John Johnson Collection: now and then

Now let the organ thunder

We are grateful to volunteer Sally Rumsey for a new musical blog post on rather unusual ‘organs’.

‘Now let the organ thunder’ [Dearmer, P. (Trans) 1928. New English Hymnal, Unto us a boy is born.]

What a joy it is to peruse the items in the John Johnson (JJ) collection that feature pipe organs and organ-like instruments. Many readers will be familiar with the pipe organ such as that found in a parish church. The JJ collection includes items that are variations on the theme created by Victorian entrepreneurs.

Take, for example, Mr Arthur Denny’s Calliope, or steam organ, that was exhibited for the first time in England at the Crystal Palace. The detailed etching displays a contraption with the common features of a pipe organ – a manual (keyboard) and pipes – with the addition of cogs and wheels, and steam billowing out of the pipes. It has the feel more of industrial brewery than musical instrument! Mr Denny acknowledged that the steam could be an inconvenience when performing indoors.

Image and descriptive text relating to the Calliope — The Calliope

Not satisfied with a run of the mill organ, a church, school, or chapel might have been interested in purchasing one of Mason & Hamlin’s ornate American Organs. A selection of models was available including the regal-sounding ‘Queen’s model,’ the more racy ‘Liszt model,’ or perhaps the ever practical ‘Portable model.’ The potential purchaser could obtain the company’s ‘New illustrated catalogue’ from the outlet of Metzler & Co on Great Marlborough St, London, and which would be sent to them ‘gratis and post free.’

The Metzler & Co ‘Celebrated Liszt organ’ advertisement displays a handsome instrument bearing an array of pipes as one might expect in a church setting. Although it has only one manual, it offers 15 stops, each supplying a different sound colour and ‘being on a larger scale’ ‘from all other organs,’ employs ‘larger and different reeds, tubes, tuber-boards…by which its power is largely increased.’ According to the marketing, ‘the first organ of this class was manufactured expressly for Liszt,’ the celebrated composer. Apparently the sound of the instrument would ‘surprise any musician who hears it’ but, and here’s the rub, if ‘properly played.’

Both of these instruments generate power by a pair of foot pedals, similar to those used on harmoniums or player pianos before electrification. It should not be forgotten that church organs of the time often required two people to play them – the organist who skilfully interpreted and performed the music via manuals and stops, but rendered pointless without the poor soul who provided the energy and stamina to pump air through the pipes via foot or hand bellows. A hearty breakfast was probably required.

For more sizeable church locations, one might be tempted to explore the capabilities of the veritable ‘Royal Seraphine or portable church and chamber organ, invented and manufactured only by J. Green, 33 Soho Square.’ This blustering prose with fawning endorsements, runs in dense text over the course of 3 pages. Mr Green was so convinced of the uniqueness and quality of his organ of wonderful powers, that he warned customers of poor imitations. He is cutting about the ‘present proprietor of an attempted rival instrument…who had the temerity to compare it with the Royal Seraphine.’ He is equally dismissive of common pianofortes that do not have the capability to transpose the pitch of the music played as employed by his ‘Transponicon.’ He anticipated this instrument ‘will very shortly render obsolete all pianofortes not possessing this extraordinary power.’ Mr. Green was clearly very sure of his himself.

Advertisement for The Seraphine — Advertisement for The Royal Seraphine

All of the examples above were dwarfed by the ‘New majestic organ’ featured in Issue 989 of The Mirror published on Saturday, February 1, 1840. The etching shows a ‘noble’ instrument, extending close to the ornate ceiling of Exeter Hall in the Strand, London. The sheer size of the ‘magnificent piece of mechanism’ is emphasised by the inclusion of two diminutive figures. These comprise an elegant lady in crinoline and bonnet, having details of the instrument pointed out to her by a gentleman in full regalia – tails and bicorn hat and wielding a large stick or sword. The article lists the stops and pipes of the organ, praising its ‘amazing powers.’

The advertisements for instruments in the collection usually include exquisite etchings. This is particularly evident in the 1883 advertisement for Metzler & Co’s American Orguinette. The three models on offer are illustrated in fine detail, clearly showing the ornamentation that decorates each instrument. As the contemporaneous William Morris had recently written in 1880 ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’

The common themes running through the sales information about these instruments is the power of the sound and the beauty of tone – especially for the Calliope that, it attests, can be heard at a distance of 12 miles! The advertisement prose is bombastic, and sales personnel are wont to make sweeping claims about the excellence of their instrument above all others. I trust their customers were not disappointed.

These items are housed in the John Johnson Collection: Musical Instruments boxes 2 and 3

The Swedish Nightingale. Guest post by Sally Rumsey

Volunteer Sally continues her musical journey through the John Johnson Collection with a post on the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind.

Continuing with the musical theme of recent blogs (see pianolas and the rock harmonicon), this time I’m featuring a performer. Not just any performer: one of the musical megastars of her time, the Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind (1820 – 1887). There are a number of items associated with Jenny Lind in the John Johnson collection, the digital images of which are freely available online in the UK (and by institutional subscription elsewhere).

Jenny Lind, born Johanna Maria Lind, was a Swedish opera singer. Her voice was reportedly remarkably pure toned and pitched at the higher end of the soprano range. She was a coloratura soprano, which indicates a voice of peculiar lightness and agility, and often able to sing the very highest notes for a human voice. Her range was reported to be two octaves – d’ to d”’ with a few extra higher notes on occasion. It was the beauty of her voice that earned her the familiar name the ‘Swedish Nightingale.’

Jenny Lind was a diva, the Victorian equivalent of a rock star, appearing in many operas including the main role of Amina in the opera La Sonnambula (the Sleepwalker) by Bellini. The high range and the difficulty of the role that enabled her to exhibit the extend of her phenomenal voice.

Two items in the John Johnson collection show her as Bellini’s Amina. The first, a steel engraving portrait of her by Benjamin Holl from around 1840-50. The portrait is ‘signed’ by Jenny Lind. One noteable feature is the length of her hair which is fashioned in two phenomenally long plaits. The title is spelled ‘la somnambula’ which is probably a mis-spelling conflating the Italian for sleepwalker (la sonnambula) with English (the somnambulist).

The other lithograph image is from the sheet music of “The Somnambulist’s song composed for and sung by Madlle. Jenny Lind,” published in 1848 and priced at 2/- (two shillings). The statement that the song was written for Mlle Lind, is unclear to me – it has been claimed Bellini originally wrote it for the Italian soprano Giuditta Pasta (Wikipedia). Perhaps the reference to Jenny Lind refers to Jeffery’s English translation. In this version, the English words are by Charles Jeffreys of 21, Soho Square, London. The enterprising Mr Jeffreys was clearly making the most of Mlle Lind’s fame and popularity. He proclaims that he is “Publisher of Jenny Lind’s song of ‘Fatherland’ by Felix Gantier – with the best portrait published of the illustrious vocalist”

This ‘best portrait’ shows Ms Lind, this time without the lengthy plaits, dressed in a calf-length dress, presumably sleepwalking on a rickety wooden plank, which looks like a health and safety nightmare.

Sheet music cover of The The Somnambulist's song. John Johnson Collection Music Titles 9 (75) — Sheet music cover of The The Somnambulist’s song. John Johnson Collection Music Titles 9 (75)

The publisher and composer, Mr Charles Jeffreys crops up again having written the English words for “England, home of friends, farewell!” This sheet music, again from 1848, states that it was for “Jenny Lind’s last night in England.” Jenny is dressed in glossy satin or silk, her hair decorated with flowers, and looking dreamily into the distance. This piece was priced 2/6 (two shillings and sixpence). The original German words are printed on the title page:

“Nimm dies kleine Angedenken. / Freundschaft, Liebe reicht es dir!” / Konnte ich das Shicksal lenken / Immer bliebest du bei mir.”

[Take this little keepsake / Friendship, love is enough for you / I could steer destiny / you always stayed with me]

The original image is a lithograph by John Brandard and the sheet music was published in 1848. Jenny Lind returned to England later in her life, living her final years in Herefordshire, and she is buried in Great Malvern cemetery.

Featuring the famous singer on the front cover of sheet music of the time must have been intended as a sales draw. The images of her on most of the items are somewhat exaggerated. Tiny feet and a minute waist, probably the result of that most tortuous of Victorian fashion paraphernalia, the corset or stays. One wonders if she did succumb to such fashion pressures – it would have been a miracle if she ever managed to have enough breath to sing wearing such a garment. Compare the images of her on the copies of sheet music to the daguerreotype of her taken in 1850

Another piece of sheet music featuring Jenny Lind and by engraver or lithographer John Brandard is La figlia del reggimento polka (The daughter of the regiment) published in 1847. The image is a “Portrait of Madlle Jenny Lind in the character of Maria in Donizetti’s opera La Figlia del Reggimento.” Jenny is portrayed again in a calf-length dress, this time in black and red, with military-like epaulettes, and a smart hat with red ribbons. Yet again she is depicted with impossibly tiny feet and waist. Her rosy complexion is enhanced with pink colouring on her cheeks. She has obviously attracted the attention of the three soldiers posing behind her, looking on admiringly as she salutes onlookers. The polka is ‘composed on the most admired melodies from Donizetti’s opera by Jullien,’ who is also the publisher of the music (Jullien & Co, 214 Regent St London). I presume this is an arrangement of Donizetti’s original, but Jullien is keen to take the credit having labelled the work ‘Jullien’s celebrated Polkas, No 16.

Sheet music cover for La figlia del reggimento polka. John Johnson Collection: Music Titles 5 (88)

Jenny Lind appears on the title page of another piece from the same work “The songs in La figlia del reggimento” translated by Charles Jefferys who appeared to be doing well out of Ms Lind’s fame. This item is a chromolithograph printed in colour with gold embellishment. The songs are from the second act of the opera, and Jenny has foregone her military outfit for a spectacular pale blue dress with ruching, lace and decorated with pink roses. Looking like the belle of the ball, a satin clad toe peeps out from under the hem, and she holds a large white handkerchief trimmed with lace.

Such was Jenny’s fame that her name was used to attract purchasers to buy ‘Two fantasias for the pianoforte on the favourite airs sung by Madlle. Jenny Lind.’ The fact that the melodies were Jenny’s favourites was enough to attract people to buy this piano music.

Jenny was reported to be friends with the composers Mendelssohn and Chopin, but was famous in her own right. She topped the bill on a booklet listing the programme of events for 1847 at Her Majesty’s Theatre above ‘that great composer The Chevalier Meyerbeer’ and even above the planned visits by composers Mendelssohn and Verdi.

She sang to Queen Victoria, and her likeness was added to the spectacle of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks alongside other new additions, William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon. According to the advert held by the John Johnson collection, if one visited the exhibition between 12am and 10pm there was ‘Increased orchestra.’ In 1882 Jenny Lind was appointed professor of singing at the Royal College of Music in London.

Jenny Lind went on tour to the USA, a visit arranged, somewhat surprisingly given her choice of repertoire, by the famous circus impresario, P. T. Barnum. Sadly there are no surviving recordings of Jenny Lind singing – we can only imagine the beauty of her voice. She is commemorated by a marble monument in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, London.

To see the items featured above together with a number of other works that feature Jenny Lind, go to ProQuest’s The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/geoLocSubscription.do.

Hint: open the ProQuest database before clicking on the hyperlinks.

There you can discover plenty of images for other ephemera too – for inspiration try clicking on the ‘select from a list’ links.

The Rambles of a Researcher in Oxford. Guest post by Jessica Terekhov

We are very grateful to Jessica Terekhov for this post on one of our (possibly unique) novels in parts

Late last year, I began my first-ever visit to the Bodleian at the Weston Library, where I would view a selection of nineteenth-century novels in parts – or more precisely, what remains of them. These were titles issued in installments, usually appearing monthly for the price of a shilling each, in colored paper wrappers with one or two illustrated plates per number. Many no longer exist in their serial form, which was historically considered ephemeral and, bibliographically, inferior to first editions, and some I had traced to the Johnson Collection only. This rarity, combined with a period of COVID-related delays generously accommodated by my research sponsors, made me especially eager to begin.[1] My project is a bibliography of Victorian fiction originally printed in monthly installments, which narrows my focus to titles published after 1836, but it was a pre-Victorian item that impressed me most on this trip.

Misattributed to Pierce Egan and misdated to 1821, as I later learned, was the first and only part of “Life in Paris; Illustrated with Scenes from Real Life, drawn and engraved by Mr. George Cruikshank” and published by John Cumberland. Usually, exceptions to the shilling number norm are noticeably different – more or less expensive, physically bigger or longer, shorter or smaller – even as they always give me pause over the parameters of my project. This time, I lingered particularly long over the convention of dating part publication, where new fiction was concerned, to the serialization of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers in 1836–37. Of course, this installment of Life in Paris featured only one plate and ran to 24 pages for a shilling – but then, my record of titles departing from the 32-page, two-plate Dickensian paradigm had the makings of a bibliography unto itself. And here was a work of original fiction that looked suggestively like the part issues inaugurated, in their Victorian form, some ten years later.

It was only on peering inside the foxed and flaking wrappers that I perceived a different set of distinctions between the Victorian novels so familiar to me and their near precursors.

Fig. 1 Pages from the first installment of “Life in Paris,” in the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. John Johnson Collection: Novels in Parts 8 [2] — Fig. 1. Pages from the first installment of “Life in Paris,” in the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. John Johnson Collection: Novels in Parts 8 [2]

Notice the typographical emphasis, in the pages pictured here, on proper nouns, such as LYDIA SERAPHINA MOLLY and, that virtuosic combination of irregular fonts, Sir HUMPHREY. Even the eponymous DICK (of the unabbreviated title) would not go disregarded by the time-thrifty compositor. Note, too, the breezy spacing of the paragraphs, as well as the exuberance of the footnotes occupying the better half of the right – and the following! – page. It is by no means the case that such typographical embellishments and narrative techniques went missing in the Victorian era. But it must be admitted that there was more space, as it were, both figuratively and physically, for this sort of textual dexterity in eighteenth-century novels, before the explosion of popular readership in the mid-1800s took place, bringing into fashion a new set of visual and literary conventions.

One of these, a trend towards paratextual brevity and uniformity of type, can even be observed from the title page of “Life in Paris” as it evolved over the 1820s. I learned after my Bodleian visit, on researching this title, that it was reissued by John Cumberland in 1828 from an edition, by John Fairburn, that finished serialization in 1822. The earlier version, I found, is more readily available, in volumes as (albeit less so) in parts, whereas the Johnson copy of the Cumberland serial at its inception appears to be the only relic of the later serialization. On the original title page, the novel is called “Life in Paris; Comprising the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours, of Dick Wildfire, of Corinthian Celebrity, And his Bang-up Companions, Squire Jenkins and Captain O’Shuffleton; with the whimsical adventures of the Halibut family; including sketches of a variety of other eccentric characters in the French metropolis.” This is compressed to “Life in Paris: Or the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours, of Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins and Captain O’Shuffleton; With the Whimsical Adventures of the Halibut Family; and Other Eccentric Characters in the French Metropolis” in the Cumberland issue, which makes additional redactions to the Fairburn title page, as seen below.

Fig. 2. Title page of the first, volume edition of “Life in Paris,” Hathitrust [3]

Fig. 3. Title page of the 1828 edition of “Life in Paris". Hathitrust — Fig. 3. Title page of the 1828 edition of “Life in Paris”. Hathitrust [4]

What Victorian publisher would print an “explanation of the plate” and the wood-cut accompanying each number of a comic novel on its inside front wrapper? To the average, market-savvy pressman, this space would be wasted without some form of advertisement, whether of in-house or other trade goods; occasionally, inside wrappers would indeed appear blank, but this was indeed occasionally. What Victorian writer, for that matter, would italicize the words “life,” “desirable,” “to boot,” and “tailor” on the same printed page of expository text?

Fig. 4. Inside front wrapper of the first installment of “Life in Paris,” in the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. John Johnson Collection: Novels in Parts 8

Any bibliographer or print historian will attest to the value of a composite picture: this is the premise behind comparing duplicates and distinguishing issues, from editions, from states. It is a version of the case for understanding something by considering it in the context of what it is like and what it is not. The same logic applies to period scholarship, of literary as of book history. My research on installment fiction at the Bodleian turned up a token of the transformation in print that precipitated the Victorian shilling monthly novel. It was a matter of looking between the covers, as both a (somewhat) bibliographer and a (somewhat more seasoned) reader, to appreciate this unexpected highlight of my trip.

Fig. 5. Front wrapper of the first installment of “Life in Paris,” in the Bodleian Libraries, Novels in Parts 8.

Fig. 6. Back wrapper of the first installment of “Life in Paris,” in the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. John Johnson Collection, Novels in Parts 8.

[1] I owe many thanks to the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals and the Bibliographical Society of America not only for sponsoring my research visit under the Curran Fellowship and Short-Term Fellowship programs, respectively, but also for extending my award term by an entire year to allow for safe travel. Jennifer Phegley of RSVP and Erin McGuirl of the BSA were specifically understanding throughout our intermittent exchanges. Having had my project as enthusiastically received in the first place was and is a special honor. These thanks would not be complete without an acknowledgement to Fionnuala Dillane of RSVP, who kindly suggested that this post appear on the Johnson Collection blog while RSVP updates its website.

[2] I am deeply grateful to the Librarian of the John Johnson Collection, Julie Anne Lambert, for her responsive and encouraging assistance before and after my visit, and at all times in between.

[3] Available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=dul1.ark:/13960/t1mg8vx6v&view=2up&seq=11.

[4] Available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435079866844&view=2up&seq=14.

The original rock music. Guest post by Sally Rumsey

Johnson volunteer Sally Rumsey continues her series of posts inspired by musical instrument ephemera in the John Johnson Collection

Asked to name rock musicians and most people would probably think of Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Freddie Mercury or some other great name from the rock music hall of fame. I suspect few would come up with Mr. Joseph Richardson.

To be fair, while Jagger and Co created music that is stylistically ‘rock’ music, the enterprising Mr Richardson was making music using real rocks. He was described as the inventor of the rock harmonicon (although note the previous work of Peter Crosthwaite), an instrument built using pieces of rock, more accurately, hornfels, collected from Skiddaw in what was then Cumberland, in the English Lake District. Richardson, a stone mason, hailed from Keswick, so the hills of the Lakes would have been close by.

I say ‘inventor,’ but using stones to make musical sounds was not new. The term ‘lithophone’ (from the Greek ‘lithos’ – stone) is the term for a musical instrument formed of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. The use of stone as the basis for musical percussion instruments may date back even as far as the neolithic period (New Scientist, P8, 10/1/1957) and has been used across the globe (for example a performance from Vietnam)

Having built his rock harmonicon, Mr Richardson set about demonstrating his glorious curiosity across the land. This was something of a family enterprise – father, Joseph being the builder of the instrument, and three of his sons engaged to perform a selection of pieces to show off its capabilities.

The John Johnson collection holds a number of items that shed light on the unconventional and notable contraption. The items are primarily advertisements enticing people to attend demonstrations of the instrument, or reviews of those demonstrations. They not only provide evidence of the sound and capabilities of the instrument, but also illustrate the elaborate prose and poetry of writing at the time – around 1840.

Fig 1. Advertisement for the Rock Harmonicon. JJ Musical Instrument 3 (14)

One advertisement describes the instrument as an “Extraordinary musical novelty!” (fig. 2). The parts (the rocks) having been sourced in the Lake District, he took his invention to London and arranged demonstrations. The items in the John Johnson collection indicate that Richardson travelled to Ramsgate and Liverpool where ‘every variety of composition’ was ‘played upon this singular instrument.’

An 1842 advertisement for Richardson’s three sons’ demonstration at Mr. Stanley’s Rooms in Old Bond St suggest that they performed a wide-ranging programme daily from ten o’clock until seven – a full 9 hours per day. The sons are depicted in an engraving, seated on stools, two of them in tailcoats, before a colossal contraption which looks like rows of French baguettes on a stand. They appear to be tapping the ‘sticks of rock’ with mallets as a percussionist would play a xylophone. Equally notably, alongside such esteemed names as Mozart and Parry, is the item on their programme, ‘Mazurka and Galoppade’ composed, no less, by HRH the Duchess of Kent.

Compared to modern publicity materials, the advertisements are text heavy and verbose, but an entertaining read for the 21st

century reader.

The more fulsome critiques of the instrument that were published in the press demonstrate rich and colourful Victorian language. For example:

“The rock harmonicon – The source of its effects is implied in its name; and thus, for the first time, are we made aware that after forcing all manner of treasures from the bowels of the earth – that after successfully ransacking stones for fuel, precious gems, not less precious metals, and even sermons, there is still music to be won for the trying.”

The Cumberland Packet from Whitehaven waxed even more lyrical:

“This was a work of immense labour and time, and required much determination and industry for its accomplishment, and after many hard days’ labour in the mountains, Mr. Richardson denied himself the repose which exhausted nature required, and spent whole nights, after his family had retired to rest, in hammering and chiselling the rough stones, and in selecting and arranging them, ere he brought to its present state the sweet-toned instrument which cost him thirteen years of unwearied labour and perseverance, under circumstances such as few minds, not possessed of uncommon fortitude, could have surmounted.”

Imagine reading such a long and picturesque description in the reviews section of today’s newspapers. It makes one feel exhausted in sympathy with the industrious and tireless Mr. Richardson.

We learn that Mrs Edward Thomas was so moved on hearing the instrument that she broke into verse, penning 22 lines of romantic poetry extolling the ‘organ of passion, anger, love,’ and praising the ‘glorious triumph’ of Mr Richardson.

Advertisement for Extraordinary Musical Novelty (rock harmonicon) — Extraordinary Musical Novelty. JJ Musical Instruments 3 (14)

Three of the items in the John Johnson (JJ) collection state that they were produced on the ‘Steam-press of W.H. Cox, 5 Great Queen Street’, highlighting other technology that had captured the Victorian imagination. A steam powered press was patented by Koenig in 1810 and became an early component in the production of mass newspapers.

Joseph Richardson died in 1855 aged 66 and, according to an obituary held in the JJ collection, “the surprising performances by the inventor’s three sons on these unique instruments have, in all parts of the country, created the greatest astonishment to all who have beheld their thrilling powers.” Joseph Richardson’s rock harmonicon can still be seen, and played, in its home at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery. There is a book about the instrument written by one of Mr Richardson’s descendants (Phillips, J.H., The Rock, Bell and Steel Band – the story of Joseph Richardson and his Musical Stones, 0645141313). The melodious tones of the instrument live on – try a search for Keswick musical stones in a search engine to find more writings and videos.

Playing the pianola – the perfect pastime

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Sally Rumsey as a Johnson volunteer with special responsibility for blog posts. Sally is a musician, so where better to start than some of the uncatalogued, undigitised musical treasures in the Collection!

As autumn set in, the comfortably-off 1920’s family could happily bid farewell to their summer pursuits – angling, punting, golf, camping, playing cricket. They could contentedly leave behind their outdoor activities – hiking wearing the latest stylish plus fours and camping – knowing that their pianola awaits in their living room.

Front cover of a 4 page leaflet advertising the pianola John Johnson Collection: Musical Instru — Front cover of a 4 page leaflet advertising the pianola, 1928
John Johnson Collection: Musical Instruments 2 (17)

Having dressed for dinner, the whole family could be entertained by the concert at home on their very own Pianola. No musical skill was necessary – the instruments were self-playing by means of a perforated roll of paper and some pedal-power.

Although the beautifully attired lady is poised in this illustration as if she were playing the piano – her hands are resting near the keys – in fact it is her feet that are doing the ‘playing.’ By operating the two pedals, a suction mechanism operates the instrument. A rotating drum holds a perforated paper roll, the ‘music,’ which is loaded in the front of the piano.

The advertisement is a in fact a 4-page leaflet, with colourful prose – waxing lyrical about the heady days of summer and anticipating the ‘hygge’ of autumn. It entices potential buyers by tantalising images of what they would be able to play, if they only purchased ‘the cheapest luxury of a luxury loving age….Why not start now and let your home be a ‘Pianola’ home this winter?’

If you missed your chance when the weather turned inclement in the Autumn, there was always the opportunity to purchase, or even hire a pianola, from the Orchestrelle Company in time for Christmas (A pianola for Christmas). Clearly the Orchestrelle pianola was an instrument for the more discerning player. When writing to request details one had to ask for the “Connoisseur” catalogue. At £65 in 1902 it would have been a significant purchase – equivalent to over 6 months wages of a skilled tradesman (source: TNA)

The earlier advert must have been produced when the Orchestrelle Company was an American firm with a branch in London, before it was taken over by the British Orchestrelle Co. Ltd. in July 1912 (Hoffman, 2004).

An Orchestrelle Company advertising leaflet promoting pianolas for Christmas. John Johnson Collection: Musical Instruments 2 — An Orchestrelle Company advertising leaflet promoting pianolas for Christmas, 1902
John Johnson Collection: Musical Instruments 2

In both adverts the individual playing the instrument was a woman. During the Victorian period ‘it was women who dominated home music-making, a fact acknowledged by Macmillan’s Magazine: ‘our young ladies . . . are the principle interpreters of our domestic music.’ (in Scott, D.B.2001). This practice appears to have continued into the early 20^th century when entertainment was often home created. In the earlier image from 1904, all were wearing sizeable hats of lustrous rich fabric – no lady would have been seen without her hat in polite company. By the 1920’s the hats have gone, and it is possible to make out what is bobbed and Marcel waved hair on the women – the height of fashion – created using heated tongs.

The 1904 advert is decorated with an Art Nouveau style border, very much in vogue at the time. The sales pitch is a lyrical description of how the purchase of this magnificent instrument enables anybody, even non-pianists, to ‘grasp the idea of a musical composition’ in the same way one would ‘appreciate the plot of a story.’

Although it is easy to dismiss such an instrument as a folly and deception for those who cannot play a ‘real’ piano, later player pianos enabled lifelike performances by such greats as Rachmaninov and Debussy to be captured. In the days when audio recorded music was in its infancy and, to be frank, the result was far from hi-fidelity, having a piano roll of a musical maestro really was like listening to live music played by a professional. These were known as reproducing pianos because they captured the nuances of the performer – pedalling, rubato and dynamics. For example, there is a remarkable recording of ‘Rhapsodie in Blue’ released in 1976 by the Columbia Jazz Band under Michael Tilson Thomas, accompanying the real George Gershwin at the keyboard in the form of a piano roll he recorded in 1925.

The paper rolls were either created by ‘recording’ the playing of a pianist performing the piece, or they could be created artificially by manually punching holes into the paper.

This opened up another opportunity presented by player pianos: that of being a superhuman pianist – performing works that can be captured by punctuated paper rolls that a human being could not physically play.

In a move that would be approved by modern standards enthusiasts, an agreement was made for a standard size of paper roll and the numbers of holes punched to the inch.

The history of the paper piano roll player piano like the ones in these adverts is relatively short. The first instruments were created around the 1890’s, they reached their heyday in the 1920’s, and went into decline in the depression of the 1930’s. This coincided with the rise in broadcast music (the BBC is celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year, 2022) and music electrically recorded for capture on discs.

Watch this space for some weird and wonderful examples from the John Johnson Collection’s boxes of ephemera relating to Musical Instruments.

Let’s buy: Some Cordial Balm of Gilead. Guest post by Lynda Mugglestone

Very many thanks to Lynda Mugglestone for this analytical post on an advertisement for Solomon’s Cordial Balm of Gilead. This item is not in the Art of Advertising exhibition.

In Jo Baker’s Longbourn (2013), a novel in which the events of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are vividly retold from below stairs, it is perhaps fitting that Mrs. Bennet, sorely tried by the refusal of her daughter Elizabeth to marry Mr. Collins, retires to her dressing room in the company of a bottle of Cordial Balsam of Gilead. As an early nineteenth-century advertising in the John Johnson Collection persuasively asserts, this was an ‘admirable remedy’, suitable alike for ‘debilitated conditions’, ‘nervous weakness’, and ‘hypochondriacal afflictions’.

Two page advertisement for S. Solomon's Cordial Balm of Gilead, c. 1804. Page 1 — The Cordial Balm of Gilead. S. Solomon, [c. 1804].
John Johnson Collection. Patent Medicines 6 (34a)

Female vulnerabilities were overtly addressed. Any women ‘affected with Langour, Headach, or Hysterical affections’ would benefit, contemporary readers were assured. So, too, would anyone in need of ‘relaxation from juvenile indiscretion’. Given Elizabeth’s intransigence, Mrs. Bennet’s self-medication is generous and abundant. In Baker’s novel, half a bottle swiftly disappears.

Two page advertisement for S. Solomon's Cordial Balm of Gilead, c. 1804. Page 2

The medicinal qualities of balms can, in term of language, be traced to medieval times. A balm is an ‘aromatic ointment for soothing pain or healing wounds’, the OED confirms. Balm of Gilead has, however, its origin in Biblical authority. ‘Is there no balme at Gilead? is there no Physician there?’ as Book 8, Verse 22 of Jeremiah demands. The Liverpool-based Samuel Solomon (c.1768-1819) would, from c.1796, provide a very profitable response. On one hand, Solomon’s tactical appropriation of Balm of Gilead was used to denote one of the most prominent quack products of the late eighteenth century and nineteenth centuries. On the other, a decision to appropriate the status and learning of the ‘physician’ was deployed to equally good effect, as in the ‘M.D.’ which followed Solomon’s name in the various promotional publications and pamphlets he produced. A quack, as Samuel Johnson had stated in 1755 was, by definition, ‘a Boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand’. A doctor, in contrast, brought an undisputable claim to authority.

Boastfulness is perhaps an inevitable property of the language of advertising. Even so, Solomon’s preferred diction in advertising his ‘Cordial Balm of Gilead’ remains striking. Prefixes (‘inestimable’, ‘unprecedented’) deftly remind of the unparalleled qualities now offered to the consumer. Efficacy (‘wonderful success’) is extolled in similar ways, in remedial effects marked by their speed (‘instantaneously receives’) and unqualified strength (‘braces the nervous system…disburdens the viscera’ while throwing off ‘viscid strong humours’). Its popularity was lauded to equal effect. Sales, Solomon declares, have been ‘wonderfully great’, with ‘demand far exceeding any medicine ever published’, and a geographic range that includes ‘Europe’ and ‘America’. Advertising can easily become eulogy: ‘Thousands at this moment live to praise the day they first applied to this remedy, and enjoy the blessings of health, who might have dropped into an untimely grave’. A balm, Solomon stresses, can be a ‘social benefit’. The Cordial Balm of Gilead, was undoubtedly expensive —but, given its range of uses, it was also promoted as a bargain at half a guinea a bottle.

As a cordial balm moreover, its branding usefully harnessed antithetic qualities. Balms are conventionally solids, applied externally in order to soothe and restore. Cordials, in contrast, were traditionally depicted as fortifying from within, quickening the circulation or increasing the power of the heart. A cordial is ‘any medicine that increases strength’, Johnson explained in 1755. A cordial balm, at least rhetorically, could suggest its own innovatory synthesis, able to calm as well as fortify, sooth as well as invigorate — in ways that gave substance to the diverse lists of ailments for which restitution was promised, whether ‘Flatulence’ or ‘Palpitations’, ‘pain’, or ‘Difficulty of Respiration’. A conspicuous clustering of Latinate terminology (‘viscid’, ‘viscera’), and a catalogue of diagnostic nouns (deglutition referred, for example, to ‘The act or power of swallowing’) brought their own implied authority. Price and polysyllables both reinforced the elite status of the patent medicine purveyed.

We might note, even so, some interesting absences. The advertisement details, across two pages, the diverse conditions for which remedy is now apparently provided. The rhetorical power of lists, and their cumulative effect, is plain. So, too, is the range of human debility and the anxieties that can thereby be manipulated, as in the deliberately affecting details by which, for those denied this medical miracle, ‘the body is weakened’ while other symptoms (‘paleness, bodily decay, emaciation, and the eyes sink into the head’) await the hapless sufferer. The power of purchase might intentionally be secured on several levels. But the purchaser is, in reality, no wiser about what is being bought. Conviction must rest on credulity, rather than on a list of ingredients and their tried and tested benefits. If, in other accounts, Solomon stresses the presence of ‘some of the choicest balsams and strengtheners’ as components of his ‘noble Medicine’, alongside its scientific basis (‘reiterated experiments, and close application to practical chemistry’), advertising maintained a determined non-specificity. As William Helfand suggests, the ‘Cordial Balm’ was, in reality, probably a composite of ‘a few herbs and spices dissolved in a substantial percentage of old French brandy’. Certainly, Mrs Bennet in Baker’s fictional account, quaffs it with alacrity, finding her troubles eased. A cordial, as Johnson added, can be ‘anything that comforts, gladdens, and exhilerates’. Ease can, however, also be addictive – evident perhaps in the invitation to purchase by the case for those who, whether by accident or design, had become regular consumers.

References:

William Helfand, ‘Samuel Solomon and the Cordial Balm of Gilead’, Pharmacy in History 31 (1989), 151-59.