THE 'ALLEGED :DECLINE . ' OF THE PIANO • [To the Editor-of
the SirEmixolt.] . . .
Si—The alleged decline: of the piano is interesting your ceqespondent .4`.B." It May be; 'as he says,- that wireless anl the gramophone, to which may- be added the pianola- " faultily faultless," if not splendidly null—have something to do with it ; but may I suggest 'one or two other causes? FirSt, the disinclination of 'the- rising generation to take the trouble necessary to the attainment of even a moderate Standard of piano-playing ; second, the new-found wisdom of 'parents who see the folly of trying to teach unmusical- children an art'which they are 'constitutionally incapable of understanding ; third, the unwillingness in these days of nerves to tolerate the early. stages of- piano-practice ; and fourth, the fa2t that to children who can scour the country in their motor-cars and indulge to their heart's content tennii, huntink -and' otherSpindid physical joys; the
lure of a daily hour or two on a piano-stool can make small appeal.
But art is the compensation—a rich one—of the relatively poor, and that there is a—shall I say lower ?—strattim of society in which the piano holds its own, the thousands who attend our schools of music amply testify. As a medium of self-expression it is ,invaluable, and as an aid to, not an object of, life it is unsurpassed: One who can look back over many Years to a childhood and youth in which music, far from pro- fessional, filled the home—fiddle,flageolet, even the impossible harmonium, all dominated by the piano, at once the master and servant of the art—fails to see in the pursuits of the young Reople of to-day anYthing More likely to provide happy
recollections for old age.—I cliff', Sir, &c:, B. B.
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