Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-08-19
Common Sense About the Piano.

From the st. James Gazette.
Little girls fear the piano, and long for the
time when having at last mastered its difficult
ties, they will not be called upon to play upon
it any mOre while numberless great girls re-
gard it as one of the many nuisances which
they must put up with until they get married.
Once, however, liberate young women from
that piano to which, like serfs, they have SO
long been assigned" but not attached" and
some of them will take to cultivating it for its
own sake; while the remainder will at least
spare both themselves and their friends con-
siderable amount of annoyance.
The enormous difficulty of modern panoforte
music constitutes in itself a reason why in the
education of young girls the piano should not
like dancing and department" be made obli-
gatOry. A woman can get through life SO well
without playing the piano, and for a few shil-
lings, or even in extreme cases for single shil-
ling, she can. if her lot happens to be cast in
London, hear from time to time the finest play
ers that this great pianOfOrte-playing age has
ever produced. 1t is not because the piano is
unworthy of her attention that woman should
be liberated from the task-work imposed upon
her in connection with it. 1T is because music,
like every other art. demands from its vOtares
special gifts and inclinatiOns, and because
among women who are thus endowed it
is a mistake to suppose that the piano is
the only instrument suitable to them. Let it
be understood in the first place that it
is no more a disgrace for a young lady not
to play the piano than it is disgrace for her
not to draw, to paint, or to model; and in the
second place. that if she does not mean to play
some instrument it is mistake for her to re-
strict heIselfa as matter of course to the piano.
Next to the organ. the piano1S, thanks to the
orchestral effects which it can be made to pro-
duce. the finest instrument in the world; and it
Is the only instrument for which every great
composer writes as matter of course, and for
which every great composers orchestral works
are arranged in reduced form. To praise at
the expense of the piano the VIOLIN which
eXcent when tours de force are INDUCED in
yields like the human voice but single note
is a very common thing, but it is one that we
should not ourselves care to undertake. The
violin to be effective in truly musical sense
must, like the human voice, be accompanied
either by the orchestra or by the pianoforte. or
by other members of the violin family The pi-
anOfOrte is Quitting aside, course the too olos
sal Organ) the only instrument which, for har-
monte as well as melodic purposes, is complete
in itself and which is really an orchestra in
little
There are good reasons, then, why all who
care much for music should study the piano,
but no reason why they should study the piano
exclusively. Often in the same family there are
two. three, and even four pianists. How much
and how simultaneously the musical domain of
such family would be increased. if, with or
without neglect of theopanQ, the Instruments
of the violin family We're taken up. with view
not necessarily to string quartets but. at least.
TO the numerous pieces sWftlben Dy great COM
posers for violin or Fioloneelo and plano.
''The violn-I include always the viola and
violoncello-is no doubt" says Mr.. Hulah in his
excellent little work on emusic in the House,"
s'a difficult instrument; but the difficulty of
acquiring serviceable, amount of skill on it has
been much exaggerated. To become Joachim.
q Holmes, or Patti, is the work of life.
time, even for men gifted with equal aptitude
and perseverance to these-turned to account
under skful guidance and at the right time of
life, and supplemented and encouraged by
thousand circumstances as impossible to take
account of as to bring about and foresee. But
there is an amount ofskill heiow-very much
belOw-that OF artists of this class which, If ac-
companed by feeling, taste, and intelligence,
may contribute largely to the variety and agree
ableness of music ins the house." 1t may be
hoped that in few years, without the number
of our domestic pianists being too much dimin-
ished, that of our domestic viOlnists Will be
considerably increased. Some half-dozen lady
violinists have appeared this season in London,
at public concerts who possess the very highest
merit; and at half-priyate, half-public concert
given recently at Stafford House for the benefit
of a charity, the chief attraction was string
band consisting of no fewer than twenty-four
lady executants. The diversion, then, of femi-
nine talent from the piano towards the violin. Is
n0ta movement which has to be originated; it
needs only to be encouraged.