Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T05:27:43.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A rival to Érard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2023

Get access

Summary

The manufacture of musical instruments is occasionally taken up very successfully by amateur craftsmen. They may even produce striking innovations in the field. Yet these men, as modest as they are ingenious, wouldn’t dream of sending their products to Universal Exhibitions; they seek for themselves neither patent rights nor gold medals nor even the lowest-rank ribbon of the Légion d’Honneur.

One of them paid a visit one day to his neighbour in the Provence countryside, Monsieur d’Ortigue, a well-known critic and distinguished musician. As he entered the living-room, he said “Ah, I see you have a piano.”

“Yes, a fine Érard.”

“I have one too.”

“An Érard?”

“No, it’s actually a piano of my own. I made it myself, using an entirely new system. If you’re interested in seeing it, I’ll have it loaded on to my cart tomorrow and bring it over.”

“Please do.”

The following day the rustic amateur arrives with his cart; the piano is brought in and the lid opened, and Monsieur d’Ortigue is very surprised to see that the keyboard consists exclusively of white keys.

“What about the black keys?”, he asks.

“The black keys? Oh, you mean for sharps and flats; all that nonsense belongs to the old-fashioned piano, I don’t use them on mine.”

Type
Chapter
Information
The Musical Madhouse
An English Translation of Berlioz's <i>Les Grotesques de la musique</i>
, pp. 34 - 36
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×