Louis Engel Demonstration

Engel, “Professor of Music at the Royal Academy of Music, London, will give the first performance on the newly-invented instrument, the piano-harmonium.” He “will endeavor to show the marvelous effects which have created so great a success for this instrument in Europe.”

“Mr. Engel, a gentleman who came from Europe this season with a very high reputation as a musician, exhibited at Steinway Hall yesterday afternoon a novelty in the harmonium line. This is an instrument constructed in this city, the novel features of which consist in the addition of a percussion stop to the ordinary registers of the reed organ, a tone which can be regulated at will from the loudest fortissimo to the most delicate pianissimo and an arrangement by which any chord struck on the instrument can be held at pleasure, even when the hands are taken off the keyboard. The percussion stop produces a tone similar to that of a harp or more of the pizzicato of the violins of an orchestra. This is caused by having hammers like those of a piano striking against the reeds placed above them. The effect is exceedingly beautiful, and is a positive relief from the reedy tone of the instrument. Mr. Engel also combined the piano and harmonium by placing the former above the latter on pedestals and playing with one hand a melody on the harmonium and with the other the accompaniment on the piano. This, of course, cannot be termed an invention, as we have had here before frequently a duet in concert for the piano and reed organ, which is better than the combination of both instruments for one performer. But the percussion stop is the main feature of the new harmonium, and is a decided advance upon the old Aeolian attachment which was used formerly to combine the effects of the piano and harmonium. It is gratifying to learn that this novelty is entirely American in its construction.”

"Mr. Louis Engel showed, yesterday, at Steinway Hall, the ‘piano-harmonium,’ an invention in which the effects of both the instruments mentioned in its name are combined. We are not aware that the piano-forte and the harmonium have until now been united after the fashion of the Siamese twins, but the results of the union do not make the lateness of the exposition of the idea a cause for much regret. We should prefer a performance on the harmonium solo, or a piano recital, to the interpretation of a piece of music by means of the new contrivance. The only notable feature of Mr. Engel’s exhibition was his reproduction of an orchestral pizzicato, illustrated with especial success in the serenade from ‘Don Giovanni.’”

“A numerous and highly intelligent assemblage of critics, artists, and amateurs yesterday attended the exposition, at Steinway Hall, of the merits of the new piano harmonium. The instrument combines a complete piano-forte mechanism with that of the ordinary harmonium, the key-board of the former lying above the latter, and somewhat further from the performer. By a slight shifting of the feet the bellows of the harmonium can be filled or the pedal of the piano opened at pleasure. An easy mechanism enables the player to sustain any given note or chord in the harmonium while using both hands to play a running accompaniment on the piano. The instrument seems mainly available, in the hands of a dexterous performer, for operatic arias, to be carried with one hand on the harmonium, while the other executes the accompaniment, as first suggested.

The simple harmonium, also exhibited by Mr. Engel, has the merit that, by an ingenius mechanism, hammers like those of a piano-forte are made to strike the reeds of the instrument, enabling the notes to be played much more staccato than in the usual form of construction. Mr. Engel illustrated this quality by playing the well-known serenade from ‘Don Giovanni,’ with an accompaniment with the right hand exactly imitating the pizzicato movement of the violins or the strumming of the guitar. The manufacture of these instruments is now carried on at Needham, N. Y., in successful competition with the French, means having been found to render the American reed as good as the imported article.”