As we looked at the pieces in the back of the truck, it was a mix of emotions. We were charged with getting rid of an old broken piano to complete my house sale, and we did. As I remarked at the time, the piano was down and we were still standing.
I say “we” to include myself, who contributed about 2 percent of the effort, and Jevar, who has to be the best strongman junk removal dude I have seen, with his 98 percent.
My original plan was to take the piano down through the yard and up to the street through my neighbor’s yard, but that proved impossible. Taking it to the driveway through my yard also seemed impossible due to the weight of the original instrument.
I also thought at first I could handle this on my own. But as I waited for help to arrive Saturday morning, I tried to move the piano into position to go out the door. After moving it five feet, I was thinking “Thank God these guys are coming.”
I was thinking I would have to demolish the piano, which again, I thought myself and my kids could handle. That would have been extremely dumb and Jevar was the real professional who saved the day.
He agreed with me, though, that demolition was the only path to removal.
As we opened up the top of the piano, we saw the brass central piece that made up most of the weight, along with hundreds of strings and tiny knobs. I marveled at the craftsmanship and was somewhat sad that this was the only way to get rid of it.
The engraving read “Painter & Ewing, Philadelphia, PA” because of course it did. Why wouldn’t a piano stuck in my house be from Philly?
The wooden pieces came off pretty easily but the heart of the instrument was another story altogether. It took a lot to get it into Jevar’s truck and out of there, and as I looked at the pieces that remained, I wondered how it got there in the first place.
We bought the house with the piano already inside. We made the purchase during the pandemic when houses were selling in a day and did not feel we could quibble about pianos lest we blow the deal.
So I looked up Painter & Ewing and made some interesting discoveries.
Cunningham Piano of Philadelphia purchased Painter & Ewing in the 1920s according to the Antique Piano Shop blog. “Cunningham is one of the few American piano manufacturers to survive both the Great Depression and World War II without being consolidated into a larger conglomerate,” the blog reads. It also notes that Cunningham pianos are among the best-made instruments in the country.
Cunningham Piano’s web site goes on to say that George Gershwin composed “Porgy and Bess” on one of their instruments, and they provided the organ for the Pope’s visit to Philadelphia.
Wait a second. If the Painter & Ewing name has not been independent since the 1920s …. a hundred years ago? But the signature was on there and … oh no.
What did we do? Did we destroy a hundred-year-old antique?
I have been wondering for a few days if there was another way.
Could we have found another way to remove it intact?
It was tough with the way my yard is configured and the weight of the beast. I got a lot of questions about how it got down into the basement in the first place, and those I cannot answer.
But even before we smashed it up, I looked at the finely detailed work and thought about how intricately someone spent their time on this.
But it’s lost to history now.
Matthew Osborne is the executive editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.