to elapse be

fore all the leathers and fabrics had been tried, and felt found to be the ne plus ultra. With regard to the action, or the mechanism by which the hammers are made to strike the strings, we must refer the inquisitive reader to the piano itself.

When all the parts have been placed in the case, the instrument falls into the hands of the "regulator," who inspects, rectifies, tunes, harmonizes, perfects the whole. Nothing then remains but to convey it to the store, give it its final polish and its last tuning.

The next thing is to sell it. Six hundred and fifty dollars seems a high price for a square piano, such as we used to buy for three hundred, and the "natural cost" of which does not much exceed two hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars for a grand piano is also rather startling. But how much tax, does the reader suppose, is paid upon a fifteen-hundred-dollar grand? It is difficult to compute it; but it does not fall much below two hundred dollars. The five per cent manufacturer's tax, which is paid upon the price of the finished instrument, has also to be paid upon various parts, such as the wire; and upon the imported articles there is a high tariff. It is computed that the taxes upon very complicated articles, in which a great variety of materials are employed, such as carriages, pianos, organs, and fine furniture, amount to about one eighth of the price. The piano, too, is an expensive creature to keep, in these times of high rents, and its fare upon a railroad is higher than that of its owner. We saw, however, a magnificent piano, the other day, at the establishment of Messrs. Chickering, in Broadway, for which passage had been secured all the way to Oregon for thirty-five dollars, - only five dollars more than it would cost to transport it to Chicago. Happily for us, to whom fifteen hundred dollarsnay, six hundred and fifty dollarsis an enormous sum of money, a very good second-hand piano is always attainable for less than half the original price.

For, reader, you must know that the ostentation of the rich is always putting costly pleasures within the reach of the refined not-rich. A piano in its time plays many parts, and figures in a variety of scenes. Like the more delicate and sympathetic kinds of human beings, it is naught unless it is valued; but, being valued, it is a treasure beyond price. Cold, glittering, and dumb, it stands among the tasteless splendors with which the wealthy ignorant cumber their dreary abodes, a thing of ostentation merely, as uninteresting as the women who surround it, gorgeously apparelled, but without conversation, conscious of defective parts of speech. "There is much music, excellent voice, in that little organ," but there is no one there who can "make it speak." They may "fret" the noble instrument; they "cannot play upon it." But a fool and his nine-hundred-dollar piano are soon parted. The red flag of the auctioneer announces its transfer to a drawing-room frequented by persons capable of enjoying the refined pleasures. Bright and joyous is the scene, about half past nine in the evening, when, by turns, the ladies try over their newest pieces, or else listen with intelligent pleasure to the performance of a master. Pleasant are the informal family concerts in such a house, when one sister breaks down under the difficulties of Thalberg, and yields the piano-stool to the musical genius of the family, who takes up the note, and, dashing gayly into the midst of "Egitto," forces a path through the wilderness, takes the Red Sea like a heroine, bursts at length into the triumphal prayer, and retires from the instrument as calm as a summer morning. On occasions of ceremony, too, the piano has a part to perform, though a humble one. Awkward pauses will occur in all but the best-regulated parties, and people will get together, in the best houses, who quench and neutralize one another. It is the piano that fills those pauses, and gives a welcome respite to the toil of forcing conversation. How could "society" go on without the occasional NO. 117.

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interposition of the piano? One hundred and sixty years ago, in those days beloved and vaunted by Thackeray, when Louis XIV. was king of France, and Anne queen of England, society danced, tattled, and gambled. Cards have receded as the piano has advanced in importance.

From such a drawing-room as this, after a stay of some years, the piano may pass into a boarding-school, and thence into the sitting-room of a family who have pinched for two years to buy it. "It must have been," says Henry Ward Beecher, "about the year 1820, in old Litchfield, Connecticut, upon waking one fine morning, that we heard music in the parlor, and, hastening down, beheld an upright piano, the first we ever saw or heard of! Nothing can describe the amazement of silence that filled us. It rose almost to superstitious reverence, and all that day was a dream and marvel." It is such pianos that are appreciated. It is in such parlors that the instrument best answers the end of its creation. There is many a piano in the back room of a little store, or in the uncarpeted sittingroom of a farm-house, that yields a larger revenue of delight than the splendid grand of a splendid drawing-room. In these humble abodes of refined intelligence, the piano is a dear and honored member of the family.

The piano now has a rival in the United States in that fine instrument before mentioned, which has grown from the melodeon into the cabinet organ. We do not hesitate to say, that the cabinet organs of Messrs. Mason and Hamlin only need to be as generally known as the piano in order to share the favor of the public equally with it. It seems to us peculiarly the instrument for men. We trust the time is at hand when it will be seen that it is not less desirable for boys to learn to play upon an instrument than girls; and how much more a little skill in performing may do for a man than for a woman! A boy can hardly be a perfect savage, nor a man a money-maker or a pietist, who has acquired sufficient