Kelly and Upton’s ‘Edouard Reményi (Chicago, 1906): ‘While Liszt was playing most
sublimely to his pupils, Brahms calmly slept in a fauteuil [arm-chair], or at least seemed
to do so. It was an act that produced bad blood among those present, and everyone
looked astonished and annoyed. I was thunderstruck. In going out I questioned Brahms
concerning his behaviour. His only excuse was: “Well I was overcome with fatigue. I
could not help it.” ’
In fairness to the young Brahms it was very hot in Weimar that day and he had been
travelling all the previous night to get there. Reményi later fell out with Brahms and left
on his own. Reményi had sat beside Brahms during Liszt’s performance and, although
his comments may have been exaggerated, certainly something happened to upset Liszt.
Years later Karl Klindworth corroborated the incident to Mason but ‘made no specific
reference to the drowsiness of Brahms’. The fact that it was very hot in Weimar on 15
June 1853 is clear from Mason’s account of his much later conversation with Brahms on
3 May 1888, yet no commentator mentions this circumstance.
Brahms stayed for ten days at the Altenburg accepting Liszt’s hospitality. When he left
Liszt presented him with an ornamental cigar box inscribed ‘Brams’ [sic]. It seems that
Mason and Klindworth were incorrect in their recollections that Brahms left that
afternoon or the next morning. Liszt obviously got over what upset him, if it was
Brahms’s drowsiness, but neither ever got to like each other’s music very much.
BRANDS
Pianos were among the first items to acquire distinctive brand names and in the last two
hundred years or so there have been about 12,500 different brands of pianos. When
Heinrich Steinweg produced pianos in America he changed the name to Steinway, which
was a more English-sounding name designed to reflect the prestige of English pianos
such as the Broadwood. Since then German-sounding names have often been chosen by
manufacturers because of Germany’s good reputation for piano building.
Stencil brand pianos, or store brands, are common in America. A nation-wide piano store
buys pianos from a factory and puts its name on them with the result that many different
brands are from the same factory. Factories also buy parts from all over the world and
sometimes farm out their manufacturing process to a country with cheaper labour rates.
Sometimes a piano factory sells its brand name to another piano maker. With the serial
number and name of a piano it is possible to research its background, when and where it
was made, whether it was made before or after acquisition and where the parts were
manufactured.
The following are some current brands of pianos:
Bechstein
Blüthner
Bösendorfer
Boston