Making Music With Bookmarks

by

Of all the types of antique advertising bookmarks I see for sale the most common ones are by far for pianos. I have often asked myself why and I think it is for this reason: pianos were marketed to women just as reading always was. Leaving aside the inexpensive format, bookmarks served two purposes. They were more likely to be used by women since women, especially upper class women in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, had leisure time for reading. Even for those who were not upper class, reading was one of their few socially acceptable forms of relaxation. As long as the books were either written for women or properly expurgated so as not to offend their “womanly” minds they were more likely to be found in their hands than that of men who had greater latitude in their choice of leisure activities. In addition, piano playing was not only another form of acceptable leisure for women but knowing how to play was part of the expected womanly arts that, along with needlework and other home-based activities, was taught to girls. Other than professional pianists, few men if any played piano. Finally, pianos were designed to be “furniture,” to fit in homes as naturally as sofas and dining tables. This was not something that a French horn or a harp could achieve with the same finesse.

Not surprisingly, manufacturers and sellers of pianos found their perfect marketing vehicle in bookmarks, which combined these two activities. Men might put out the money to buy the piano but it was women for whom the piano was primarily intended. 

In my collection I currently have thirty-five bookmarks devoted to pianos. It is the largest number dedicated to any specific theme (not including general subjects such as food, which I have broken down into specific types). Most of them are in the traditional bookmark shape, taller than they are wider. But a few are unique. One is a die-cut of an owl holding a piano in his claw. Another is heart-shaped. The one that advertises a player piano has elements of both the traditional shape and a die-cut heading. A metal one in the shape of  horseshoe says “Good Luck” on it. The harpsichord, which gave birth to the idea of the piano, forms another shape for a bookmark. Then there is the egg-shaped one. All of these bookmarks beg the question: how did this musical instrument come to be so much a part of our lives?
 
First, it is important to understand that the piano is a stringed instrument although the strings are hidden away inside. It is those strings that comprised what were probably first musical instruments ever made—animal guts looped between a set of horns—by cave dwellers in a crude form of an instrument that could accompany a storyteller. The idea of sounds and music

In the middle of the twelfth century, the monochord, a keyed instrument that resembled a sort of keyboard, appeared, and later the clavichord. The latter provided the musician with the ability to strike more than one key at a time, thus producing two sounds or notes at once.

A couple of centuries later, in the fourteenth, the harpsichord came into being, though it was based more on an old instrument called the psaltery, a device with strings placed in a box and plucked with the finger or an instrument called a plectra. Debates about when a true hammered keyboard instrument appeared are uncertain—letters dating from the late 1500s refer to an instrument that could play both loud and soft, but whether it was a piano or a rigged harpsichord is uncertain, What is known is that what is can assuredly be called the “pianoforte” did not make a public appearance until 1709.

Like many other inventions, the piano was founded on technological innovations. The mechanisms of the earlier keyboard instruments—the clavichord and the harpsichord, and the most effective ways to construct the case, soundboard, bridge, and keyboard—were well known, especially to someone like Bartolomeo Cristofori, of Padua, Italy, who is credited with inventing the first piano. He had been an expert harpsichord maker and keeper of musical instruments at the Medici court when, in approximately 1700, he produced a new mechanism for the harpsichord, giving it the ability to be play with dynamic variations. (We know it is dated to this (or perhaps a year or two earlier) because an inventory list for the family that year included the invention among his employer’s belongings.) It was a major technological breakthrough. He termed it Clavicembalo col Piano e Forte (literally, keyboard-instrument with soft and loud). It could produce both soft and loud tones, with gradations in between, depending upon the force with which the keys were struck with the fingers.

Cristofori used a small role of parchment with a pad of leather glued on top, and fitted into a wood molding along with an “escapement.” The design allowed the hammer to be thrown freely at the string and then escape rather than linger there which caused the string to vibrate and produce its sound. Aiding that was the fact that he had a separate rail for mounting the hammers. 

His invention remained relatively unknown until 1709 when an Italian journalist named Scipione Maffei wrote an enthusiastic article about Cristofori’s instrument and included a diagram of the mechanism. It was widely distributed and among those who read it was another instrument builder named Gottlieb Silbermann, an organ builder. He virtually copied Cristofori’s version with one important addition: he invented the forerunner of the modern damper pedal, which lifts all the dampers from the strings at once.

Silbermann had showed one of his early instruments to J.S. Bach in the 1730s, but Bach did not like it and offered critiques. Those were incorporated into newer versions, and in 1747 Bach approved Silbermann’s pianos. One of Bach’s sons was actually the first musician to use the piano as a solo instrument in concert in June, 1768. The piano had been made by German craftsman Johannes Cristoph Zumpe of London who was one of the twelve instrument makers who, because of political and economic problems through Europe in the 1750s and 1760s, moved to England. Because of this, piano making had become divided into two separate schools, English and Viennese, by the 1780s.

Composers of this era were now using pianos regularly, and in the early 1770s, Muzio Clementi’s composed the Three Sonatas, Opus 2, probably one of the first pieces to be composed with the piano in mind. Because of the understanding he showed of the piano’s possibilities early on, Clementi is considered one of the founders of modern piano-playing. Joseph Haydn's popular piano sonatas had started the shift from the harpsichord to the piano, but it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s piano concertos which helped popularized the piano as a solo instrument.

Viennese instruments had a light touch, a very crisp treble, and an efficient damping mechanism. Mozart preferred them. But Ludwig van Beethoven, a hard-living and hard-playing man, tended to destroy them.

Beethoven was not only a powerful composer and piano player, but he was equally strong in his personal life. He paid no attention whatsoever to protocol or social concerns. That same disregard for convention showed up in his playing. He called, as Jeffrey Dane put it, “into existence new elements of vitality and dramatic emphasis.” His manner of playing was as powerful as his personality, thus he tended to destroy the pianos of his day that depended on light touches of the fingers. They worked for Mozart, but they didn’t work for him. 

As early as 1802, many of the Viennese piano makers were eager to make a piano for him (without charge, an early celebrity endorsement arrangement). However, he was willing to pay—but only if a manufacturer could meet his needs. Enter John Broadwood & Sons, an English piano manufacturer. In 1817, the London firm sent a two-pedal, six-octave Broadwood piano to Beethoven. They had made some significant developments including the introduction of the damper pedal.

The piano took about a year to reach Beethoven. Thomas Broadwood, who had visited Beethoven in Vienna earlier that year, determined that the composer would not only be given the piano but be spared any difficulties in its arrival so he even enlisted the help of the head of the customs house to ensure its unimpeded arrival. Upon learning of the coming gift, Beethoven penned this note:

My very dear friend Broadwood,

I have never felt a greater pleasure than your honour’s intimation of the arrival of this piano, with which you are honouring me as a present. I shall look upon it as an altar upon which I shall place the most beautiful offerings of my spirit to the divine Apollo. As soon as I receive your excellent instrument, I shall immediately send you the fruits of the first moments of inspiration I spend at it, as a souvenir for you from me, my very dear  Broadwood; and I hope that they will be worthy of your instrument. My dear sir, accept my warmest consideration, from your friend and very humble servant.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Vienna
7th February 1818

The new piano pleased Beethoven enormously with its full, broad tones and penetrating sound, especially compared to the softer Viennese pianos which he had been using. It had been made of mahogany, as Beethoven wanted, and was both solid and graceful. It had a divided pedal so that the bass and treble registers could be pedaled separately. The composer’s name had been inlaid in ebony on the nameboard above the keys directly under the music rack. So precious was the instrument that Beethoven refused to let anyone tune it except Stumpff who came from London with a personal recommendation from Broadwood.

The piano served Beethoven as well as it could (in fact, Beethoven kept it as long as he lived), but by 1823, it had become little more than a mass of broken wires, cracked hammer-posts and mute keys. (Since he was deaf by this time, it may have not mattered much.) It was at this time that Viennese piano manufacturer Conrad Graf came to Beethoven’s rescue. Graf had begun his business in 1804 and soon appointed official court piano-maker. His reputation for his concert grand pianos was well deserved so when Graf bestowed a three-pedal piano upon Beethoven in 1823 the composer nearly discarded his beloved Broadwood for it. Based on a suggestion by inventor Johann Mepomuk Mälzel who had designed Beethoven’s “hearing aids” (ear trumpets), Graf had made a significant modification specially for the now-deaf Beethoven. Over the strings and mechanisms, he constructed a canopy of thin plywood across the width of the piano, which would amplify the sound. Beethoven penned his last work on this piano. 

During the decade of the 1820s, two important developments occurred: the center of innovation shifted to Paris where the Érad firm manufactured pianos used by Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. Érad invented the double escapement action, permitting a note to be repeated even if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position. This was a great benefit for rapid playing and gradually became the standard for all grand pianos to this day.

Pianos were by now becoming popular instruments not only for professional musicians but for anyone interested in music. At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, 102 different manufacturers from all over the world exhibited 178 pianos.

America had also taken an interest in the piano, however. In 1800, an Englishman living in Philadelphia, John Isaac Hawkins, invented the first true upright. The difference between they familiar pyramid piano and the upright was that the strings in the latter ran below the keyboard with the hitch pins at the bottom. (In the former, the strings ran from the keyboard to the top.) Hawkins is said to have made a piano for Thomas Jefferson who apparently was unhappy with it and returned it. Shortly thereafter, Hawkins returned to England to sell coffee.

But Hawkins’s failure did not impact the growing popularity of the instrument. Steinway, originally Steinweg, was founded in 1853, and six years later, on December 20, 1859, Henry Steinway Jr. took out a patent for overstringing grand pianos. This development, which provides a longer string length using the same size of case than straight stringing permits, proved to be a turning point for the young company, which went on to win numerous awards around the world because of this feature.

Appleton, Hayt & Babcock, possibly the first piano manufacturer in America, was unfortunately a short-lived one. But there were many other manufacturers and piano designs too. But mechanized piano building was underway with pianos in shapes and sizes that ranged from small, light rectangular boxes to wing-shaped, square, trapezoidal, and upright. However, the designs had pretty much settled down by 1870 when the piano was very close to what we know today. (An interesting side note to this design history is what took place at the American Manufacturers & Retailers annual conference in 1904. A large number of square pianos were brought in and a pyramid fifty feet high was built. It was then set on fire. Their point: these pianos were valueless as trade-ins on new pianos.)

While the designs had matured, the growth of piano sales continued upward. The mechanization that led to easy production and the marketing took hold of the piano-making world late in the 1800s, and the piano became a household object. Sales in America rose from just a few thousand in 1850 to approximately 25,000 in 1886 to 365,000 in 1909. Then in 1900 a Baldwin concert grand won the Grand Prix Award at the Paris International Exhibition, the first American-made piano so honored.

The piano still plays a part in many homes, but not nearly as many as in the first half of the twentieth century. The bookmarks seen above (click on image to enlarge) are but a small part of my collection of nearly three dozen. Altogether twenty-four piano manufacturers are represented. The designs overwhelmingly emphasize the “feminine” nature of the product by using women, girls, a couple attired in formal late-nineteenth century dress, flowers, homes, and gentle nature scenes on the bookmarks. Only one has any sense of adventure—Poole Pianos, which depicts the Bunker Hill Monument with a piano-loaded 19th-century blimp headed toward it. It is not unexpected, this marketing combination of reading and piano playing assigned to women (upper class for the most part, but also to the emerging middle class) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It simply speaks to another type of life—one that valued the quiet, elegant entertainment of the home.

I took piano lessons as a child but cannot play now, I am sorry to say. For the last year or so I have my eye on my maternal grandmother’s baby grand, now ensconced at my parent’s home. Perhaps it’s time to take it up again. Any instrument with a history as rich as this one deserves to be honored.

Bookmark specifications: A.B. Chase Piano
Dimensions: 5" x 2" (at its widest)
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: A.B. Chase Company
Date: Early twentieth century?
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Smith & Barnes
Dimensions: 6" x 2" 
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: Smith & Barnes
Date: Early twentieth century?
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: The Autopiano
Dimensions: 3 3/4" x 1 1/2" 
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: Chas. F. Wing Co.
Date: Late nineteenth century
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Everhart Organ & Piano Co.
Dimensions: 6" x 2"
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: Everhart
Date: Late nineteenth century
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: The Cable Company Pianos
Dimensions: 6" x 2 1/4"
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: The Cable Company
Date: 1920s
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Crown Pianos
Dimensions: 2 3/4" x 1 1/2"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Crown
Date: Unknown
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Poole Pianos
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 2"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Poole
Date: Early to mid-twentieth century
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Briggs Piano
Dimensions: 2" x 2"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Briggsl
Date: Late nineteenth century?
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Laffargue Pianos
Dimensions: 2" x 1 3/4"
Material: Brass?
Manufacturer: Laffargue
Date: Unknown
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Vose & Sons Piano Co.
Dimensions: 2" x 2 1/2"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Vose
Date: Early twentieth century
Acquired: eBay


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately 1,200 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.