There is nothing in the whole family of furniture so unmanageable as the modern pianoforte, and yet in every house where all-round culture is appreciated, a piano must be. The grand piano takes up as much room as a dozen people, and in the most cantankerous fashion, all elbows and angles, and wherever it stands it looks ponderous and unwieldy, like a big three-legged monster without a head. The small cottage presents a most un-picturesque front, and a still more unpleasing back, the high gloss and machine-cut face over silk are supported by a squat parallelogram of a body and the goutiest legs. The coarse designs which happened to accompany improved mechanism seem to have convinced many that nothing can be done for the pianoforte; but of course, if the same qualities of mind are brought to bear on pianoforte cases as have been devoted to other articles of furniture, a beautiful form is not beyond human power. Given the talent, enthusiasm, and fastidious skill which Palissy, and Boule, and Gibbons, and Martin lavished on their designs, joined to full understanding of the mechanical requirements, and why may not the pianoforte appeal as delightfully to the eye as to the ear?

It never seems to occur to people that this piece of furniture, as much as a curtain, or cabinet, or carpet, has its own part in the good or bad ensemble of the drawing-room, its effect upon the inhabitants ' becoming' or the reverse, as much as any other prominent detail of background. People with otherwise good taste will force a large pianoforte of rosewood into a drawing-room which boasts no other scrap of rosewood to bear out the colour, and nothing else big enough to balance it. This kind of blunder cannot be excused by a love of music, any more than a mere partiality for clothes can excuse such garments as are ugly and useless. The question is, how to remedy it.

'Cottage' pianoforte, with decorated back.

Fig. 65. - 'Cottage' pianoforte, with decorated back.

It does not require a very soaring genius to devise something better than flat dark surfaces, where the colour does not affect the resonance of the wood nor the shape add materially to the tone, as in a violin. Slender columns supporting a slightly projecting cornice would in no wise injure the tonal value of a cottage Erard. Some tracery or arches of Gothic form might replace the patch of green cotton at back; these, when the pianoforte stood well out in the room, could be filled by handsome Oriental jars without contact with the instrument. Marqueterie would be harmless, too, for even a Straduarius violin, that miracle of resonance, has its dainty purfling, though it does not wear vulgar lumps of machine-carving on its edges. A parallelogram 4 1/2 x 4 x I foot is surely capable of being treated architecturally in such a manner as to make it a beautiful and agreeable object; and if the cover were arched, or roof-shaped, there would no longer be a possibility of its being used as the general shelf.

The size of a grand piano cannot be interfered with, as this represents the length and disposition of the strings; but its shape could of course be improved and its colour varied to any extent. Instead of having to be concealed by silken hangings, as in aesthetic houses it is, why should not the vast expanse of top be inlaid with metals, or even treated pictorially, since the surface is, or ought to be, kept free from standing objects? so that in opening it during performance, a subject of real interest would offer a handsome apology for the erect mass of wood.

The Dutch used to paint pictures on their tables; why should we not paint pictures on grand piano-lids - a more seemly place than a table-top?

Inside the covers, various small cavities offer as many opportunities for decoration as did the old ' spinets ' of Tudor times, and here miniatures of appropriate scenes would not only interest the mind, but soften the general tone of colour, making it more becoming to the hand, and in better harmony with a well-decorated room and a picturesque pianiste.

In fact the vast expanse of one unbroken tint, and that gloomy, presented by a grand pianoforte is the reproach of modern art. It should be softened by plenteous and minute ornament, so as to have a pleasant bloom when seen from afar, as well as to reward the eye for close scrutiny.

A timid movement in the right direction has already been set on foot, and it is significant that pianoforte-makers have at last condescended to listen to suggestions and try experiments, for until lately the dreams of artistic designers were promptly crushed before they reached a fair circulation among the public. Mr. Alma Tadema and Mr. Burne Jones have lately cut the Gor-dian knot by simply decorating, without changing materially, the standard pianoforte pattern; and their two sumptuous instruments have been on view at Broad-wood's long enough to convince the public that a pianoforte may be a picturesque object.

But some years ago a still more ambitious attempt was made, and alas! failed. 'Steward's Patent Euphonicon' was brought out 40 or 50 years ago, by a man of immense ability who, of course, paid by speedy ruin for being somewhat in advance of his age. A very small number of these instruments were issued at a moderate cost of about 120l. apiece. They were really beautiful in form, firstrate in execution, every surface which required to be decorated (in a very chaste and simple manner) without interfering with the demands of musical construction, was so decorated, here with a small floriated pattern in gold, there with well-cut open-work, here again with some little monogram or device.

The instrument can be studied at the South Kensington Museum, to which we were able to commit a Euphonicon piano some years ago. It is very pretty; the utmost length of string is drawn upward on a harp-shaped iron frame, and the strings are exposed like a harp's, with a similar effect. The shorter strings are hidden in cases which present somewhat the appearance of reversed violoncellos; these are made of good light-coloured wood, contrasting pleasantly with the dark glossy rosewood of the fore-part. On these cases are painted slight patterns in gold, and a little gold is carried up the harp-like frame. The hammers and other mechanism which in a grand pianoforte are situated nearest the keyboard, are concealed in the lower part of the instrument, in fact the machinery of strings appears to be upside down, and the Euphonicon is therefore tuned from the bottom.