lester piano company philadelphia pennsylvania parlor grand

Lester piano company philadelphia pennsylvania parlor grand professional#

According to the experts, the tone of spinet model pianos tends to be slight and more or less 'wooden.' Consequently, spinets were never recommended for purchase for serious students or by competent pianists. The result was a controversy that still lingers 58 years later. Unfortunately, decreasing the size of the upright pianos meant decreasing the size of the sounding board and shortening the strings, which was totally unacceptable to many purists, technicians, and teachers. Thousands of children successfully started their piano lessons on cardboard keyboards with no tone or touch at all.īy 1941 the old vertical or 'upright' piano was being turned out almost exclusively in the spinet design, and the change increased its value as a decorative piece of furniture, if nothing else: the new spinet pianos had cleverly designed, compact, console type cases from 36 to 45 inches high.

Lester piano company philadelphia pennsylvania parlor grand professional#

A professional pianist in his concerts would never play anything short of a 9-foot concert grand. But if someone wants a car that will take them 200 hundred miles an hour they must buy something that might be compared to the concert grand piano. The most popular cars in America are wholly adequate for their purpose.

The public, by its purchases, decided that the new types were the most desirable.Įvery skilled pianist knows perfectly well that the finest small grand is totally inadequate for concert hall purposes, and you'll never hear a concert pianist perform on any vertical. The in-between price was the small grand produced by makers seeking the mass market. The highest priced types, in the popular-priced field, were the new spinets, consoles as many called them at the time. At that time the lowest priced types made for the mass markets were studio uprights, approximately 3 feet 9 inches high. All these types were shown side-by-side in a wide variety of prices, and of course in different grades or qualities. When the piano known as the spinet type came into the market in 1935, with new engineering and styling, the public had its choice of conventional upright pianos, grand pianos of all sizes and new spinets. The Mathushek Piano Company went out of business in the late 1950s after a spectacular century of history, innovation and success. The Spinet Grand piano enjoyed moderate success during the 1930s and 1940s, but was never a substantial seller. These contemporary instruments were based on the same general design of Mathushek’s 19th Century square grand pianos, but they were redesigned in style and appearance so that they would fit well with modern décor. In size, it was much deeper (from front to back) than the regular spinets, the Spinet Grand ranged in price from $845 to $1,125 until 1941, depending on the design and finish of the case. Its strings were stretched almost horizontally to the keyboard its tone quality and sonority are much like those of a small grand. The Spinet Grand is not a vertical piano like the regular spinets, but rather a grand piano made like the old fashioned square grand piano. Appearing about 1931, it started the craze for the spinet-type piano. Something of a cross between a spinet and a grand piano was the Mathushek Spinet Grand. In 1936 Baldwin introduced the Acrosonic Spinet piano which was to become the largest selling piano of all time.

Almost all pianos manufactured today use either the compact direct action or the drop action both of which were invented in 1935. To make pianos smaller new actions had to be devised. high pianos were as small as could be built with existing actions and even these had cramped knee room. Soon more different styles were available to the piano buying public than ever before. All piano manufacturers followed with similar and widely divergent designs. This new style immediately caught the public's fancy immediately. This became known as the spinet and was very dainty looking compared to the old bulky upright.

upright piano was put into a new style case. THE GREAT DEPRESSION to THE ASIAN INVASION GREAT DEPRESSION TO THE ASIAN INVASION 1930 - 1959