Piano Music
The piano is a solo instrument that provides accompaniment for other instruments and for itself, and it is so exceedingly successful in this respect that it must be regarded as the basis of things musical. To the composer, the chorus master, the vocal teacher, as well as to the pianist, the modern piano is a necessity, because it is the one instrument on which all the harmony parts can be elaborated with comparative ease.
Apart from its use as an accompanying instrument, the piano is one of the most satisfactory of solo instruments. It is a complete orchestra in itself. A greater volume of solo music has been composed expressly for the piano than for any other instrument. Schumann, Liszt and especially Chopin, for instance, wrote music for the piano which sounds as well on no other instrument and so it is with great pleasure that we offer truly worthy piano records, thus opening up a vast field of new musical delight.
The tones played by the piano are produced by a hammer striking a string. They therefore develop their greatest volume at the moment the strings are struck, and immediately begin to diminish. They can be sustained to some slight extent only—as compared with instruments that are played with a bow. Among piano records of special interest are the following by that “maestro” among pianists—Paderewski: The Nocturne in F Sharp Major, the Polonaise Militaire, the Etude in G Flat, his own Minuet and the Cracovienne Fantastique, as well as the “Seguidilla” and Waltz Etude in D Flat by Cortot.
Violin Music
There is one very marked physical difference between the violin group of instruments and all others—with one exception which is negligible for the moment—and that is that the tone and the pitch are controlled wholly by the player.
In other instruments there are keys, pedals, frets or some other means of assisting the player to maintain the pitch. The violin has a plain fingerboard, strings, a bow and—the fingers of the violinist. What kind of tone will you get out of it? Will your tone be true to the pitch? That depends on you. And because of these things the music of the violins is more intimate, more personal than that of any other instrument.
Another interesting fact concerning the violin is that while almost all other instruments have been improved upon, the violin alone has undergone no change and no improvement since Stradivarius put by the last violin he was to make. That was about 1737. And so the violin may be regarded as the one accomplishment of human craftsmanship that has reached perfection.