Upright piano with Janko keyboard
Maker
Decker Brothers
Date1895 ca.
Place MadeNew York, New York, United States, North America
ModelJankó keyboard
Serial No.25089
SignedOn nameboard: Decker Brothers / New YorkMarkingsInside, on cast-iron frame: Decker / Brothers’ / Separable Case. / Shifting Jack-Rail. / Improved Standards & Action Frame.
On other end: Pat. Swinging Desk. / Double-braced frame / Perfected / Repeating Action / Scale 17
On soundboard: ebonized / 25089
On opposite end: A / 783
DescriptionIncorporates the keyboard designed by Hungarian pianist and engineer Paul von Jankó (1856-1919).
Essentially identical w/ Janko piano at Smithsonian Institution, serial #25184 (case built 1885; keyboard built after 1891)
6 octaves: CC-c4
No keyboard cover
2 pedals: una corda, dampers
Donor: “gum wood or . . . maybe linden (light) with plywood or laminate panels, but with a solid spruce soundboard. Black paint finish.”
Inside (underneath) lid is a paper describing the “Lenox vertical piano action” – see file for copy of text
Weight: approximately 200 pounds
Dimensions54” high
64” wide at top
ca. 31” deep
Provenance“Fred Woodly 1910” scratched inside case on LH side by 1947- Barney Neighborhood House, Washington, DC 1959- acquired from Woodly by Merritt A. Williamson
Published ReferencesKatharyn Sanders Rieder, “Experimental Keyboards- The Janko,” Clavier (May 1970), pp. 14-16.
Kristin Kay Naragon, “The Janko Keyboard,” (M.M. thesis, West Virignia University, 1977). See thesis for additional bibliography.
Musical Six-Six Newsletter, Vol. 12, No. 2, Issue 32 (1983), p. 1.
"Important Acquisitions Made by Museum in 1987," Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter, Vol. XV, No. 2 (January 1988), p. 2.
"Rare Piano Received," Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter, Vol. XV, No. 3 (April 1988), p. 4.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), pp. 56 and 63.
Arian Sheets, “If Salvador Dali Played the Viola . . . Art Meets Ergonomics in a Distinctive New Instrument,” National Music Museum Newsletter 32, No. 4 (November 2005), pp. 4-5.
Credit LineGift of Jean G. Williamson, 1987
Object number04168
On View
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