The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]
Music Dealers, Importers, Etc
Music Dealers, Importers, Etc.
British And Continental Piano Company (Mr. A. Hegman, manager), Piano, Organ, and Music Warehousemen, Strand, Queen Street, Auckland. This enterprising company has a large, lofty and elegantly-appointed warehouse on the Queen Street frontage of the Strand Arcade. It extends for 26 feet along Queen Street, and marches with the corridor of the Arcade for the first 75 feet, and throughout the entire extent of both frontages it is closed in with heavy plate-glass shop-windows. As a consequence the natural lighting is perfect, and the artificial lighting is equally brilliant. The ceilings are lofty, and are enriched with embossed asbestos work, the cornices being executed in green and gold. Calsomined walls, adorned at regular intervals with handsome gift-framed pier-glasses, and set off with a uniform dadoing of embossed asbestos, harmonise with the ceilings, and assist to produce a most striking and elegant general effect. The company's business is under the very capable management of Mr. A. Hegman, who has neglected no opportunity to bring and keep it prominently under the public notice. The business has made very rapid progress since its extension to Auckland, and Mr. Hegman ascribes this result, firstly, to the fact, that only the very best instruments are offered to the public, and, secondly, that the system of sale on deferred payments is based on a scale which offers quite exceptional advantages to the purchaser. The company makes a specialty of four great lines. First of all there is the Haake, the most popular of German pianos in the colonies, of which, on an average, over 400 are imported annually, and which, as sold by the company, range in price from £40 to £100. Next there is the Kaps piano, a high-class instrument; the Bechstein, the very finest piano that is turned out; and, finally, the Strohmenger, an English piano of which the company has lately taken the sole agency for New Zealand. It is also sole agent for the Chicago Organ Company, which claims to be the largest manufacturer in America of this class of goods. The company's Auckland stock comprises only instruments of the most approved quality. At one side of the warehouse stands the office, and at the end furthest from Queen Street there is a suite consisting of two teaching rooms and a repairing room. The teaching rooms have been specially constructed so as to make them sound-proof.
Mr. G. K. Webb.
The London And Berlin Piano Company was incorporated in the early part of 1886, when it turned into a company the piano and organ business established some years previously by Mr. W. H. Webbe, who is the acting managing partner in the existing company. The showroom, warehouse, and workshops are situated in Messrs L. D. Nathan and Co.'s block, opposite the Post Office, in Shortland Street. The trade generally done in New Zealand is with German instruments, but a few years ago Mr Webbe went a round of numerous British, Continental, and American piano factories, and determined to push good class English pianos to the front. As a result of his efforts trade in the English instruments has rapidly increased, and the London and Berlin Piano Company now represents such makers as John Broadwood and Sons, W. G. Eavestaff and Sons, Monington and Weston, and John Spencer and Co. Mr. Webbe states that page 266 the Spencer is the most popular piano in the North Island. The company is sole agent for the distinguished German makers, A. H. Francke, Leipzig; Gors and Kallmann, Berlin; and F. Webber, Berlin. It also imports pianos by Rudibach and Sohn, Schwechten, and other high-class German makers. Only two makers of American organs are represented—namely, the old-established firm of Wilcox and White, of Meriden, Connecticut, and the comparatively new house of John Malcolm and Co. Some very fine symphony self-playing organs are on view in the company's showrooms. In addition to his business duties, Mr. Webbe, with the help of an assistant-teacher, conducts a successful music school, which was established in 1883, and is attended, on an average, by about one hundred pupils. Mr. Webbe was amongst the first English music teachers to inaugurate piano quartet classes about a quarter of a century ago, and he has conducted them regularly in Auckland since 1884.
Mr. B. Squire.