Bechstein Arts & Crafts piano designed by Walter Cave
Walter Frederick Cave (Bristol 1863 - London 1939)
Category
Musical instruments, devices and recordings
Date
circa 1898
Materials
Oak, Spruce, Wood
Measurements
46.75 ins (h)60.5 ins (w)24.5 ins (d)
Place of origin
Berlin
Order this imageCollection
Shaw's Corner, Hertfordshire
NT 1274910
Summary
Bernard Shaw’s Arts and Crafts oak piano designed by the architect Walter Cave (1863-1939) in 1893, and manufactured by Bechstein. With spruce framework, inscribed "C. Bechstein Berlin" above keyboard. Lid with decorative metal hinges. Music stand of nine uprights rests on ledge. Circa 1898. Flat lid to keyboard flanked by two square taper columns fitted for candles. No. 52647/22821, 85 notes, under damper action.
Full description
Bernard Shaw’s Arts and Crafts oak piano was designed by the architect Walter Cave (1863-1939) in 1893, and manufactured by Bechstein. Walter Cave was a member of the Art Workers’ Guild, and it is likely that he met Shaw there. The instrument was inaugurated at the fourth Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1893 where Shaw first saw it. The piano became a highly successful commercial model with its striking candle-holders. (Michael I. Wilson, ‘The Case of the Victorian Piano’, in Victoria and Albert Museum Yearbook, No. 3, 1972, p.147). The piano, Shaw’s Arts & Crafts bed from Heal’s, and Morris & Co textiles, constituted the main items that Bernard and Charlotte Shaw brought to the house in 1906 to personalize the spaces during the first fourteen years of their occupancy when they rented the house as a furnished property. The actress Lillah McCarthy, who was a frequent visitor to Shaw’s Corner in the early years, recalled that “music was much more to Shaw than literature. He always declared that his master in drama was Mozart; but he wallowed in Wagner and evidently thought much more of Verdi than most Wagnerians”. (Lillah, McCarthy, Myself and my Friends, 1933, p.82). Shaw was an accomplished pianist and had been a celebrated music critic during the 1880s and 90s, writing for The Star from 1888-90; and The World from 1890-94. The fact that Shaw actually bought and kept two of these pianos for the remainder of his life, one at Shaw’s Corner, and the other in London at Adelphi Terrace (and then at Whitehall Court) testifies to his attachment to the instrument. Invoices from John Broadwood and Sons for tuning both instruments at Ayot and London can be found among Shaw’s Business Papers at LSE. The piano appears in the Adelphi Terrace Inventory (1908), listed as a ‘full compass pianette by Bechstein, in plain oak case of aesthetic design with steel strap hinges, the front with shelf and railed music rest and pair of tapered legs with steel candle holders.’ (Adelphi Terrace Inventory, 1908, 17). The exact date of purchase of each instrument is unclear however a Walter Cave Bechstein piano is mentioned as forming part of the furnishings in the drawing-room at Adelphi Terrace in a magazine interview of 1900. (‘Celebrities at Home’, The World, 18 July 1900). Huckvale states that Shaw had owned the piano ‘as early as 1905’ (David Huckvale, ‘Music and the Man: Bernard Shaw and the Music Collection at Shaw’s Corner’, in SHAW, the Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, vol. 10, 1990, p.98), but the photographic evidence proves that Shaw’s ownership dates from several years before that, possibly as early as the time of his marriage in 1898. Numerous photographs of Shaw posing with the Walter Cave piano survive. A photographic self-portrait dated to 1901 reveals Shaw playing the Bechstein at Piccard’s Cottage, Guildford (the Shaws’ country retreat from November 1900 to April 1902). (NT Shaw Photographs 1715213.112; and NT 1715299.25). Verso in Shaw’s hand: ‘GBS at the piano drawing-room in Piccard’s cottage’. This image was reproduced in a book of photographic portraits of Shaw, compiled by W.H. Wise, and dated 1901 (NTIN 3063760). (The photograph has been incorrectly captioned in various publications, including Maureen Dillon, Artificial Sunshine: A Social History of Domestic Lighting (London: The National Trust, 2002), p.111, where the location is given as Shaw’s Corner). Shaw is referring to this image in a letter of 1902 to the photographer Agnes Jennings when he recalls that ‘the best photograph I ever took of myself [was taken] by two candles and a reading lamp’: the candlelight provided by the piano sconces. (Shaw to Agnes Jennings, 4 December 1902, Bernard Shaw Collected Letters, vol.2, p.291). A further photograph published in The Sketch ‘Photographic Interview’ of March 1902 shows Shaw “playing Wagner” on the piano in the drawing-room at Adelphi Terrace. (The Sketch, March 12 1902, p.303). Many years later, Shaw posed for a ‘birthday portrait’ for The Tatler, playing the Cave piano (The Tatler, 10 August 1932, p.236). And a photograph of Shaw playing the piano at Whitehall Court, c.1935 was also published in Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches, (opposite page 70), with the title ‘Singing and Playing.’ (NT Shaw Photographs 1715211.59; see also 1715219.47). Typically Shaw would play the Bechstein at Ayot with a pianola attachment: the instrument he purchased in 1908 from the Orchestrelle Company was a Themodist pianola in an oak case. (LSE Shaw Business Papers 25/2, f.9). It was the push-up variety, and was attached to the Bechstein for playing. The piano was adapted to use with the pianola: the metal plates remain on the piano to enable the pianola to be attached. Shaw’s pianola was sold by the National Trust in 1954 at a sale of Shaw’s possessions held in auction rooms at St. Albans. Various reminiscences record Shaw playing the pianola. His biographer Hesketh Pearson remembered that sometimes Shaw ‘spent whole mornings developing photographs in the dark room, emerging from there at intervals to play his Bechstein with a pianola.’ (Hesketh Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 1942, p.331). Lillah McCarthy’s reminiscences mention similar occasions. Recalling her visits to Shaw’s Corner she wrote: ‘‘I had the opportunity of seeing something of his ways of amusing himself. Shaw spent most of his time in the dark room developing photographs. In between whiles he would play his Bechstein with a pianola.’ (Lillah, McCarthy, Myself and my Friends, 1933, p.82). Shaw’s pianola was removed from display by his housekeeper Mrs Laden when the house was opened to the public in March 1951. The exact position of the piano (and pianola) during the earlier years of the Shaws’ occupancy is unknown, but various accounts state that it was only moved to the hall when Charlotte Shaw was ill. Eileen O’Casey, for example, claimed that Shaw moved the piano into the hall: “G.B.S. was utterly devoted to Charlotte and during her illness had moved the piano into the hall so that she could hear him playing in the distance from her room. G.B.S. was a very fine pianist.” (Eileen O’Casey, Cheerio Titan: the Friendship between George Bernard Shaw and Eileen and Sean O’Casey, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989, p.108). Blanche Patch recalled that Shaw would sing and play old Italian operas, especially during Charlotte’s last illness in the early 1940s. He also loved to sing Mozart arias. (Alice McEwan, 2020)
Provenance
The Shaw Collection. The house and contents were bequeathed to the National Trust by George Bernard Shaw in 1950, together with Shaw's photographic archive.
Makers and roles
Walter Frederick Cave (Bristol 1863 - London 1939), designer C. Bechstein, manufacturer