'HROUGHOUT the country there have been increasing evidences of a growing interest in the study of music by the many thousands who have no thought of a professional career. The love for music was never so much alive nor widespread. In Detroit not long ago 15,000 eager, enthusiastic children participated in a Piano Playing Contest. In Chicago an even larger number are now engaged in a similar friendly competition. In Wisconsin, where a Piano Playing Contest is under way, to be preceded by several months of group instruction, applicants have been enrolling at the rate of five hundred a day, ranging in age from six to sixty. Reports of similar interest shown on the Pacific Coast and at other points throughout the country tell of the widespread interest that is being shown in the study of this instrument alone. In the public schools the opportunity is steadily increasing for the study of music and musical instruments of all kinds. The National Federation of Music Clubs, musicians and musical authorities of pre-eminent standing, and men and women of national prominence are showing much interest in this subject, as well as parents and educators. PROMINENT SPONSORS OF PIANO STUDY One of the most interesting recent developments has been the organization of a notable Committee for the Advancement of Piano Study that will give a most substantial background to the general movement for encouraging the study of music, with their efforts along this line directed primarily toward promoting the study of the piano in the schools of this country. Among those of national and international prominence who have gladly agreed to serve on this committee are included: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Harold Bauer, Yolanda Mero, Maria Carreras, Frank La Farge, Mrs. Edgar Stillman-Kelley, president of the National Federation of Music Clubs; Oscar Saenger, Lawrence Tibbett, Olga Samaroff, Walter Damrosch, Frank Damrosch, Alfred Hertz, James Francis Cooke, president of the Presser Foundation; Frederick Stock, Rudolph Ganz, Walter R. Spaldins, Professor of Music at Harvard University; Josef Hofmann, Herbert Witherspoon, Ernest Hutcheson, W. W. Hinshaw, Professor Leopold Auer, Harold Randolph, director of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore, Md.; Wm. Van Hoogstraten, Reinald Werrenrath, Percy Grainger, A. M. See, secretary and general manager of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N. Y.; Dr. J. A. C. Candler, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.; and Dean Harold L. Butler, of the College of Fine Arts of Syracuse University. Others will be added to this National Committee whose progress will be watched with more than usual interest and who are certain to add decided impetus to the early study of the best that music has to offer. The study of music and its more general cultivation among all classes promises much for American family life. Few things can do quite so much to bring happiness into the home. It is a source of inspiration for every one, a promoter of family harmony and contentment. To the rising generation it supplies a cultural value that money cannot buy in later years besides adding to happiness, popularity and social standing. "Hell itself couldn't heat that corner”- said Andrew Jackson From a few hundred to many thousands of items, from one small factory to four great plants, from a single store to distributors all over the world-this is the record of WALWORTH'S eightyfive years of leadership in an industry which is now essential to almost all the ways and means of life. In your home or your business, for valves and fittings for any pipe that is to carry steam, water, gas, oil, or air, specify "WALWORTH" and your needs will be supplied safely and economically taken care of, down to the smallest item. WALWORTH VALVES, FITTINGS AND TOOLS W Facts On The Making HILE known to all that this nation leads the world in the production of fine phonographs, radios and many forms of musical instruments, our leadership in the making of pianos may not be so generally realized. Although Europe was the birthplace of the piano, many of the greatest improvements have been made in America. It is conceded that the finest pianos in the world are now made here while our annual production of grands, uprights, and reproducing and player-pianos exceeds the output of all Europe. Benjamin Crehore is credited by many with having made the first American piano about 1790 in Milton, Massachusetts. Others claim the first was made in Philadelphia several years before. Certain it is that some sixty or seventy years ago there were few piano-makers in America. To-day the number has increased tenfold, and over one hundred millions of dollars of capital are invested in the piano and pianoplayer business, and our instruments are being exported to every country. Such facts as these are interesting in considering the fundamental importance of this instrument which remains unapproached in the advancement of the art of music itself, to say nothing of the pleasure and benefits it brings to all who share in its use. Thinking of the piano in this way, it becomes a question not of how many pianos are made each year but how many of us are being brought into a true appreciation and actual use of this instrument. Much is being heard these days of Class Instruction, Group Instruction, and of Piano Playing Contests and of the interest that is being shown in these movements throughout the country to encourage both young and old, and especially the young, in the actual playing of the piano. Well-planned efforts along those lines are being sponsored by women's clubs, by social and even business organizations, by school and civic officials, by leading musicians everywhere, by parents and others who see the importance of a more universal knowledge and use of this instrument. There is noticeable, too, a growing recognition of the intimate relationship between fine music and fine musical instruments that should lead to wiser selection and care of the latter. Not every piano that is made to-day measures up to the requirements of a truly fine musical instrument though there has never been a time when it was easier to secure with a little care pianos of genuine merit and lasting worth. Finer pianos were never made than are being made for us to-day. Just how many years a good piano will remain a fine musical instrument after its purchase depends of course upon its construction and treatment. There is, however, no more reason to expect a piano to last forever than any other man-made creation however well constructed. There comes a time when even the best piano outlives its many years of usefulness and inspiration and should be honorably retired and succeeded by one that will stimulate renewed interest in fine music. TIMKEN Tapered BEARINGS THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. Publication Office, 10 FERRY STREET, CONCORD, N. H. Editorial and G Offices, 8 Arlington Street, Boston 17, Mass. 40c a copy, $4.00 a year; foreign postage $1.00. Entered at Post Offres at Comp Ottawa N. H., and Ottawa, Canada, as second-class matter. Copyright 1927, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Base |