The Great Chicago Piano War (October 1970 | Volume: 21, Issue: 6)

The Great Chicago Piano War

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Authors: Ruth Hume

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October 1970 | Volume 21, Issue 6

The World’sColumbian Exposition, celebrating the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, opened its gates on May 1, 1893. The date did not imply doubt on the part of the city of Chicago that the famous landing had actually taken place in 1492. It was simply a case of not getting the 686 acres of fairground ready in time.

From the moment the first shovelful of earth was turned, labor disputes and fracases between the numerous exposition committees had increased and multiplied, while congressional appropriations, voted in the enthusiasm of the early planning stages, had dwindled pitifully by the time the actual day of reckoning came.

As the opening approached, a new set of last-minute, smaller-scale problems had to be settled by the fair’s administration: a group of zealous Sabbatarians was bringing suit in the Chicago courts to prevent the fair from being open on Sunday; the art director had aroused the scorn of Chicago art circles and East Coast newspapers by refusing to hang some nude drawings sent in by the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; the plaster in most buildings was still so wet that even all-powerful Mrs. Potter Palmer could hardly hammer the gold-headed nail into the Women’s Building to signify its readiness.

But May 1 came as scheduled, and on it the great World’s Fair whirred into official existence as Grover Cleveland pushed the button that electrically raised a hundred flags, activated all the fountains in the park, and kicked the generator that started the machinery in the Industrial Hall. After an interminable program of greetings, speeches, poetry readings, and musical selections he then went to lunch in the Administration Building, while the cast of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show whooped around the rotunda in salute. “The scene that lay before the President as his carriage turned into the square,” said the local press, “was such as to cause the man who had been part of the most triumphant scenes in the last ten years of American history to flush with wonder and admiration.”

Although the fair was now officially open to the public (fifty cents entitled you to visit everything but the Esquimaux Village and the Colorado Cliff” Dwelling), one serious backstage crisis remained unsolved—a crisis that had been under the most extensive and acrimonious discussion for three months. Who would have thought that as civilized a matter as the opening concert in the fair’s Music Hall would have brought on the most ulcer-producing problem of the whole glorious World’s Columbian Exposition?

Music was a big item at the fair, a point of civic pride, since Chicago considered itself equal or superior to any city in the country in its musical sophistication. The Music Bureau, operating under the chairmanship of the exposition’s Liberal Arts Department, had released dazzling plans for filling the two separate concert halls built on the fairground. A huge festival chorus, a 250-piece orchestra, and guest artists from all over