Ivory Merchant

Composer Irving Berlin wrote scores of hits on his custom-built instrument

  • By Owen Edwards
  • Smithsonian magazine, May 2008, Subscribe
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Irving Berlins piano
Irving Berlin's piano (National Museum of American History, SI)

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Among the more than 3,000 songs that Irving Berlin wrote was a tune called "I Love a Piano." A lyric from it goes:

"I know a fine way to treat a Steinway
I love to run my fingers o'er the keys, the ivories..."

Of course Berlin (1888-1989), who was born 120 years ago this month, had lots of reasons to love a piano: during a long and glittering career, he created such enduring classics as "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas," "God Bless America," "Easter Parade" and "Puttin' on the Ritz." A self-taught pianist, he may have tickled the ivories, but he played mostly on the ebonies. And the pianos he used for composing weren't Steinways but specialized transposing pianos. A lever moved the keyboard, causing an inner mechanism to alter notes as they were played into any key he wanted. In 1972, Berlin donated one of these curious devices, built in 1940, to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH).

Dwight Blocker Bowers, an NMAH curator and a musician himself, has played a few tunes on Berlin's piano. "The period around the turn of the century was an age of musical machines and the transposing piano was one of them," he says. "Berlin had a few of these pianos. He called them his ‘Buicks,' and when I worked the mechanism to move the keyboard, it played like an old stick-shift car drives."

Berlin's reliance on the black keys meant he was able to play only in the key of F sharp. It turned out to be a liability. "It's very difficult to play in F sharp," according to pianist-vocalist Michael Feinstein, a preeminent interpreter of America's 20th-century songwriters. "It is a key that is technically limiting."

Berlin's life story—Dickens by way of Danielle Steel—clearly demonstrates, however, that the composer had a gift for overcoming limitations. Born Israel Beilin in Russia, he immigrated to New York City with his family five years later; his father, employed as a cantor in synagogues, died in 1901. As soon as the boy was old enough, he began selling newspapers and busking on the streets of the Lower East Side. As a teenager working as a singing waiter at Pelham's Café in Chinatown, he was asked to write lyrics for a song to compete with other musical restaurants. The result was "Marie From Sunny Italy," and when it was published, it earned the kid 37 cents and a new name: I. Berlin, the result of a misspelling.

Having watched the café's pianist compose "Marie," Berlin promptly sat down and taught himself to play, on the black keys. "It's peculiar," says Feinstein. "Most people would probably start playing in C, on the white keys. It probably wasn't a choice; he started hitting the black keys, and that's where he stayed." Feinstein adds: "What's remarkable about Berlin is his evolution. Listening to ‘Marie From Sunny Italy,' you wouldn't think that there's a musical future there."

Berlin wrote both the music (in F sharp, naturally) and lyrics for the first of his huge hits, "Alexander's Ragtime Band," in 1911. But F sharp was not the key that sheet music publishers wanted—hence the need for a piano that would produce his popular tunes in popular keys.

Berlin's stick-shift Buicks were the medium but not the message. "I don't think [the transposing piano] affected the music itself," says Bowers. "It just let him translate what he was hearing in his head." And what Berlin heard in his head, millions have been hearing in their hearts for nearly 100 years. Once asked about Berlin's place in American music, composer Jerome Kern responded: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is ‘American music.'"

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.


Among the more than 3,000 songs that Irving Berlin wrote was a tune called "I Love a Piano." A lyric from it goes:

"I know a fine way to treat a Steinway
I love to run my fingers o'er the keys, the ivories..."

Of course Berlin (1888-1989), who was born 120 years ago this month, had lots of reasons to love a piano: during a long and glittering career, he created such enduring classics as "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas," "God Bless America," "Easter Parade" and "Puttin' on the Ritz." A self-taught pianist, he may have tickled the ivories, but he played mostly on the ebonies. And the pianos he used for composing weren't Steinways but specialized transposing pianos. A lever moved the keyboard, causing an inner mechanism to alter notes as they were played into any key he wanted. In 1972, Berlin donated one of these curious devices, built in 1940, to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH).

Dwight Blocker Bowers, an NMAH curator and a musician himself, has played a few tunes on Berlin's piano. "The period around the turn of the century was an age of musical machines and the transposing piano was one of them," he says. "Berlin had a few of these pianos. He called them his ‘Buicks,' and when I worked the mechanism to move the keyboard, it played like an old stick-shift car drives."

Berlin's reliance on the black keys meant he was able to play only in the key of F sharp. It turned out to be a liability. "It's very difficult to play in F sharp," according to pianist-vocalist Michael Feinstein, a preeminent interpreter of America's 20th-century songwriters. "It is a key that is technically limiting."

Berlin's life story—Dickens by way of Danielle Steel—clearly demonstrates, however, that the composer had a gift for overcoming limitations. Born Israel Beilin in Russia, he immigrated to New York City with his family five years later; his father, employed as a cantor in synagogues, died in 1901. As soon as the boy was old enough, he began selling newspapers and busking on the streets of the Lower East Side. As a teenager working as a singing waiter at Pelham's Café in Chinatown, he was asked to write lyrics for a song to compete with other musical restaurants. The result was "Marie From Sunny Italy," and when it was published, it earned the kid 37 cents and a new name: I. Berlin, the result of a misspelling.

Having watched the café's pianist compose "Marie," Berlin promptly sat down and taught himself to play, on the black keys. "It's peculiar," says Feinstein. "Most people would probably start playing in C, on the white keys. It probably wasn't a choice; he started hitting the black keys, and that's where he stayed." Feinstein adds: "What's remarkable about Berlin is his evolution. Listening to ‘Marie From Sunny Italy,' you wouldn't think that there's a musical future there."

Berlin wrote both the music (in F sharp, naturally) and lyrics for the first of his huge hits, "Alexander's Ragtime Band," in 1911. But F sharp was not the key that sheet music publishers wanted—hence the need for a piano that would produce his popular tunes in popular keys.

Berlin's stick-shift Buicks were the medium but not the message. "I don't think [the transposing piano] affected the music itself," says Bowers. "It just let him translate what he was hearing in his head." And what Berlin heard in his head, millions have been hearing in their hearts for nearly 100 years. Once asked about Berlin's place in American music, composer Jerome Kern responded: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is ‘American music.'"

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.

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CAMBRIDGE, MA. -  On Friday, March 18, 2011, American Classics will present a special concert and birthday celebration honoring one hundred years of the classic, Alexander's Ragtime Band.  Song duo, music historians and Berlin specialists Benjamin Sears and Bradford Conner and leading members of Boston’s musical theatre community and other American Classics regulars in this gala celebration.  There will be one performance only, on the “birthday” itself, Friday, March 18, 2011 at 7:30pm at the Pickman Concert Hall of the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are $25 and $20 students/seniors.  For tickets contact American Classics at 617-254-1125 or ac@amclass.org.  For more information, please visit the website, www.amclass.org .

Along with Alexander’s Ragtime Band, the program will include other songs from the era by Irving Berlin (Alexander and his Clarinet and Oh, That Beautiful Rag, both 1910), some featuring references to his hit song (Alexander’s Bagpipe Band, 1912; They’ve Got Me Doing It Now, 1913; and Send a Lot of Jazz Bands Over There, 1918). Songs that influenced Berlin (Alexander, Don’t You Love Your Baby No More?, Harry von Tilzer, 1904) and, in turn, songs by other composers who played on Alexander’s success (When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to Flanders, Bryan, Hess & Leslie, 1918) will round out this “ragtime” spectacular.

Ben & Brad will be giving lecture/recitals on “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” for the Thursday Lecture Series at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education on February 17, for the Annual Conference of the Society for American Music on March 10 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center in Newton on March 30.

Posted by Joanne Barrett on February 9,2011 | 01:54 PM

The lyrics of "I Love a Piano" leave no doubts about Berlin's bias! You can download this and other public domain antique sheet music from the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at the Sheridan Libraries of The Johns Hopkins University, URL: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu

Posted by D. Plouviez on April 24,2008 | 06:05 PM



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